34 Readers
17 Sages

shell pebble

In the highest possible register

The Complete Poems - Walt Whitman

Whitman starts off in a grandiose and expansive style and never shifts from it, staying in the highest possible register at all times. While his poems are individually titled they form a single mass of life-affirmation and Whitman's own style of patriotism and religious devotion.

Most interesting to me is Whitman's highly ambiguous attitude to gender and sexuality. He calls for equality, and reveals an odd mixture of traditional and progressive views. His motifs sometimes recall Spartan ideals. Homosexual notes are sounded with an unwilling sincerity.