American lyric-epic of identity : a study of Walt Whitman's song of Myself

Abstract EN

Walt Whitman’s longest and most successful poem song of myself, included in leaves of grass (1855), is credited as portraying Whitman’s ultimate poetic visions.

it followed many unsuccessful attempts during the eighteenth-and-nineteenth century at an epic that might satisfy the spirit of the modern era.

this paper argues that Whitman succeeded in trying his hand at a long poem, resulting in a modern lyric-epic of identity.

Whitman’s success is because of his awareness of the fact that the conventional epic is anachronistic in the modern world of democracy.

most of the characteristics of traditional epics are replaced by the characteristic of the lyric.

thus, Whitman’s interesting attempt resulted in an epithet “lyric-epic” entirely innovative and credible : a poet-hero and a dramatization of search for individuals’ identities and the identity of the nation.

Whitman reached his intention by merging the epic with the lyric, therefore, his utilization of the lyric within the epic should be differentiated from the anachronistic attempts at conventional epic proceeded his project.

the paper judges song of myself primarily as a modern lyric-epic celebrating America and its structural identity.