Walt Whitman - Research Paper Example

Whitman’s background was not among the stereotypical academic roots. Born from a working class family, he was not a highly candidate to be educated formal. It was in 1830, while maintaining a job and other forms of education through self motivation, that he was able to attend school. The meager income of the household was not enough to sustain the family of nine in their hometown of New York. Later on, he found his way to work in journalism to earn a living. He also became an educator, though with love and hate relationship with this profession as some disillusionments set in.

by 1938 he was able to put up his own newspaper named ‘The Long Islander’ where he labored in every detail of its publication. This was where his first published poem appeared titled, ‘”Our Future Lot.” This endeavor soon end and he continued on writing for other papers and concentrated more on the poem genre in relation to current events (Kellingsworth, pp.2-3). “Come Said My Soul” and “Song of Myself” are two very different and yet at the same time similar poems of Walt Whitman.

At first sight, it would be apparent to note that the main distinction lies in the length of the two poems. The first one being one single stanza with 11 lines while the latter is almost an entire book with 52 stanzas numbered accordingly. But while this is the obvious difference, the fundamental elements of the poems are the same and are quite susceptible to having the trademark that is palpable of a perceptibly Whitman creation through and through. The theme of the poems are the same. The persona speaks of struggles and overcoming adversities and a predisposition to one’s acts through his character.

It would not be an ovestatement to note that the persona speaking in first person in both poems are the author himself. In “Come SaidMy Soul,”