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Song of Myself

by Walt Whitman

Other authors: See the other authors section.

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8332025,977 (3.96)15
"This book offers the most comprehensive and detailed reading to date of Song of Myself. One of the most distinguished critics in Whitman Studies, Ed Folsom, and one of the nation's most prominent writers and literary figures, Christopher Merrill, carry on a dialog with Whitman, and with each other, section by section, as they invite readers to enter into the conversation about how the poem develops, moves, improvises, and surprises. Instead of picking and choosing particular passages to support a reading of the poem, Folsom and Merrill take Whitman at his word and interact with "every atom" of his work. The book presents Whitman's final version of the poem, arranged in fifty-two sections; each section is followed by Folsom's detailed critical examination of the passage, and then Merrill offers a poet's perspective, suggesting broader contexts for thinking about both the passage in question and the entire poem"--… (more)
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English (11)  Spanish (7)  French (1)  Catalan (1)  All languages (20)
Showing 1-5 of 11 (next | show all)
Slow work going through this for a slow reader anyway unaccustomed to poetry, as so many individual word choices and phrases demand consideration and thinking. Democratic, dynamic, egalitarian, self-confident, sensual, spiritual, provocative even today.
I celebrate myself, and sing myself,
And what I assume you shall assume,
For every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you.[1]
Self-assurance and self-belief ring out from the opening lines. Also a hint of the interconnectedness that will be developed plenty further.
I will go to the bank by the wood and become undisguised and naked,
I am mad for it to be in contact with me.[2]
Drop the mask worn on the stage of social interaction. And a note of physical sensuality.
There was never any more inception than there is now,
Nor any more youth or age than there is now,
And will never be any more perfection than there is now,
Nor any more heaven or hell than there is now.[3]
Don't wait on the future. Live life in this moment.
Showing the best and dividing it from the worst age vexes age,
Knowing the perfect fitness and equanimity of things, while they discuss I am silent, and go bathe and admire myself.

Welcome is every organ and attribute of me, and of any man hearty and clean,
Not an inch nor a particle of an inch is vile, and none shall be less familiar than the rest.[3]
We always work to present our best most perfect selves to others. But we're perfect and beautiful anyways, faults warts and all. Don't hide or repress any part of yourself.
And I know that the hand of God is the promise of my own,
And I know that the spirit of God is the brother of my own,
And that all the men ever born are also my brothers, and the women my sisters and lovers,
And that a kelson of the creation is love,
And limitless are leaves stiff or drooping in the fields,
And brown ants in the little wells beneath them,
And mossy scabs of the worm fence, heap'd stones, elder, mullein and poke-weed.[5]
Or I guess it is a uniform hieroglyphic,
And it means, Sprouting alike in broad zones and narrow zones,
Growing among black folks as among white,
Kanuck, Tuckahoe, Congressman, Cuff, I give them the same, I receive them the same.[6]
An answer to a previously posed question, "What is the grass?" Out of many it is one, e pluribus unum, these lines arguing that all are equal.
I pass death with the dying and birth with the new-wash'd babe, and am not contain'd between my hat and boots,
And peruse manifold objects, no two alike and every one good,
The earth good and the stars good, and their adjuncts all good.[7]
All shall be well and all shall be well and all manner of thing shall be well.
The boatmen and clam-diggers arose early and stopt for me,
I tuck'd my trowser-ends in my boots and went and had a good time;
You should have been with us that day round the chowder-kettle.[10]
It's not just all Whitman lolling around in fields and nature. He loves the society of men and women close to the earth as well.
In me the caresser of life wherever moving, backward as well as forward sluing,
To niches aside and junior bending, not a person or object missing,
Absorbing all to myself and for this song.[13]
(The moth and the fish-eggs are in their place,
The bright suns I see and the dark suns I cannot see are in their place,
The palpable is in its place and the impalpable is in its place.)[16]
'Everything in its right place'
I play not marches for accepted victors only, I play marches for conquer'd and slain persons.
Have you heard that it was good to gain the day?
I also say it is good to fall, battles are lost in the same spirit in which they are won.[18]
The outcome is not important, it is the participation in the battle, in life.
Smile O voluptuous cool-breath'd earth!
Earth of the slumbering and liquid trees![21]
Liquid trees??? Fantastic.
Divine am I inside and out, and I make holy whatever I touch or am touch'd from,
The scent of these arm-pits aroma finer than prayer,
This head more than churches, bibles, and all the creeds.[24]
Whitman believes in God as revealed through nature, not through churches or theologies shaped by man, a recurring theme. 'arm-pits aroma finer than prayer'... provocative way for the poet to put it!
Trickling sap of maple, fibre of manly wheat, it shall be you!...
Winds whose soft-tickling genitals rub against me it shall be you![24]
Manly wheat and the wind as genitalia rubbing against you. Oh my.
Something I cannot see puts upward libidinous prongs,
Seas of bright juice suffuse heaven.[24]
Very nice description of a sunrise.
I believe a leaf of grass is no less than the journey-work of the stars,
And the pismire is equally perfect, and a grain of sand, and the egg of the wren,
And the tree-toad is a chef-d'oeuvre for the highest,
And the running blackberry would adorn the parlors of heaven,
And the narrowest hinge in my hand puts to scorn all machinery,
And the cow crunching with depress'd head surpasses any statue,
And a mouse is miracle enough to stagger sextillions of infidels.[31]
Taking myself the exact dimensions of Jehovah,
Lithographing Kronos, Zeus his son, and Hercules his grandson,
Buying drafts of Osiris, Isis, Belus, Brahma, Buddha,
In my portfolio placing Manito loose, Allah on a leaf, the crucifix engraved,
With Odin and the hideous-faced Mexitli and every idol and image,
Taking them all for what they are worth and not a cent more,
Admitting they were alive and did the work of their days,
(They bore mites as for unfledg'd birds who have now to rise and fly and sing for themselves,)
Accepting the rough deific sketches to fill out better in myself, bestowing them freely on each man and woman I see[41]
Old conceptions of the divine have outlived their usefulness to a growing/evolving humanity, which now needs something new.
Here and there with dimes on the eyes walking,
To feed the greed of the belly the brains liberally spooning,
Tickets buying, taking, selling, but in to the feast never once going.
Many sweating, ploughing, thrashing, and the chaff for payment receiving,
A few idly owning, and they the wheat continually claiming.[42]
The greedy rich, busy with commerce, exploiting their workers, miss out on the real stuff of life.
Be at peace bloody flukes of doubters and sullen mopers,
I take my place among you as much as among any,
The past is the push of you, me, all, precisely the same,
And what is yet untried and afterward is for you, me, all, precisely the same.
I do not know what is untried and afterward,
But I know it will in its turn prove sufficient, and cannot fail.[43]
Addressing the 'unbelievers', who thrash about in the sea of doubt and unbelief a few lines earlier. Don't worry about death, what comes afterward comes for all alike, and it will be sufficient.
Every condition promulges not only itself, it promulges what grows after and out of itself,
And the dark hush promulges as much as any.[45]
Reminds me of Rilke.
This day before dawn I ascended a hill and look'd at the crowded heaven,
And I said to my spirit When we become the enfolders of those orbs, and the pleasure and knowledge of every thing in them, shall we be fill'd and satisfied then?
And my spirit said No, we but level that lift to pass and continue beyond.
Our souls will penetrate unimaginably far after death.
I do not say these things for a dollar or to fill up the time while I wait for a boat[47]
A joke? Ha!
Why should I wish to see God better than this day?
I see something of God each hour of the twenty-four, and each moment then,
In the faces of men and women I see God, and in my own face in the glass,
I find letters from God dropt in the street, and every one is sign'd by God's name,
And I leave them where they are, for I know that wheresoe'er I go,
Others will punctually come for ever and ever.[48]
I too am not a bit tamed, I too am untranslatable,
I sound my barbaric yawp over the roofs of the world.[52]
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/2d/Whitman-leavesofgrass.gif
If high school students were presented with this image of Whitman instead of one of him as an old man with a long white beard, he would surely strike more interest. ( )
  lelandleslie | Feb 24, 2024 |


What I love about poetry is that there is a lot of room for interpretation. And in those beautiful 80 pages, Whitman did deliver what he promised before getting into the poem:
"You shall not look through my eyes either, nor take things from me,
You shall listen to all sides and filter them from your self."

A must-read for anyone who likes to analyze things. It made me want to be in a book club just to discuss it. I think if I loved poetry a bit more, I might have appreciated it immensely.

A few bits that I personally loved:

"I think I could turn and live with animals, they are so placid and
self-contain'd,
I stand and look at them long and long.

They do not sweat and whine about their condition,
They do not lie awake in the dark and weep for their sins,
They do not make me sick discussing their duty to God,
Not one is dissatisfied, not one is demented with the mania of
owning things,
Not one kneels to another, nor to his kind that lived thousands of
years ago,
Not one is respectable or unhappy over the whole earth."

"Do I contradict myself?
Very well then I contradict myself,
(I am large, I contain multitudes.) " ( )
  womanwoanswers | Dec 23, 2022 |
8497643488
  archivomorero | Jun 25, 2022 |
Song of Myself: With a Complete Commentary by Walt Whitman is a sectional breakdown of the poem with two different commentators -- Ed Folsom and Christopher Merrill. Folsom teaching and research have centered on nineteenth- and twentieth-century American poetry and culture. He earned his MA and PhD from the University of Rochester and currently the Roy J. Carver Professor of English at the University of Iowa. Merrill is an American poet, essayist, journalist and translator. Currently, he serves as director of the International Writing Program at the University of Iowa.

"Song of Myself" is often included in Whitman's Leaves of Grass. It has been called the core of Whitman's poetry and something he edited throughout his life. It examines the self, the soul, America, the universe, and back down to the atoms. Whitman also openly hid references to the equality of races and sex in the poem. It reminded me of Lou Reed's Walk on the Wild Side where censors were so worried about the reference to "colored girls" that they missed the sexual reference and caused quite a stir. Likewise, Song of Myself was not well received by social conservatives and was threatened by the Baltimore district attorney for violating obscenity laws. Whitman's view of race and sex extended beyond being progressive for his time.

The poem reads extremely well on its own and the commentary and afterword on each section help focus the reader on the changing themes of the poem. The first time I read Leaves of Grass, I just fell into the rhythm of the words and went blindly on with the flow. Folsom's commentary deal directly with the section read. He discusses the social and historical aspects of what is written and compares them to today and the poems setting. Merrill draws on personal experience and his own travels to relate what Whitman is saying. The joint effort gives the reader two views that are easily understood but without any heavy-handedness. They work well with Whitman’s easy, open style.

Whitman’s view is all encompassing from the joining of body and soul to religion The poetry drifts into philosophy. His views of American society are compared and contrasted with Thoreau and his Whitman's vision of America is compared with Tocqueville's writing of American democracy. He writes of war as a soldier and a sailor, Manifest Destiny, and of Texas. He writes of the America that is, which is not always the America America thinks it is. He presents the reader with science from the atoms to the cosmos. This is Whitman’s life work and it is all encompassing. It is everything he saw and believed recorded as a poem to be passed on. He knows that he will die and he calls on the reader to discuss and criticize the poem and to become a co-creator to add to what he was written -- To keep the poem alive as one would believe a soul lives on after death.
( )
  evil_cyclist | Mar 16, 2020 |
In this poem, Whitman talks of America as he saw it. It is quite long, and personally I don't think I would have gotten through it if it weren't for the chapter-like breaks. It paints a sort of vast image covering the working middle class and giving them a voice. So that was nice.

In the poem we find people living and dying, and doing other things.

I found a copy of this through a Google search, so I don't know the precise details about it. Publication dates elude me, and I don't think it has an ISBN. On the other hand, I could just put up the URL to it.

So this is a link.

Thanks for reading, until we meet again folks. ( )
  Floyd3345 | Jun 15, 2019 |
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Author nameRoleType of authorWork?Status
Walt Whitmanprimary authorall editionscalculated
Felipe, LeónPrefacesecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
Felipe, LeónTranslatorsecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
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"This book offers the most comprehensive and detailed reading to date of Song of Myself. One of the most distinguished critics in Whitman Studies, Ed Folsom, and one of the nation's most prominent writers and literary figures, Christopher Merrill, carry on a dialog with Whitman, and with each other, section by section, as they invite readers to enter into the conversation about how the poem develops, moves, improvises, and surprises. Instead of picking and choosing particular passages to support a reading of the poem, Folsom and Merrill take Whitman at his word and interact with "every atom" of his work. The book presents Whitman's final version of the poem, arranged in fifty-two sections; each section is followed by Folsom's detailed critical examination of the passage, and then Merrill offers a poet's perspective, suggesting broader contexts for thinking about both the passage in question and the entire poem"--

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