Song Of Myself Poem Analysis

The soul is also mentioned earlier in the poem as beautiful, despite the faces he sees which are at most "despising," (Whitman, `Faces'). Whitman was apparently very much intrigued by the soul, he tried to find a "path," to the soul even though he admits that he was not sure what the soul was. However, he was determined he would find a "path between reality and their souls," (Allen, 192). Like most of the pantheists of his time he wanted to connect many things, reality and the soul; even individualism and the nation. Whitman quoted, "The empowerments of each element of the country individually but at the same time their merger in the collective empowerment of the nation

In “Song of Myself” Whitman attempts to speak on behalf of the entire American population. He tries to pull the reader into a world of many possibilities. Whitman makes a

Walt Whitman explores individualism by looking through all of the diversity within America and identifying that people are different and have come from many different backgrounds. However, we are all one in the same due to the connection of being American. He does this because he wants to maintain his individual “self-hood” while finding a place within America, a happy medium. The role of the individual in this piece of work Whitman states is “one of the Nation of many Nations, the smallest the same and the largest the same,” which means everyone has a different background and have all come from many places far away, but are still apart of America nonetheless. This is what brings us together. In the opening section of Song of Myself Whitman starts by saying all human beings are the same, “And what I assume you shall assume, for every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you.” I believe this is Whitman’s attempt at trying to merge his own self into society, while maintaining his “self-hood.”

Also included in the poem is the image of a young child being embraced by their elders. This shows the gap in life and the aging process that we go through. When we are young we are carefree, but as we age we hold on to the ones we love because of the knowledge that we will one day have to make our departure. Out of this idea of death, Whitman shows that this is a natural part of life and

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

In “Song of Myself”, grass is the central image surrounding Walt Whitman’s ideology. The idea behind it is grass, in some ways, is very similar to people in society and natures lifecycles. As Whitman was “observing a spear of summer grass” (5), he began to question the human condition. One of Whitman’s first thoughts was that one individual, like a single spear of grass surrounded by more grass, is part of a large community of people. It’s impossible to differentiate from others, for all people are equal despite cultural, religious, or gender differences. Nevertheless, Whitman’s use of symbolism alludes to the idea that grass reflects the thoughts and condition of people in society.

Poetry can be divided up into different forms, more easily expressing an author’s emotions and intent with their poetry. For analyzing purposes I chose the poems Self-Help by Michael Ryan, Ghazal by Agha Shahid Ali, Psalm 150 by Jericho Brown, and Emergency by Michael Dylan Welch.

Whitman begins by creating a contradictory image of himself. On one hand he relays an egotistical representation by alluding that he is the center of the universe, "a kosmos, of Manhattan the son," almost a deistic type of character. Whitman also describes himself as not being above any one person, woman or man, an obvious contradiction to his previous representation. His God-like persona is depicted in human terms, physical qualities that all humans possess. Whitman creates this contradiction to show his belief that he is everything, but is only this way because everything is a part of him. He represents himself as part of a whole&emdash;nature, mankind, and the universe are all a part of him. By being everything in nature and nature being a part of him, Whitman has the power to become the voice of nature as a whole. He speaks for nature and mankind when they do not possess the power to do so. Whitman is the voice of all.

The dominant themes that are more pervasive in Whitman’s poetry are democracy, life/death cycles, individualism, and nature. These themes play major roles in some of his more notable poems such as “Songs of Myself” or “Crossing Brooklyn Ferry.” He used democracy as a theme to bring society together, and unite everyone based on their general beliefs. He depicted life and death cycles to merge society together on a spiritual level. Despite his eagerness to unite society he also embraced individualism, and is also a persistent theme in most of his poetry. Nature was an important concept that Whitman used to convince people who there were more important things to life than class structure. He used nature connect us all, and encourage people to

The creation of an acceptable persona is essential to Whitman's poetic program. In "Song of Myself" this is

Whitman writes that he, as a poet, represents the body and that he is "the poet of the soul" (Lauter, p.2759). In other words, his poetry represents the body and the soul, but since we are more interested in the soul, we will focus on that. Remember, also, Whitman's poetry is often contradictory. He says in the following lines, "The pleasures of heaven are with me, and the pains of hell are with me" (Lauter, p. 2759). I believe what Whitman is saying here is that his soul includes both pleasure and pain. But, in the very next line he says that he has brought pleasure on himself and the pain he feels he "translates into a new tongue" (Lauter, p. 2759). The tongue refers to here is his poetry. To tie this altogether, his poetry represents the soul, particularly pleasure and pain. He takes the pain from his soul and translates it into poetry. Therefore, his poetry represents his soul.

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

Walt Whitman, a civil war nurse was a self-taught poet in the 1800s. Whitman is known for using lists, anaphora, free verse, and other literary devices in his poems. In his works, he focuses on American workers, diversity, transcendent approaches to nature, and individualism. “Song of Myself,” a poem written by Whitman, explores themes of nature, sex, democracy, and spirituality. Whitman uses nature to fuel his creativity in using grass as a symbol of comparison to life by using imagery, metaphors, and analogies.

It was a deep poem, because it opened up his perspective on life, and his perspective is unique. In a way he spoke of his own religion, and preached that everyone meets their maker, but everyone is reincarnated as a blade of grass, and he spoke of showing respect for the blades of grass because they could have been part of his ancestory or a person of importance to another person. In general, he wanted people to show appreciation for the world because many generations walked this planet before he did. He wanted people to respect those who have since been deceased, no matter their race, because death is inevitable, and they will soon face it. Whitman’s writing style carried over into this canto, his blank verse style of poetry, although it was not flashy, it made him sound educated and well spoken, but hard to follow. He also revealed that he did believe in a god when he spoke of God’s handkerchief was a gift for Earth, through a

In Walt Whitman’s “Song of Myself”, the poet showcases his feelings of people and himself by using literary descriptors to convey his thoughts on these and various other subjects. In section 20, Whitman’s purpose is to showcase self-assuredness regardless of what the world tries to state otherwise by maintaining his resolute happiness in being himself. This is what sets him apart from being like the other people in the world.