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Whitman's "Song of Myself" - Origin, Growth, Meaning
Unknown Binding
First published January 1, 1964
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May 8, 2015
Another decent book of criticism on Song of Myself. I like the side by side placement of the first and last version of this poem. I tend to agree with the critics that the first version of this poem is the more interesting one to read. I like the punctuation of it and some of my favorite lines were cut in the later versions. There is also a pretty good argument to be made that the Myself of the first version had no identity. This was a person anybody could become in any place and point in time. As Whitman continued to edit the song, he made it more and more specific, giving the character a family background, situating him more and more in a particular time and place, basically making himself the character in the poem. Reading the poem this way underscores what was lost in the edits. I thought the essays by Randall Jarrell, Richard Chase and Malcolm Cowley were the best.
Warning: about to give my final thoughts on the poem. It’s gonna get heavy handed and a little weird. It’s poetry and I’m an amateur.
This poem in particular is endless process. I have yet to read it without having a new perspective from which to view the poem, as a whole, occur to me. Similarly, with each reading a new theme occurs to me which I then have to go back and track through the lines. At this point, I think most of what Whitman wanted to say is said in the first six sections. The rest of the poem is then an attempt to get at this meaning through indirection and elaboration. I’m also pretty convinced that this poem has a dual structure. The first is linear. The Myself moves from discovering herself to her world and then the universe. The second is circular or centrifugal. The Myself spins through the same territory again and again, continually separating the world into distinct elements, then separating those elements into different meanings with each new revolution. The process ends when each element reflects the kelson of creation. The poem ends when the Myself gathers enough momentum to spin free of the process altogether. I guess you could call that transcendence.
Warning: about to give my final thoughts on the poem. It’s gonna get heavy handed and a little weird. It’s poetry and I’m an amateur.
This poem in particular is endless process. I have yet to read it without having a new perspective from which to view the poem, as a whole, occur to me. Similarly, with each reading a new theme occurs to me which I then have to go back and track through the lines. At this point, I think most of what Whitman wanted to say is said in the first six sections. The rest of the poem is then an attempt to get at this meaning through indirection and elaboration. I’m also pretty convinced that this poem has a dual structure. The first is linear. The Myself moves from discovering herself to her world and then the universe. The second is circular or centrifugal. The Myself spins through the same territory again and again, continually separating the world into distinct elements, then separating those elements into different meanings with each new revolution. The process ends when each element reflects the kelson of creation. The poem ends when the Myself gathers enough momentum to spin free of the process altogether. I guess you could call that transcendence.
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