Philosophic Thought in Whitman's Song of Myself

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The Heath Anthology of American Literature repeatedly refers to Walt Whitman and his poetry in terms of being American, yet as I read Song of Myself, my thoughts are continually drawn to the philosophies and religions of the Far East. Like the Tao Te Ching ideas are expressed in enigmatic verse and each stanza is a Zen koan waiting to be meditated on and puzzled out. Even Emerson called Whitman's poetry "a remarkable mixture of the Bhagvat Gita and the New York Herald" ("The Whitman Project"). Song of Myself contains multitudes of passages that express Hindu, Buddhist, and Taoist thought.

Hinduism is an ancient religion of India and the Bhagvat Gita mentioned above, is among its holy texts. Meditation is emphasized in Hinduism and the point of meditation is explained in a famous metaphor: the mind is a tree and in this tree there is a monkey and a bird. The monkey, called the slippery monkey, races about, chattering constantly. If one can silence the monkey then the bird sings. Whitman could be describing the concerns of the slippery monkey when he writes: "The latest news . . . . discoveries, inventions, societies . . . . authors old and new,/ My dinner, dress, associates, looks, business, compliments, dues/ . . . But they are not the Me myself" (lines 60-65). A description of the bird can be taken from the same passage: "Apart from the pulling and hauling stands what I am,/ Stands amused, complacent, compassionating, idle, unitary" (lines 66-67). Whitman requests of the bird, which he refers to as the soul: "Loafe with me on the grass . . . . loose the stop from your throat" (line 75). When the bird complies, Whitman writes that the bird "plunged . . . tongue to my barestript heart . . ./ Swiftly arose and spread around me the peace and joy and knowledge that pass all the art and argument of the earth" (lines 80-82). By stilling the slippery monkey and hearing the song of the bird one gains enlightenment (this is similar to shedding the ego in order to attain enlightenment in Buddhism. Sidhartha, the founder of Buddhism, was a Hindu before he rejected its tenets). Part of Hindu enlightenment is the realization that all is Brahma and Brahma is all. Hinduism is polytheistic, but all its many gods are only aspects of the one God, Brahma.

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