Introduction: Song of Myself is a vision of the symbolic “I” enraptured by senses, vicariously embracing all people and places. (“I” is universal, a part of the Divine) Song of myself is not only a voice, then; it is a voice that cannot stop singing, delighted with its own fullness, plunging into its unuttered future. The poems’ present tense is so reckless and hurried (“I speak at every hazard… without check”) that is seems to have no past, no memory; this is to say, the poem is not about anything, any more than life is about something.
It is simply happening; it is about itself. “Song of myself” is the record of his struggle to become himself. Whitman is representative of all humanity because, he says, the voices of diverse people speak through him, voices of men, animals, and even insects. To him, all life is a miracle of beauty. Whitman is the voice of all humanity.
His vision of humanity embraces the person and the natural world. Song of Myself is a bridge, spanning the divides of time, to bring us in touch with our own intimate humanity. Divinity in Simple things: Just Like Whitman saw divinity in common things, such as grass, I see value, and meaning in simple things. I, too, appreciate the simple pleasures as well – clouds, tulips, a gentle breeze, being all wrinkly after spending an entire afternoon in the pool. Grass is the central symbol of “Song of Myself” and it represents the divinity contained in all things. The poet’s journey and quest for selfhood have now come full circle.
The Essay on Song Of Myself By Walt Whitman
Part five of Walt Whitman’s “Song of Myself” explicates the intrinsic relationship one shares with his soul. The poet delivers a monologue to his own soul, in which he conveys his union with it. He recollects a metaphorical morning spent with his soul. The poet opens – in lines one and two – with an acknowledgment of the paramount importance of his soul. He proclaims, ...
He began by desiring to loaf on the grass and ends by bequeathing himself “to the dirt to grow from the grass I love.” Even the most commonplace objects, such as ants, leaves, stones, contain the infinite universe. Grass is symbolic of the ongoing cycle of life present in nature, which assures each man of hi immortality. Nature is an emblem of God, for God’s eternal presence is evident everywhere. Grass is the key to the secrets of man’s relationship with the Divine. It indicates that God is everything and everything is God. Section 26-38 Whitman’s senses convince him that there is significance in everything no matter how small.
31-33 contain a catalog of the infinite wonders in small things. Whitman shares the Romantic poet’s relationship with nature. To him, as to Emerson, nature is divine and an emblem of God. The universe is not dead matter, but full of life and meaning. He loves the earth, the flora, the fauna, the moon and the stars, the sea, and all other elements of nature. He believes that man and nature should never be disjoined.
Death: Unlike Whitman, I know that my time on this earth is limited. For this reason, the song of myself is my motivation, my passions. The song of myself is what gets me out of bed every morning because it tells me to live my life. It holds the beat of my life – something legato, sometime staccato. If we knew that our lives would be forever eternal, and we will be reincarnated time and time again, how can we ever appreciate our lives? It is only because we know it will come to an end, that we can fully enjoy certain pleasures – being able to do those things you want to do before you die. For Whitman, there is no death, for man is reincarnated time and time again.
Eternity is time endless, as is the self. Whitman is not afraid of death because death, too, is a creation of God and through it one may reach God. Section 6-19 What is the grass? The poet feels incapable to answering the question but continues thinking about it. Muses that perhaps the “grass is itself a child” or the “handkerchief of the Lord.” Here, the grass is a symbol of the divinity latent in the ordinary, common life of man and it is also a symbol of the continuity inherent in the life-death cycle. No one really dies.
The Essay on Life After Death 6
The Afterlife is an area of human consciousness we all enter upon leaving the physical world at physical death. Throughout history we've questioned if there is a life after death. Along the way, our religions and various philosophers offered beliefs and opinions to answer this commonly asked question. However, many of the answers contradict each other making it hard to figure out. "Belief in life ...
Even the “smallest sprout shows there is really no death,’ that “all goes onwards and outward… /And to dies is different from what any one supposed.” Contemplating the meaning of grass in terms of mystical experience, he understands that all physical phenomena are as deathless as the grass. Whitman assures us that death is not to be feared but anticipated as a stepping stone to rebirth: The smallest sprout shows there is really no death, and if ever there was it led forward life, and does not wait at the end to arrest it, and ceased the moment life appeared. And to die is different from what any one supposed, and luckier.
Whitman deals with death as a fact of life. Death is a fact, but life in death is a truth for Whitman. Individual (the Self) and the Universe: To Whitman, the complete self is both physical and spiritual. The self is man’s individual identity, his distinct quality and being, which is different from the selves of other men, although it can identify with them. The self is a portion of the one Divine soul. 2 important themes: the idea of self, and the poet’s relationship with the elements of nature and the universe.
The self comprises ideas, experiences, psychological states, and spiritual insights. To Whitman, the self is both individual and universal. Man has an individual self, whereas the world, has a universal self. The poet wishes to maintain the identity of his individual self, and yet he desires to merge it with the universal self, which involves the identification of the poet’s self with mankind and the mystical union of the poet with God, the Absolute self. Sec 1-5 He is determined to maintain his own individuality. Sec 5 – the poet’s ecstatic revelation of union with his soul.
He has a feeling of fraternity and oneness with God and his fellowmen “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.” This union brings him peace and joy. Sec 6-16 describe the awakening of the poet’s self to his own universality. Sec 7 – signifies his universal nature, which he finds “just as lucky to die” as to be born. The poet is part of everyone around him. He sees all and condemns nothing. Sec 8-16 is a catalog of all that the poet sees – people of both sexes, and all ages and conditions, in many different walks of life, in the city and the country, by the mountain and by the sea.
The Essay on Song Relates Life Mildred People
This song relates a lot to Mildred and her life. In the first verse, it says, "She's lost in coma where it's beautiful. Intoxicated from the deep sleep, deep sleep. Do you wonder what it's like Living in a permanent imagination, sleeping to escape reality, but you like it like that." Mildred is obsessed with her "parlor walls" and her "family." They are her life, and she seems happy because they ...
He even sees animals. The poet not only loves them all, he is a part of them all. “and these tend inward to me, and I tend outward to them, and such as it is to be of these more or less I am, and of these one and all I weave the song of myself.” Section 20-25 He accepts all life, naked and bare, noble and ignoble, refined and crude, beautiful and ugly, pleasant and painful. He feels like he is part of all that he has met and seen.
He is the poet of pleasure and pain, of man and woman, and of good and evil. “I am not the poet of goodness only, I do not decline to be the poet of wickedness as well.” These two qualities compliment each other. Life is neither chaotic not finite; instead, it is harmonious, reflecting the union of the poet’s individual soul with the Divine Soul. 34-36, he identifies himself with every person, dead or living, and relates his involvement with the various phases of American history.
Realizing his relationship to all this makes him feel, as he states in 38, “replenish’d with supreme power, one of an average unending procession.” Ordinary life becomes permeated with mystical significance. He identifies with every being and every object, and this identification forms an integral part of his concept of what ‘I” am. The process of identification arises out of the belief that the poet’s soul is a part of the universal soul and therefore should seek union with it. The poet asks man not to be “curious about God” because God is everywhere and in everything: “In the faces of men and women I see God, and in my own face in the glass.” He speaks for America and identifies himself with all: I am old and young, of the foolish as much as the wise, Regardless of others, ever regardful of others, maternal as well as paternal, a child as well as a man. Throughout the catalogues, there is a dual purpose, to display diversity, and to create unity from the diversity. Sec 15 – in each of these lines, Whitman expresses the essence of the individual.
The Essay on William Wordsworth: As the Poet of Man
“There have been greater poets than Wordsworth but none more original”, says A. C. Bradley. Wordsworth’s chief originality is, of course, to be sought in his poetry of Nature. It must not be supposed, however, that Wordsworth was interested only in Nature and not in man at all. Man, in Wordsworth’s conception, is not to be seen apart from Nature, but is the very “life of her life”. Indeed, ...
Then, he brings all the individuals into a poetic whole – Whitman can create an actual whole from the diversity of America. Transition to my song: Writing precludes an immediate communal experience. Writing puts each reader into his own private study, and so the “truth” of “Song of Myself” becomes fragmented in solipsistic, idiosyncratic interpretations beyond the author’s control. In section 46, Whitman launches himself on the “perpetual journey” – urging all to join him, but giving the warning that “Not I, not anyone else can travel that road for you, You must travel it for yourself.” — – use this as intro to my paper, and my transition into my own song. I must travel that road myself, and carry my own tune. Kristin’s song: My song doesn’t keep a steady beat or rhythm.
My song isn’t even in a particular key or major. My song is practically unknown to anyone else except myself. My song, however, is my #1 single. My song is what wakes me up in the morning, and keeps me going.
This is the Song of Myself I am going to keep marching to my own beat, and singing to my own tune. This is because the song of myself is the music of my heart. Like Whitman, the song of himself, isn’t an actual song – it’s the integration of all the wonderful things around him, which he “weaved together to form the song of himself” – or the tune to which he moves, the beat to which he marches, and the theme song to which he lives his life.
