SEA AS A WHISPER OF DEATH AN ECOLONGICAL STUDY OF WHITMAN. S LEAVES OF GRASS

Walt Whitman’s great masterpiece Leaves of Grass stands out in the canon of
nineteenth-century American poetry for both its innovations in form and its bold ventures into
controversial subjects. One such subject is the role of science as opposed to religion in shaping
the modern worldview. Whitman’s poetry alternately and at times simultaneously expresses
both materialistic and metaphysical cosmologies, criticizing and casting away ancient traditions
as often as he calls on them for inspiration.