The Construction of National Identity in Walt Whitman's "Pioneers! O Pioneers!"

Abstract

Walt Whitman is internationally reputed to be the spokesman for the national identity of America during the throes of the American civil war which represented a shocking experience for the people there. He found that his country was being  broken into pieces before his eyes, a matter which moved him to reflect on the American national identity. Such a national concern is exemplarily embodied in his great work Leaves of Grass which celebrates in totality the spirit of American nationalism. This paper explores how Whitman examines the representation of national identity in his poem "O Pioneers! O Pioneers!."  In this poem, he encourages and reminds the American people of their past in an attempt to inseminate the sense of social and national solidarity in his war-afflicted country.