English 251: American Lit. (1600-1865)

INTRODUCTION + READING ASSIGNMENT + WRITING ASSIGNMENT

Assignment 30:
WALT WHITMAN (Part 2)

Reading "Song of Myself" in the 1882 version, we are not seeing the same poem as readers saw in 1855. As you can see on pages 2095-2138, that poem not only lacked the title by which we now call it, it also lacked any of the stanza numbers; otherwise, with slight changes of phrasing, the poem is basically the same. Why 52 stanzas, though? Moreover, what broader structuring principle--if any--can be said to organize these 52 stanzas? You'll be interested to know that even the best of Whitman's scholarly readers offer differing accounts of the poem's organization.

Virtually all readers have agreed, though, that Whitman's effort was to write a visionary work. In general, they have read it as a poem in which the speaker, after introducing himself to us as an ordinary man, in Nature enters into a mystical or visionary state during which time he senses himself ecstatically unified with his democratic society, and senses that unity despite some of the nation's shortcomings (such as slavery), thus to conclude the poem by emerging from the mystical vision with a statement to readers that this spirit of unity, which is in a sense the self he's been speaking of, remains present to us in all of Nature.

One of Whitman's most astute scholars, James E. Miller, sees seven main divisions in "Song of Myself." He reads stanzas 1-5 as introducing the speaker and describing the onset of his mystical vision; stanzas 6-16 as describing the speaker's awakening to the reach and power of that vision; stanzas 17-32 as a narration of the ways in which that Self is purified in Nature and Society; stanzas 33-37 as a glimpse of the "dark night" of that Self, in which the evils of slavery and factional warfare are the topics; stanzas 38-43 as a vision of Union, through values of faith and love; stanzas 44-49 as a further vision of Union, this time through sensory perception; and the concluding three stanzas, 50-52, as a narration of the Self's emergence from the mystical state, including the promise to readers that we may always share it if we simply look at the commonplace, the world (of grass) beneath our feet. Other scholarly readers, such as Malcolm Cowley or Carl Strauch, have seen (respectively) nine or just five subdivisions, rather than Miller's seven; but they agree on the general, visionary idea behind the poem.

Perhaps, finally, such mechanical, geometric concerns about a poem don't matter. Whitman himself would say in a later poem ("Myself and Mine"): "I charge you forever reject those who would expound me / for I cannot expound myself." Nevertheless such efforts are always an aspect of reading; indeed, didn't Whitman himself encourage them by eventually numbering the stanzas in "Song of Myself'? In reading the poem, it is useful to both give yourself up to the rhythmic flow of the vision, and to seek such patterns.

Whitman desired to be the self-defined "poet of the Body and poet of the Soul." In this sense, he challenged the belief of Transcendentalist writers like Thoreau, or Emerson, who in Nature defined the natural as the "Not-me," that is, the visual symbol or hieroglyphic of Soul (God). To Whitman, by contrast, the "Me" of the Body was part of Nature, thus a part of Soul. His transcendental experience begins and ends with the Body unified with the Soul through its existence in Nature. And Whitman will conclude his vision with the knowledge "that the hand of God is the promise of my own."

Reading Assignment

Walt Whitman, "Song of Myself," sections 16-52 (2209-2241).

Writing Assignment

The previous assignment invited you to identify and discuss those moments when Whitman's word choice veered into the unusual (and even the weird). This time, identify and discuss some of the moments when Whitman uses a truly ordinary, slangy American English; for example, in line 25 when he describes "The sound of the belch'd words of my voice loos'd to the eddies of the wind," or again in line 154, when he describes "the blab of the pave."
As both a mystical vision and a statement of democratic identity, the poet seeks to reconcile and unify varying conflicts in American society, such as the individual and the mass (what Whitman calls "the separate person" and life "en masse"), or the differences between East and West. Using the poem's words as your guide, write a tally of other oppositions he seeks to unify.
Stanza 28 seems to be both about the sense of touch, as well as about the danger of political insurrection. How? What ideas or issues or themes establish that connection between the two topics?
What lessons does the speaker of the poem draw from American history--for example, the fall of the Alamo as narrated in stanza 34? There are many other moments like this to examine.
How does the poem conclude? That is, what happens to the speaker in the final stanzas; and how does the speaker use those facts to advise readers? What is the essence of that advice?
Select any passage or stanza in "Song of Myself" and write a paragraph explaining why--because of its vividness, or humor, or ideas, or moral--you find it the most satisfying part of the work.
Now, select any passage or stanza in "Song of Myself"--perhaps but not necessarily the same as for question #6--and write an analysis of it showing specifically how that part of the poem develops what you see as the poem's central theme. Length: about 500 words.

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