Song of Myself, Walt Whitman

Song of Myself, Walt Whitman

Here or here new.
Here used.
Here free.


BEFORE READING
James E. Miller, Jr. of the University of Chicago writes:

“Song of Myself” portrays (and mythologizes) Whitman's poetic birth and the journey into knowing launched by that “awakening.” But the “I” who speaks is not alone. His camerado, the “you” addressed in the poem's second line, is the reader, placed on shared ground with the poet, a presence throughout much of the journey.

In the 1855 edition of Leaves of Grass, “Song of Myself” came first in the series of twelve untitled poems, dominating the volume not only by its sheer bulk, but also by its brilliant display of Whitman's innovative techniques and original themes. Whitman left the poem in the lead position in the 1856 edition and gave it its first title, “Poem of Walt Whitman, an American,” shortened to “Walt Whitman” in the third edition of 1860. By the time Whitman had shaped Leaves of Grass into its final structure in 1881, he left the poem (its lines now grouped into 52 sections) in a lead position, preceded only by the epigraph-like cluster “Inscriptions” and the programmatic “Starting from Paumanok.”


WHILE READING
• In your journal make note of Whitman's depiction of the self and its relationship with the surrounding world. (Think also about the relationship between Walt Whitman the poet and Walt Whitman the speaker of the poem.)
• Make note of the motifs Whitman uses while developing his ideas about the self in the world: the body and the spirit (“soul”), the individual and the group, the self and others (“I contain multitudes”), the self and nature, learning from encoded beliefs (“creeds”) or from experience, age and youth, male and female, life (procreating, sexuality, etc.) and death (dying and killing), activity (doing) and passivity (watching, observing, loafing, musing).
• Make note of Whitman’s use of language and poetic structure: lists, repetitions, parallel structures, etc. How do these formal elements contribute to Whitman's depiction of the self in the world?
• Consult this webpage which has some insightful notes on the poem.


AFTER READING
Go here.