Sex & Sexuality in the Poetry of Walt Whitman

Upon first glance, Edna St. Vincent Millay’s “I, Being Born a Woman and Distressed” may appear to simply trace the course of a woman as she impulsively engages in the passion of a one-night stand. Yet, from a psychoanalytic lens, elements in the sonnet function to inform a different interpretation, one that transcends the manifest content of the poem to suggest that the speaker’s distress stems from her repressed homosexuality.

The time of Romanticism brought upon many trends extending from the idea of individualism as a rebellious separation from the classics, an idealistic outlook and finally to a strong religious base. Most of the writers of the Romantic period followed Pantheism "God is everything and everything is God ... the world is either identical with God or in some way a self-expression of his nature" (Owen 1971: 74). The idea of Pantheism was that everything in the world worked in unity. In some of the works of the Romantic period the expression of nature and humans are not separate entities, but one in the same. Even though in reality it did not work this way Pantheism was the ideal of most these writers and idealism in itself was yet another trend

The suggestions of equality between all people are not blatant and are not abundant in “Song of Myself” but they do exist, showing that Whitman was not as neutral as most readers are led to believe. He believed in equality.

As a forerunner to the free-love movement, late eighteenth century poet, engraver, and artist, William Blake (1757-1827), has clear sexual overtones in many of his poems, and he layers his work with sexual double entendres and symbolism. Within the discussion of sexuality in his work Songs of Innocence and of Experience, Blake seems to take a complicated view of women. His speakers use constructs of contraries, specifically innocence/ experience and male/female. Of the latter sex, he experiments with the passive (dependent, docile, virtuous) and active (independent, evil, a threat to the masculine) female subjects. Blake’s use of personification specifically of nature and botany suggest the use of nature to discuss human society. In Songs

What Whitman does, though, is reverse Emerson's logic. He takes simple, innocent images in nature and makes them shockingly sexual. Whitman sets the sexual tone stating, "Firm masculine colter it shall be you!" and he continues on stating simple natural images that now seem to represent something more sexual, (Whitman Section 24 Line 34). The maple tree has "trickling sap," the brook is "sweaty," and the wind has "soft-tickling genitals,"(Lines 41-45). All of these natural images serve to represent something very different from what they commonly do. Therefore, the images are symbols in nature that the poet, Whitman, gives meaning to. While this use of symbols illustrates what Emerson discusses in principle 15, Whitman takes the power of what he can do with natural symbols further than Emerson does. Similarly, Whitman takes Emerson's principle of nature symbols and expands them beyond being used only in nature.

"WHITMAN WAS MORE MAN THAN YOU'LL EVER BE," said a student of Louisiana State University. When asked questions of your sexual preference or thoughts on the issue of sex, I would venture to say it makes most people uncomfortable. This is an age-old topic that people know about, yet do not want to talk about. He was particularly reticent about his issues regarding sex and his particular sexual preference. In fact, of Whitman's struggles the most difficult for him to deal with was his ever so strong homosexual desires (Hubbell 283). Whether homosexuality is right or wrong is not for me to decide. Though I feel it should not be used so explicitly in works of

Suddenly his previous characterization no longer stands; suddenly it is clear he was described as an outcast because he has access to this higher meaning in a way his audience might not. It’s worth again making explicit that the previously established form of the novella breaks down here. Not only does poetry briefly inhabit the waking life, but so too does the higher meaning it has come to represent. But what’s important here is not only that the narrative structure is broken here, but who breaks it: the male poet. One explanation for this is a matter of difference in class. That is, the poet has access precisely because he did not grow up under the circumstances of high society, while Cecily’s social status renders her incapable of having depth. Yet, the version of Cecily we see in her dreams does not support this reading; even in the presence of poetry she retains her social identity, and is even warned of her “swaddled” (51) upbringing. Rather, the relevant distinguishing feature between Cecily and the poet is that he is a man. While male poets may be seen as lower class or even unrespectable, women who pursue poetry are seen as “pitiable,” and as having a “dangerous illness” (60). In short: poetry is not an option, and thus not even a consideration for women. There is perhaps something to be said that the women are shown

Whitman wrote broad stanzas and focused on the whole of America as his inspiration. His lines covered a wide range of topics and generated multiple points of view for the reader. He called his life’s work “Leaves of Grass”; stressing the

Paragraph 9:Whitman sexuality was judged rather he was homosexual or bisexual people that because of the way he wrote on his poems most of his poems were depicts love and sexuality in a more earthy individualistic way. Though Leaves of Grass was often labeled pornographic or obscene.

Using free verse in his poetry was considered outlandishly informal in structured society but the point resonants within contemporary culture as structured aberrance. This is but only one example of his maverick-like annotations. In the poem, “Song of Myself,” Whitman spends fifty-two lines celebrating himself (Wiggins 428). This anomalous form of self love is important, as it coincides heavily within the parameters of how self respect is described within Transcendentalism. The tier of self purpose and living with dignity used to deviate from society.

Walt Whitman makes several references to women’s pleasure in sexuality like the following passage: Dancing and laughing along the beach came the twenty-ninth bather, The rests did not see her, but she saw them and loved them. The beards of the young men glisten’d with wet, it ran from their long hair, Little streams pass’d over their bodies.

On this verse, we can see how Whitman tries to connect to mind, body, spirit and nature. In “Song of Myself” Whitman attempted to change the meaning of American poetry. I described identity issues that pertain to him, but that the audience was able to identify with. Whitman, opened the door to

& nbsp;Divinity, Sexuality and the Self in Whitman’s Song of Myself       Through his poetry, Whitman's "Song of Myself" makes the soul sensual and makes divine the flesh.  In Whitman's time, the dichotomy between the soul and the body had been clearly defined by centuries of Western philosophy and theology.  Today, the goodness of the soul and the badness of the flesh still remain a significant notion in contemporary thought.  Even Whitman's literary predecessor, Emerson, chose to distinctly differentiate the soul from all nature.  Whitman, however, chooses to reevaluate that relationship.

Stevens makes this fact apparent from the beginning of the poem, when he notes not only “human revery” but also “the sexual myth” and the “poem of death” (1). Therefore, these defined formulations are only categories of a greater whole, which remains unmentioned in the poem. In deliberating on Stevens’s poems, we can come to understand this encompassing whole as the imagination, which impels an individual to make “eccentric propositions” about his or her life and fate (4-5, 10).

Whitman is known for being revolutionary for his use of free form verse in the nineteenth century. This style is evident throughout Song of Myself which aids in his descriptions and devices used to get his meaning across. His grouping of three lines per stanza for this section is common for the entirety of “Song of Myself”, which has variations of three line to occasionally five line stanzas. His freedom in his poem’s style and lack of rhyme scheme allow him to fully showcase his thoughts in a new way for this time period. An overall summary of the poem is Whitman’s pondering of himself and the world in behavior and personality to him being fully confident in himself with no existential crisis. For the first half of section 20, Whitman’s character of himself questions everything beyond the ownership of himself. He questions the integrity of other people’s identities and characters as well as ignoring social norms involving manners and religious behavior. The declaration of a lack of manners and questioning the church would have been scandalous to