To a Historian
To a Historian - meaning Summary
Celebration of Individual Identity
Whitman challenges conventional historians who record public events, politics and institutions, arguing they miss the inner life and individuality of people. Writing from a personal, democratic vantage, he claims to "press the pulse" of private experience and assert the importance of personality. Rather than recounting past deeds, he frames his work as projecting a future history rooted in individual identity and the latent pride of human selfhood.
Read Complete AnalysesYOU who celebrate bygones! Who have explored the outward, the surfaces of the races—the life that has exhibited itself; Who have treated of man as the creature of politics, aggregates, rulers and priests; I, habitan of the Alleghanies, treating of him as he is in himself, in his own rights, Pressing the pulse of the life that has seldom exhibited itself, (the great pride of man in himself;) Chanter of Personality, outlining what is yet to be, I project the history of the future.
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