Walt Whitman Poetry

"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,"

Whitman uses these first three lines to show us his view on society and how he thinks it is or it should be. He gives a lot of comparisons that to us seem like normal things. Old, young. Foolish, wise. Maternal, paternal. Why does he use these different comparisons? He uses them to show us that through all the diversity that there is in the world and through every single thing that are polar opposites, there are things in common. He tries to tell us that we should be united and look at things as all being one.

 He also uses the word "I" to begin the poem, so he identifies himself as someone that isn't just sided towards one thing. He wants to be able to identify himself with everyone. He wants to reach out to everyone that is out there. He specially focuses himself of the people in the United States later in the poem. He wants to identify himself with the whole nation because of how he feels toward it.