Final answer:
The excerpt from Walt Whitman's 'Song of Myself' exemplifies transcendentalist themes and celebrates both individuality and the collective human experience, utilizing common language and free verse to connect with everyday life and the common people.
Step-by-step explanation:
The excerpt from “Song of Myself” by Walt Whitman is an example of a work that encapsulates various aspects of the transcendentalist movement, a philosophy that emphasizes the intrinsic connection between humans and nature, as well as individual self-reliance and intuition. Here, the poem “Song of Myself”, as a part of Whitman's larger work Leaves of Grass, represents his celebration of the individual and the collective human spirit. Whitman's love for the common people and his use of common language positioned him as a poet who challenged the conventional forms of poetry by incorporating free verse and a candid style. His poems offer sweeping views of everyday life that blend aspects of different social strata, mirroring the democratic principles he cherished. The selected poem, 'Song of Myself,' beautifully conveys both the poet's individual identity and his vision of a unified, universal human experience. Whitman does this by employing simple language, vivid imagery, and a conversational tone that resonates with the everyday individual, thereby reinventing poetry to reflect America's rapidly modernizing society during the nineteenth century.