Emerson, Whitman, and Melville

Emerson, Whitman, and Melville The way I view the world has been greatly affected by my reading this semester. Thought I had read Emerson and Melville before, I never before was able to sound the depths of their work and fully appreciate it. This semester was my first real exposure to Whitman, as well. The best analogy for my new outlook is an image of the universe as a yin-yang; it is a complete, unbroken …

…individual: "I am of old and young, of the foolish as much as the wise, Regardless of others, ever regardful of others, Maternal as well as paternal, a child as well as a man, Stuff'd with the stuff that is coarse and stuff'd with the stuff that is fine," (44) Thus he supports the analogy I favor, that of the world as a yin-yang; a construction complete of itself, yet still composed of internally conflicted elements.