摘要

   《草叶集》是惠特曼的代表作品，也是美国诗歌史上一座灿烂的里程碑。其中，《我自己的歌》是诗集中最长的一首诗，也是整部诗集的主干和中心，它几乎包含了诗人毕生的主要思想。诗中歌颂美国社会的民主、平等、自由等，歌颂美国最广大劳动人民，歌颂大自然和宇宙万物，强调人们的个性的发展和张扬。诗歌所体现的这些思想都和美国梦的精神内涵有着许多的共通的地方。
本论文分为三部分，从文本分析着手来探索诗歌《我自己的歌》中的主体思想，结合美国梦的内涵，找到诗歌中的主要思想和美国梦的切合点。第一部分主要分析美国梦的起源和发展；第二部分主要分析诗歌的主体思想，如民主，平等和自由等；第三部分主要是找到美国梦和诗歌主要思想的共通点，从而揭示美国梦对惠特曼的深刻影响。

关键词：沃尔特.惠特曼，美国梦，民主，平等，自由，个人主义

Abstract

Leaves of Grass is Whitman’s representative work and the important milestone in the history of American poetry. Song of Myself, the longest piece in Leaves of Grass, is regarded as the center of the volume because it nearly covers all Whitman’s major ideas or thoughts in his lifetime. In the poem, the poet boldly celebrates the advanced ideas, such as democracy, equaltiy, freedom and so on, sings the praise of the masses of the working people and nature and all the existence in the universe, and emphasizes the development of people’s individuality. Surprisingly, the thoughts expressed in the poem shares great similarity with the nature and spirit of the American dream.
This thesis, including three parts, explores the core thoughts through analyzing the verse of Song of Myself, and then try to find out the consistency between the major ideas contained in the poem and those of the American dream. The first part is about the origin and development of American dream; the second part will focus on analyzing the core thoughts, such as democracy, equality, freedom, of the poem of Song of Myself; the third part aims to find out the consistency of Whitman’s thoughts expressed in the work and the American dream in order to reveal the great influences of the American dream in contemporary American society on Whitman.

Key words: Walt Whitman, the American dream, democracy, equaltiy, freedom, individuality

1 Introduction
1.1 Walt Whitman and his works
Walt Whitman is an American poet. Considered to be the greatest of all American poets, Walt Whitman celebrated the freedom and dignity of the individual. And he was famous for his poetry, Leave of Grass, which is unconventional in both content and technique. And the poetry was probably the most influential volume of poems in the history of American literature. However, Whitman’s poem was not recognized or acknowledged by the people from domestic America or all over the world at that time. Even some scholars strongly criticized or condemned his thoughts conveyed in his poems. Faced with the tough situation and reality, Walt Whitman never thought of giving up composing his poems. Instead of being frustrated or annoyed, he tried his best to compose more excellent poems and finally he won reputation among the people from all over the world. Among his works, Song of Myself was the longest and the most important one, and it covered nearly Whitman’s all excellent thoughts. In his works, Whitman boldly celebrated the democracy, equality, freedom and so on.