Analysis of Song of Myself by Walt Whitman - Research Paper Example

WHITMAN Walt Whitman was one of the greatest poets in American history. His work is read all over the world to this very day. His individualism and rugged romanticism is as relevant to today’s world as it was to the world of the 19th century. This was a changing time and Whitman saw and celebrated every change. Some have argued that he was responsible, more than anyone else, for remaking and redesigning American poetry. This is almost certainly true. He tore up the rule book, instead focusing on what he thought poetry should be like. Whitman recreated the possibilities for poetry in America and he did this largely through his most famous poem “Song of Myself.” This extraordinary poem has had a lingering influence on American letters. It is a fascinating and extraordinary work. In the late nineteenth century, when Whitman came into the full flower of his poetic powers, America was a changing country. Its economy was growing at a massive rate, its population was expanding. The country had once and for all thrown off many of the vestiges of its colonial past. For example, there was very little class system. America was a land of opportunity, of rugged individualism. The motto of the country was that if you worked hard, you would be able to do anything you wanted to. The cities were growing, industry was booming, and in New York City, Walt Whitman was finally becoming the poet to tell the story. But America was not developing in a vacuum. European ideas had great influence in America. In particular, the early 19th century had left a legacy of romanticism which was still waiting to be transformed into something more, to be transitioned to the next stage. As one critic has written: Politically the time was ripe. The 18th century left a heritage of optimism about mans possibilities and perfectability. The lofty ideals of democracy asserted the value of individuals, regardless of class, and education. Of course, these values primarily applied to white males. In fact, tensions were building which cried out for creative release. Inequality, not equality was the rule for many, especially women and slaves. The clash of these realities with the idealistic rhetoric led writers to take extremes, championing individualism yet also seeing the darker sides of a fragmenting society (Woodlief). Whitman was ready to take these discrete elements and make something new of them. He was a nobody, a dreamer, a watcher, but he also had a powerful gift for speech and poetry which would make him famous all over the world. He self-published his first volume of verse, Leaves of Grass. He intended to write the first kind of American epic that would capture the full promise of the new continent (Miller, 155). Soon it had become the only book people talked about. This is a passage from its most famous poem, “Song of Myself”: I believe a leaf of grass is no less than the journey work of the stars, And the pismire is equally perfect, and a grain of sand, and the egg of the wren, And the tree-toad is a chef-doeuvre for the highest, And the running blackberry would adorn the parlors of heaven, And the narrowest hinge in my hand puts to scorn all machinery, And the cow crunching with depressd head surpasses any statue, And a mouse is miracle enough to stagger sextillions of infidels. Whitman’s genius here is to connect the smallest things in the world around him with the ultimate grandness of the cosmos. A leaf of grass is not any smaller than all the work of the stars. The egg of a wren could easily be found among the heavenly spheres. His language is not rhyming or formal, it is easily understandable and it is lacking in pretension. This is very odd for the time. In an era when machines and industry were taking over the American countryside, Whitman is celebrating humanity: the joint in his hand is more impressive than all machinery. This is an endorsement and a love letter to the natural world. Its permanence over all things created by man is clearly intended in the language of this poem. In this work he would write about topics that were typically not found in poetry. He would embrace death and sexuality (Loving, 314). At the time, these were almost taboo topics which one did not find in poetry. Adopting the persona of the common person, Whitman went full steam ahead to tackle these subjects and much more. What is also striking about “Song of Myself” is the lack over overt religiousity. It is clear that Whitman believes in some higher force, but in an era when many poems talked about God and Christ, Whitman’s are more animistic. He does not appear to subscribe to a single faith. In fact, he appears to embrace all faiths equally (Reynolds, 237). Perhaps he believes they are all human stories and all worthy of attention. However, it is clear that the true focus of his work is not a higher power. Indeed, he has written a song about himself, about humanity, rather than about god and the heavens. So much literary work to this date and been a celebration of what happens after death. What Whitman is saying in this poem is “Let’s celebrate the here and now.” He describes the wonder of nature and he describes the primacy of man: I know I am deathless, I know this orbit of mine cannot be swept by a carpenters compass, I know I shall not pass like a childs carlacue cut with a burnt stick at night. I know I am august, I do not trouble my spirit to vindicate itself or be understood, I see that the elementary laws never apologize, (I reckon I behave no prouder than the level I plant my house by, after all.) I exist as I am, that is enough, If no other in the world be aware I sit content, And if each and all be aware I sit content. Even death cannot destroy him, he suggests. What makes humanity and nature, Whitman is saying, are the elemental laws of the universe and these cannot be overturned by anything. In an era when so much of American life was transient and changing day by day, Whitman is saying that there is something permanent and wondrous out there, and one need not look very far to find it. Death does not frighten this Prometheus-like poet: And as to you Death, and you bitter hug of mortality, it is idle to try to alarm me. To his work without flinching the accoucheur comes, I see the elder-hand pressing receiving supporting, I recline by the sills of the exquisite flexible doors, And mark the outlet, and mark the relief and escape. And as to you Corpse I think you are good manure, but that does not offend me, I smell the white roses sweet-scented and growing, I reach to the leafy lips, I reach to the polishd breasts of melons. These are strange, new words, and they indicate the true power of Whitman’s verse. Nothing can stop his version of humanity, nothing can slow it down. Even death itself is a minor weigh-stop on a longer journey to the stars. It is hard to overstate the impact of this poem on American letters. It has had a wide influence and has been felt everywhere. With Whitman the rules changes and the possibilities became endless. For American writers at the time, and those who came afterwards, Whitman raised the bar. As the famous literary critic, Harold Bloom has said: If you are American, then Walt Whitman is your imaginative father and mother, even if, like myself, you have never composed a line of verse. You can nominate a fair number of literary works as candidates for the secular Scripture of the United States. They might include Melvilles Moby-Dick, Twains Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, and Emersons two series of Essays and The Conduct of Life. None of those, not even Emersons, are as central as the first edition of Leaves of Grass Bloom’s words ring very true. Whitman had created the first American epic. He showed Americans just what kind of feeling this new land could inspire. He also put to shame the older writers and poets in the old land who looked positively fusty when compared to his energetic and powerful verse. While they continued to write about old world cathedrals, Whitman was showing them what poetry could really do and be. For the first time the balance of literary excellence began to shift towards the United States. A country of great natural wealth and a multitude of people, it would soon become the world’s leading storyteller. Whitman was a poet par excellence and his influence is still being felt today. He is the fount from which modern American poetry is derived. He wrote works of such imagination that people still have trouble fully comprehending them to this day. “Song of Myself” is certainly his masterpiece, a tour de force of humanity which will surely last a thousand years or more. Work consulted Bloom, Harold. Introduction to Leaves of Grass. Penguin Classics, 2005 Loving, Jerome. Walt Whitman: The Song of Himself. University of California Press, 1999. Miller, James E., Jr. Walt Whitman. New York: Twayne Publishers, Inc. 1962. Reynolds, David S. Walt Whitmans America: A Cultural Biography. New York: Vintage Books, 1995. Woodlief, Ann. “American Romanticism.” Virginia Commonwealth University. 2001. http://www.vcu.edu/engweb/eng372/intro.htm Read More