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Leaves of Grass · Chapter

I Was Looking a Long While explained

The speaker reflects on a long search for intentions and the true history of the past, ultimately finding it not in ancient texts or legends but in the present day—in democracy, the average person, and the modern world of languages, customs

What happens

The speaker reflects on a long search for intentions and the true history of the past, ultimately finding it not in ancient texts or legends but in the present day—in democracy, the average person, and the modern world of languages, customs, arts, and technology.

Themes in this chapter

  • Democracy and Equality

    The chapter explicitly declares that the true clue to history lies in Democracy and the average man of today.

  • Individuality and Self

    The search for intentions is personal ('for myself'), and the answer is found in the life of one man or one woman.

Characters to notice

  • Narrator

    The speaker who has been searching for intentions and the clue to history.

  • Democracy

    Identified as the purport and aim of all the past, central to the speaker's discovery.

  • America

    Implied through the focus on democracy and the average man of today.

Key passages

  • “It is in Democracy⁠—(the purport and aim of all the past,)”

    The true meaning and goal of all history is found in democracy.

    Democracy is presented as the ultimate purpose of historical development.

  • “It is the life of one man or one woman to-day⁠—the average man of to-day,”

    The answer lies in the everyday existence of an ordinary person in the present.

    The speaker elevates the common individual as the vessel of historical truth.

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Leaves of Grass — I Was Looking a Long While Explained