Walt Whitman's Song of Myself, and Ralph Waldo Emerson's Self-Reliance and The Poet can relate to the authors' thoughts on transcendentalism. Transcendentalism is the link between man and nature. These writers believe that the universe and the individual soul have a deeper connection with each other. Emmerson was considered one of the best-known transcendentalists of that era. People began to think more deeply about things and believe that there must be more to life than the logical reasoning behind the things they do and why. Transcendentalists also believed that individuals should excel, be confident in themselves, and follow their passions in life. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”? Get the original essay. Emmerson expresses his views on people and their relationship with society and what an individual should achieve. John Bryant says: "The Poet", the process of writing itself is an exercise in "genius" that allows us to discover the liberation of our creativity and understand in a more experiential way the connection between the material and the ideal . Emmerson believes that a poet is someone who can see beyond the blinded eyes of humanity and reveal the truths about the earth. He believes that people should not rely on others, but rather on ourselves. He believed that we should not base our choices on the opinions of others and that we should not ask others to tell us what directions we should take in our lives. You can understand from the short excerpt from Emmerson's essay on Transcendentalism "Self-Sufficiency" that he firmly believed that if you were with nature, you would also be with God. He wants people to not only see things in nature as one, but also to see nature as a whole. Very quickly the reader learns that you can be civilized, but you should not compare it to the natural world in which you live. This shows his transcendental view of life. According to Mary Eleanore, “For Whitman, the universe is an eternal world. changing system, producing new ideas and forms which will combine, Hegel-style, into an ever new and better life. » The universe is always changing in one way or another. Identity is a major theme in Song of Myself. Whitman has three different identities that people see in this poem, but he believes that the three are linked as one when he reads the poem which shows his transcendentalist views on things. In the first section of Song of Myself, Whitman states in the first and second stanzas: “I lean and loiter at my ease watching a spear of summer grass. My tongue, every atom of my blood, formed of this soil, of this air, born here of parents born here of such parents. Whitman thinks deeply about where he comes from and those who came before him. He mentions that every atom inside him comes from the soil the grass grows on. You can deduce from these 2 lines that he is one with nature. In section 2 he continues to describe nature, stating that he could get drunk on the air he breathes and says he will go to the bank and get naked. This shows literary transcendentalism and how if you open yourself to nature it will benefit you for the better. Section 4 speaks of all the people in his life as the "trippers and seekers around me." It refers to all the things in life that cause one to lose sight of the bigger picture, such as worrying about things, wondering who is the friend and who is not, or who loves who. He says all these thoughts come to him.