Whitman's Language of the Self

I thought the article about Whitman's Language of the Self was very true. The article mentions Whitman's egotistical writing style. I found a lot of this in Whitman's poems that I read. He seems like he is in love with himself, and he is the main topic of all of his writings. I personally do not like Whitman's writing style. It is very self centered and uninteresting to me. I do not enjoy reading about someone who thinks he is the best thing that ever happened to the world. Mark Bauerlien writes, "But, together with Whitman's glorification of the paramount self, one also finds a series of rhetorical gestures that obscure and even censure the self. Some of Whitman's self-amplifications actually undermine the centrality of his identity." It is clear to me that no matter how you spin it, Whitman writes about himself way to much. Throughout his poem entitled Excelsior, Whitman literally does nothing except compliment himself and proclaim that he has done everything better than everyone else. I did not enjoy reading any of his poems because of this reason. The mans ego is obviously very big if he claims that he is the best at everything that he does. I found it interesting after reading the article that Whitman did not like his parents and left his home at age twelve. After this, Whitman became an apprentice printer. A little later after this, Whitman discovered that he was a gay with much surprise. Overall, I thought the article about Whitman's Language of the Self was very good. I thought that the message of the article was correct and I agreed with all the main points in the writing. Mark Bauerlien obviously did his research before witting this article and it made Whitman's Language of the Self a very interesting read. Even though that I do no enjoy reading Whitman's writings because of his self centered topics, I did enjoy reading this article about Whitman's Language of the Self.