The images of the self in Walt Whitman

II. 1. The Epiphany of the Self

Whitman's Song of Myself, as his entire work, is the epic of a modern man, who, liberated from a firm tradition, becomes his own master, conscient of his own will, an equal of his brother, he thinks, he feels, he creates. This epic surveys the world, the milieu and the ambiance, and has in its centre the man, who lead by the poem becomes aware of his freedom, and of his place in the world.

This poet had no fear of death, for him this was just an episode of his life, the latter appearing to him as an endless procession, ever moving forward, an eternal march, an eternal creation. In our case the act of creation refers to the poet and his art, the poem; whitman's words: "a great poem, for everyman and woman, doesn't represent an end, but rather a beginning," this expressing Whitman's belief that creation is neverending.

To create means to carefully built a unit in which each little detail acquires a function and has a distinct relation with each part of this whole. Each social group possesses a conscience and like in any other social entity we have a collective subconscious. The individual is determined by the latter and at the same time each individual has in his self a subconscious which gives him an inner structure: his personality. At the same time the subconscoius wants to "talk", the conscious rejects it and a struggle between thought and subconscious begins; this is the human weakness snd sensitivity: the creativity. Thus, every man is endowed with this quality, but not everyone knows how to use it in order to transform the chaos of our existence into a well-ordered place. The one who has this special gift is, in our case, the poet, who uses this quality in creating his poems; this is an art, an act of creation, hence the poet is also a creator, and it is here where his divine nature stands. His mission is to bring out to light each individual's personality and creativity.