Opposing Religious Perspectives: Edwards’ Personal Narrative and Whitman’s Song of Myself Batrishia Rakhim College

Upon reading Jonathan Edwards’ Personal Narrative, one would undoubtedly find that Edwards’ descriptions and expressions of his insurmountable love for God (and all things in relation to the Christian faith) are of an extreme degree uncommon to that of the ordinary believer. It is therefore justifiable to pinpoint one of the themes in Personal Narrative as being intense emotionalism towards religion, or, to be more precise, towards his Puritan faith. In addition to examining aspects of his work with regard to this theme, this essay will also compare Personal Narrative to a section of Walt Whitman’s Song of Myself; section 48, as this part of Whitman’s influential and historic poem details his own strong, differing opinions about religion and God.

As a child, Edwards initially found the doctrine of God’s sovereignty as horrible and abhorrent. He used to be repulsed by the idea that God chooses “whom He would to eternal life and rejecting whom He pleased”. However, his point of view was completely altered at some point, which he describes as a “wonderful alteration”, and from that moment on he continued to have very little to hardly any doubts and objections towards this doctrine. In fact, God’s absolute sovereignty is what his...