America

The poem lays out its argument in reader-friendly diction and without the labored elements of stylistic flair and decorative linguistic touches typical of poetry of Whitman’s era. The poem rejects the studied verbal dexterity of rhythm and rhyme, finding within the conversational immediacy of free verse a way to connect with the American masses, the lifeblood of American democracy. The poem does not read like a poem, does not scan like a poem. In this, the poem sings free of the oppressive constructs and predictable formulas of European (read British) poetics. It is an American poem celebrating American uniqueness in a distinctly American voice. Interestingly, “America” is the only Whitman poem the poet himself recorded, although only the first four lines, on a wax cylinder just months before his death.

But what exactly are the elements of the American experiment? Just over a century after the American Revolution, that experiment was still being defined and refined. Two elements are crucial to Whitman’s hymn: Americans’ similarity and their tradition of freedom, that is, how alike Americans are despite their rich diversity, and how they all theoretically enjoy a kind of freedom—social, political, economic, and religious—unprecedented in the annals of human (read European) history.