Essay work

So far I have gone back and read some of the Decleration and read some of Thoreos(sp) civil disobedence. By reading these works I am trying to find some examples of the american government developing into different forms and how its specifications were created. Right now I am not exactly sure how I want to approach this essay, but I am using these works to also show how strongly independant and nationalistic the new so called americans were. Im planning on talking about at most three people in my essay, so im sure I have alot of outside research to do.

Poets actually work????

I will start off saying that I have not read the entire preface yet, so my opinion and calls may be totally off. I believe that Whitman is trying to say that the job of the poet is to capture the beauty and uniqueness of the new developing America. Whitman lists tons of things that the poet needs to capture, and I feel like the poet needs to take the images he sees and not just record them as text, but paint history as beautiful well written words.

Leaves of Grass?

The first thing that caught my attention to in this piece is the title, "Leaves of Grass". After reading the first three paragraphs I'm thinking that the title connects to the concept of America being built up and represented by its people, not its government... people being the grass and their represention or view by others the leaves. In these first paragraphs, Whitman gives the reader and extremely positive and almost overdone picture of America. Americans he says are rough, rugged, hard workers, sympathetic, loyal, and most of all hold their freedom as a precious right, not a gift. Whitman to me seems terribly honest unlike the majority of the other people we have read, who seem to use sarcasim as a second language, so to me, and also Emerson, Whitman appears to be the first true American Poet.