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Analysis Of Walt Whitman's Essay 'What Is A Nation'

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C. Read the essay “What is a Nation” by Ernest Renan. Based on “When Lilac Last in the Dooryard Bloom’d” you think that whiteman would agree or disagree when he says that “A Nation is a soul, a spiritual principle” (19)? Be sure to define what you think Renan means by “a soul” as you imagine Whiteman’s opinions. In the essay "What is a nation?" the French researcher Ernest Renan contends that a nation is a "soul, a spiritual principle" (10). He denies races, religions, languages or public interests as the establishments of countries yet rather deciphers a nation as a "spiritual principal" (Renan 10). He contends that a nation is supported by a "heroic past", shared sufferings, a feeling of mutual connection and the sublimation of people through …show more content…

In the American artist Walt Whitman 's famous poem When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom 'd out of appreciation for the American president Abraham Lincoln, Whitman utilizes pictures and images, analogies and creative ability to envision the spiritual parts of a nation. Henceforth, this paper contends that the American writer Walt Whitman would concur with Renan 's meaning of a nation as "a soul, spiritual principle" (10) since in regard of Lincoln as national leader, his poem When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom 'd communicates the bringing together impact of aggregate recollections, a feeling of comradeship, his sentimental connection to the national scene and the radiant way of national sacrifices. This paper will first delineate how Whitman poem stresses on the hugeness of aggregate recollections and shared encounters among people inside a nation. At that point the paper will embody how Whitman 's poem shows a kind of …show more content…

This is on the grounds that Whitman 's poem When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom 'd communicates the significance of aggregate memory, sentiment connection and a feeling of comradeship in light of grand gives up during the time spent framing the national consciousness, which ideas are only

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