Song of Myself
by
Walter Whitman
(Analysis)
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This
poem had no title in the first (1855) edition of Leaves of Grass. In 1856 it
was called "A Poem of Walt Whitman, an American" and in 1860 it was
simply termed "Walt Whitman." Whitman changed the title to "Song
of Myself" in 1881.
‘Song
of Myself’ celebrates the poet's self, but the "I", in the poem, is
the poet himself and at the same time, everyone on the earth. The poet will
"sing myself," but "what I assume you shall assume, /For every
atom belonging to me as good belongs to you." The poet relates that he was
"form'd from this soil," for he was born here, as were his parents,
grandparents and great-grandparents. He is "in perfect health." He
hopes to continue his celebration of self until his death. The poet declares his
separateness from civilization and his closeness to nature. He is tempted to
let himself be submerged by other individual selves, but he is determined to
maintain his individuality.
The
poet expresses the joy he feels through each of his 5 senses. He invites the
reader to "stop this day and night" with him in order to discover
"the origin of all poems." Whitman chides the "talkers,"
"trippers," and "askers" for wasting their time discussing
"the beginning and the end," and "the latest dates, discoveries,
inventions, societies . . . He prepares himself for the union of his body with
his soul: "I witness and wait." As his soul is "clear and
sweet," so are all the other parts of his body -and everyone's bodies. The
poet has a feeling of fraternity and oneness with God and his fellowmen and a
vision of love. This union brings him peace and joy. A child, with both hands
full of Leaves from the fields, asks the poet, "What is the grass?"
The poet at first feels incapable of answering this question but continues
thinking about it. He muses that perhaps "the grass is itself a
child" or maybe it is "the handkerchief of the Lord." The poet says,
that he is part of everyone around him. He sees all and condemns nothing.
The
poet sees — people of both sexes, all ages, and all conditions, in many
different walks of life, in the city and in the country, by the mountain and by
the sea. Even animals are included. And the poet not only loves them all, he is
part of them all:
And these tend inward
to me, and I tend outward to them,
And such as it is to
be of these more or less I am,
And of these one and
all I weave the song of myself.
The
poet’s thoughts are "the thoughts of all men in all ages and lands." He
salutes all members of humanity. Grass suggests the divinity of common things. It
is symbolic of the ongoing cycle of life present in nature, which assures each
man of his immortality. Grass is the key to the secrets of man's relationship
with the Divine. It indicates that, God is everything and everything is God. ‘Song
of Myself’ is a belief that it is possible to achieve communion with God
through contemplation and love, without the medium of human reason. It is a way
of attaining knowledge of spiritual truths through intuition.
The
poet declares that all he says of himself the reader is to say of his own self.
He declares himself to be "solid and sound". Whitman proclaims
himself "the poet of the Body" and also "the poet of the
Soul." He is a poet of pleasures and pain, and of men and women. He thanks
the Earth for giving him love, which he answers with love:
"Prodigal, you
have given me love — therefore I to you give love!
O
unspeakable passionate love."
The
poet reveals that he also loves the sea, for it has as many aspects and moods
as he has. He is the poet of both good and evil: "I am not the poet of
goodness only; I do not decline to be the poet of wickedness also"; the
two qualities complement each other. He salutes scientists but, he admits,
"your facts . . . are not my dwelling." Whitman calls himself a
"kosmos", a universe. He also speaks of lust and the flesh, for each
part of the body is a miracle: "The scent of these arm-pits aroma finer
than prayer."
Whitman
declares that "with the twirl of my tongue I encompass world and volumes
of world. Speech is the twin of my vision." He describes himself as gross
and mystical. He feels he is part of all that he has met and seen. He is
essentially a poet of balance, since he accepts both good and evil in his
cosmos. He accepts all life, naked and bare, noble and ignoble, refined and
crude, beautiful and ugly, pleasant and painful. The physical and the spiritual
both are aspects of his vision. Whitman realizes that the physical as well as
the spiritual are aspects of the Divine. In Whitman's philosophy, the self is
purified not through purgation but through acceptance of the physical. Man
should free himself from his traditional sense of sin. The mystical experience
paves the way for the merging of physical reality with a universal reality.
Whitman
says, the voices of diverse people speak through him — voices of men, animals,
and even insects. To him, all life is a miracle of beauty. The poet resolves to
listen and be receptive to all sounds: the "bravuras of birds," the
"bustle of growing wheat," and "the sound of the human
voice." The poet's sense of touch is extremely acute. At times he is
overwhelmed by it, and he asks, "Is this then a touch? quivering me to a
new identity." With all his senses, the poet responds to existence and
living, "the puzzle of puzzles . . . that we call Being." The poet's
senses convince him that there is significance in everything, no matter how
small. He believes, that "a leaf of grass is no less than the journey-work
of the stars" and "the narrowest hinge in my hand puts to scorn all
machinery," for all things are part of the eternal wonder of life and
therefore even "the soggy clods shall become lovers and lamps." He
identifies himself with every person, dead or living, and relates his
involvement with the various phases of American history.
Whitman’s
joy comes to him through his senses. He identifies himself with every being and
every object, and this identification forms an integral part of his concept of
what "I" am. The process of identification arises out of the belief
that the poet's soul is a part of the universal soul and therefore should seek
union with it.
Whitman
finds that the body has value, for it leads man to a unified self, a purified
combination of the body and the soul. The poet praises the primitive life of
animals because they have achieved this union — they are born pure. Whitman
experiences a spiritual illumination, passing through suffering, despair, and
the dark night of the soul to finally achieve purification. Whitman assumes the
role of the prophet of a new religion, incorporating all religions. He declares
that all men are divine and possess powers of revelation equal to any God. The
poet denies significance to old gods because God is to be found in all men. The
poet is conscious of his newly acquired, holy and superhuman power resulting
from the union of his self with the Divine. Whitman states that he practices
all religions and even looks beyond them to "what is yet untried."
This unknown factor will not fail the suffering and the dead. The poet
expresses his desire to "launch all men and women . . . into the
Unknown" by stripping them of what they already know. The poet is
conscious of the confrontation of his self with limitless time and limitless
space and realizes that he and his listeners are products of ages past and
future.
The
poet launches himself on the "perpetual journey," urging all to join
him and uttering the warning, "Not 1, not anyone else can travel that road
for you,/You must travel it for yourself." The poet says that he is a
teacher, but he hopes that those he teaches will learn to assert their own
individuality. He asks man not to be "curious about God" because God
is everywhere and in everything: "In the faces of men and women I see God,
and in my own face in the glass." The poet is not afraid of death, for
there is no real death. Men die and are reborn in different forms. He himself
has died "ten thousand times before." The poet feels, (section 50)
there is something that outweighs death, "It is form, union, plan — it is
eternal life — it is Happiness."
Whitman
knows that his writings have been obscure but sees the paradoxes in his works
as natural components in the mysteries of the cosmos: "Do I contradict
myself?/Very well then I contradict myself,/(I am large, I contain multitudes.)"
The poet can wait for those who will understand him. He tells them, "If
you want me again look for me under your boot-soles," for he will have
become part of the eternal life cycle. Although it may be difficult to find or
interpret him, he will be waiting. "Missing me one place search another,/I
stop somewhere waiting for you."
Whitman
brings a new message of faith for the strong and the weak, a belief in the
harmony and orderliness of the universe. The poet shows how his own theories
transcend them. He offers to lead men and women "into the unknown — that
is, into transcendent reality. Whitman talks about the self as part of the
eternal life process. There is no death, for man is reincarnated time and time
again. The poet speaks about man's relation with the moment and with eternity.
Eternity is time endless, as is the self. The poet does not prescribe any fixed
pathway to a knowledge of the self; it is for each person to find his own way
to make the journey. The poet is not afraid of death because death, too, is a
creation of God and through it one may reach God. The culmination of the poet's
mystical experience is revealed in his vision of eternal life. Life is neither
chaotic nor finite; it is harmonious, reflecting the union of the poet's
individual soul with the Divine Soul.
Grass
is the central symbol of "Song of Myself," and it represents the
divinity contained in all living things. Although no traditional form is
apparent, the logical manner in which the poet returns to his image of grass
shows that "Song of Myself" was planned to have an order and unity of
idea and image.
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