Song of Myself

Whitman works with a comfortable sense of rebellion in the English language, much like an avant-garde artist might work in unusual materials. Closer to Jackson Pollock than Rembrandt, his mastery of language allows him to bend (and even break) the rules to great artistic effect. In comparison to poetic contemporaries who were still using a formal Victorian register, Whitman’s verse feels modern, even vulgar. An important component of his style is his eagerness to engage in wordplay. Whitman’s voice is playful, sly, subtly tongue-in-cheek. On first reading Leaves of Grass, Whitman’s contemporary, Ralph Waldo Emerson, described the collection as “the most extraordinary piece of wit and wisdom that America has yet contributed.”

One aspect of Whitman’s wordplay is his willingness to push the definition of words, making them work on several levels of meaning. A good example of this can be found in Section 43, where the poet compares the way people flounder in the hard parts of life to panicked whales being hunted. “How the flukes splash!” he observes, leveraging two definitions at once: “fluke” can mean both the tail of a whale and a thoughtless mistake. The collection’s name, Leaves of Grass, is a similar play on words. On one level it is literal; it describes one of Whitman’s favorite symbol devices in the collection, blades of grass (see Grass in Symbols and Motifs). But on another level, in Whitman’s day “grass” could refer to disposable samples in print shops, while “leaves” could refer to pages in a book. In this light, the title cheekily suggests that this magisterial collection of poetry is also just a little heap of scraps.

Playing with etymology, or the origins of words, is another weapon in Whitman’s arsenal. In Section 2, for example, he discusses the physical processes in his body which help him produce his poetry: “My respiration and inspiration, the beating of my heart, the passing of blood and air through my lungs.” Respiration and inspiration are closely related etymologically. Inspiration comes from the Latin root inspirare, “to breathe into,” reflecting a belief that the gods “breathed” into an inspired person to rouse or guide them. It makes sense for Whitman to mention “inspiration” here, right next to “respiration”: He was intent on underlining the importance of physicality for a poet producing verse.

“Song of Myself” is chockfull of these sorts of creative moments. In Section 12, blacksmiths “environ” their anvil. Literally “environ” means to surround or enclose, but naturally, Whitman chose the word for its visual similarities to a blacksmith’s primary material: iron. In Section 14, Whitman observes a wild gander (or male goose) flying in the sky; one might say he “ganders” at the gander. Whitman delights in unusual word choices, too. Many difficult bits of vocabulary for readers of “Song of Myself” today were just as rare and odd in Whitman’s time. He favors rare or even made-up words like kelson (Section 5), scrofula (Section 22), and duds (Section 46).

The combined effect of these many types of wordplay is twofold. First, they are meant to shock the reader out of complacency. Whitman wants to remove the “gum” from his reader’s eyes (Section 46)—his message is not easy to swallow, nor does he want a lazy reader to simply coast along. Humor and confusion are great ways to slow down the pace; it is hard to skim when poetry is funny, confusing, or both. Second, Whitman’s irreverent attitude towards word choice also embodies his egalitarian approach to art. Whitman was of the firm belief that poetry should be accessible to all. Being playful and funny helped remove poetry from its ivory tower to be enjoyed by the everyday person.