Lecture I on Walt Whitman's "Song of Myself"

Lecture I on Walt Whitman's "Song of Myself"

A brief biography and analysis of sections 1 – 7 of Walt Whitman’s epic poem.

Answering Ralph Waldo Emerson’s call for a new type of American poetry, Walt Whitman shattered existing ideas about literature with his mystical poetry. Born in rural Long Island in 1819, Whitman quit school at age 11 after his parents moved to Brooklyn. He worked for decades in the newspaper industry, which underwent a huge expansion during the early/mid-19th century.

The persona Whitman channels in “Song of Myself” is one that finds ecstasy in celebrating what it means to be human. In it, the speaker sees the equality and beauty of all things and all people; in his huge catalogs, he moves through space & time. The central theme is “the grass” – a uniform hieroglyphic transpiring from the graves of men which testifies to immortality through cyclical rebirth. By poem’s end, the speaker sounds his “barbaric yawp” and dissolves into the universe, advising the reader to look for him under their boot soles.

Key sections from the beginning of “Song of Myself”

1: Proposes what will be done; in contrast to other Epic Poems, this will be a celebration of himself & nature
2-4: Rejection of previous notions of social groups, identity, philosophy, and creeds
7: Assertion of immortality of human consciousness


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Links to other online resources:

The Walt Whitman Archive - https://whitmanarchive.org/
The Walt Whitman Archive, edited by Ed Folsom and Kenneth M. Price, is published by the Center for Digital Research in the Humanities at the University of Nebraska–Lincoln.


Complete text of “Song of Myself” – https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem...
The Poetry Foundation, publisher of Poetry magazine, is an independent literary organization committed to a vigorous presence for poetry in our culture. It exists to discover and celebrate the best poetry and to place it before the largest possible audience.