Song of Myself

There is an argument to be made that the nature of “Song of Myself” defies cohesive analysis. In his own words, Whitman sets out to be the “voice” of every member of society, every person who has ever lived in the past and will ever live in the future (Section 24). When this philosophy is put into poetic practice, the result is an almost schizophrenic text, a poem in a constant state of change and tonal shift. Like the United States of his day (and our own), Whitman’s poetic vision seems divided against itself, even as it welcomes and embraces its contradictions.

Some sections of “Song of Myself,” for example, stand alone. They describe an isolated story or scene (a vignette) which ends as neatly as it begins. Others meander and bleed from one part into the next, meta-poetically reenacting Whitman’s resistance to the “talkers” who obsess over beginnings and ends (Section 3). Naturally, in his poem, Whitman sometimes defies expected poetic structure by breezing right past section breaks (a good example of this can be seen in Sections 27-29, which all center loosely on touch).

This diversity in structural form is reflected in other areas too. Themes are revisited, but from different angles and in different lights. Vocabulary alternates between casual everyday speech and maddeningly dense and obscure terminology. It is as if Whitman is constantly challenging his reader, fighting his reader—and by extension, fighting himself. For Whitman, complacency is death. He wants his student to be “first-rate to ride, to fight, to hit the bull’s eye, to sail a skiff, to sing a song or play on the banjo” (Section 47). He actively wants us to fight for understanding—to fight for life.

All this being said, there are large-scale and small-scale patterns in “Song of Myself” to which Whitman often returns. The poet rarely stays in one mode for long, for example. If he has spent a few sections delving into difficult concepts, he will punctuate with something easier and more pleasant. In Section 25, Whitman slogs through several layers of metaphor, comparing the light of the sun to the light of human understanding, which he argues stems not only from our ability to see, but our ability to imagine. After this literary workout, Section 26 opens with a simple statement: “Now I will do nothing but listen.” Whitman catalogues, in easy, pretty prose, all the sounds he loves, from the laughter of children to the steam whistle of a train.

The overall message is clear: Sometimes poetry is difficult. Sometimes it is easy. In this way, the experience of reading “Song of Myself” mimics the experience of life itself. There are natural ups and downs; pleasant bits and hard. As he describes in Section 46, Whitman hopes only that, having read “Song of Myself,” his readers will leave the shores of complacency and jump into the choppy waters of life—independent, happy, and unafraid.