(1) Praise nature: The poet said to "tell nature with a primitive vitality without any worries" (My Song). He praised the mountains and rivers of the motherland with warm poems. In his view, whether it is magnificent mountains and rivers, stars in the sky, bugs in the water, or every grass under your feet, all natural things "have their purpose" and are full of vitality and upward movement. "The earth is beautiful,/the stars are beautiful,/everything attached to them is beautiful." (My song)
When you open Leaves of Grass, you can see the praise of nature in many chapters.
(2) Praise for labor: In the praise for nature, there has been praise for the labor of developing nature. Poems with the theme of praising labor include Song of Axe, Song of Profession and I Hear America Singing. As a democratic poet, Whitman fully affirmed the great achievements of laborers in creating the world with unprecedented enthusiasm in the history of western literature.
(3) Praise "self": In Leaves of Grass, the personality of "self" covers everything. Because the poet is keenly aware that creating a beautiful world and realizing a beautiful ideal is the beauty of human life, so human problems are the center of the world. In his poems, "ego" is the embodiment of the poet's ego, at the same time, it is a portrayal of all people and a declaration of equality and human rights. My Song is the longest poem in this book collection (verse 52). In the first verse of this poem, the poet declares: "I praise myself, sing praises to myself,/Everything I say will also apply to you,/because every atom that belongs to me belongs to you."
(4) Ode to Democracy and Freedom: No matter for people, nature and labor, it all flows into a general theme-a hymn to American bourgeois democracy and freedom. In the preface of Leaves of Grass in London, the poet said, "Indeed, if I use one word to sum up all parts of Leaves of Grass, that word seems to be the word' democracy'." The poet touches on democracy everywhere in his poems. At the end of Song of the Axe, the poet clearly pointed out that it was democracy when summing up the source of great power created by labor: "The main image appeared, and all the images of democracy were the result of centuries." The poet believes that democracy is an effective guarantee for the unity and development of human society, and he praises the United States as the embodiment of democracy and freedom.
(5) Praise the fight to defend democracy and freedom: Before and after the Civil War (186 1 ~ 1865), Whitman seized the pulse of the times and wrote many poems full of fighting spirit, which were included in Drum Collection and President Lincoln Memorial Collection. These poems reduce the color of self-expansion in early creation and enhance the fighting atmosphere of realism. Whitman actively stood in the front line of defending democracy and freedom and called on the people to fight and defeat the southern forces that undermined democracy with a just war.
When the civil war was close to victory,1in April 865, President Lincoln, who led the war to defend democracy and freedom and was deeply respected by the people, was assassinated. Whitman was very sad and indignant at this unfortunate news, and wrote a poem in memory of this great man in time, which was included in the Memorial Collection of President Lincoln. Among them, the most famous one is Oh, captain, my captain! And "When lilacs are in full bloom in the garden".