Critical Analysis Of Walt Whitman's Song Of Myself

Darian Williams

American Literature II

Ms. Dalton

July 3, 2016

Analysis

Walt Whitman was a very influential poet in his time era. He was very in tune with the world, his surroundings and people which makes him a humanist of his time. The poem Song of Myself has very mystical and profound ideas in this poem in my opinion. It is the type of poem when you read once and read over and over again you will always find something new about it for years to come because it 's so intriguing. Whitman was somebody who was very struck by his experience in the civil war and his thoughts about the world which transferred into his writing. Some of the ideas he puts forth are truly monumental. He tended for the wounded and saw a lot of horrible misery

He actually published this quote in one of his books.

This story a song of myself actually comes from a book called leaves of grass and he continuously revise this over the course of his life time all the way up to the so called deathbed edition. the earlier development of a song of myself was actually untitled also it wasn 't broken into sections which made it hard to read.Some of the ideas he puts forth are truly monumental. At the beginning of part 1 he first gets the idea of universal togetherness. He starts at the very beginning by saying, “I celebrate myself, and sing myself, And what I assume you shall assume, For every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you” (Whitman 1). The statement hints to the idea of universal togetherness which means everything that is him is part of us as well.so some people have come to the wrongful conclusion that the story song of myself is a egosentric endavor but in fact its not.A song of myself is basically the idea that all of us are myself and when he is speaking for himself he’s also speaking for us and that when we speak of us we are also

In section 48 he touches more on his biggest ideas of all such as he says “And i say to mankind,be not curious about each and not curious about god”(whitman 48) .Then he says “ i hear and behold god in every object”(whitman 48).In walt whitman 's mind he thinks that every single place in the world that 's where god is in whitman 's mind he opens up his eyes and looks around him and that where he finds god in every element of being.In section 51 he says”Do I contradict myself?Very well then I contradict myself,(I am large, I contain multitudes.)(whitman 51) it gets back at the idea that he quite literally is speaking for all of us and for all of us and for the entirely human and earthly experience and if it seem like he contradicting himself then that 's exactly what he suppose to be doing because in reality there are many contradictions and in the final section he says “I bequeath myself to the dirt to grow from the grass I love,If you want me again look for me under your boot-soles(whitman 52).which is an interesting thing because most people will not be that humble to come up with that idea that you should seek to find somebody under a boot sole and then he says Missing me one place search another,I stop somewhere waiting for you.it 's profoundly beautiful this idea in this long poem a song of myself revised and edited and changed over the course of a lifetime speaks for so many different cosmic issues and so many possibilities in the idea that if we go out into the world