Hi there.
It’s Dr. Bernstein, and in this video, I’m going to provide you with some useful introductory
background information about Walt Whitman.
You’re going to be reading the poem “Song of Myself,” which is part of Whitman’s
Leaves of Grass, a book of poetry that was first published in 1855—right at the end
of the American Renaissance.
Whitman published six editions of Leaves of Grass between the years of 1855 and 1881.
He was constantly working and reworking his book of poems—adding new ones, and trying
to make his work meet the needs of readers & keeping pace with
changes taking place in his culture.
He also offered various formats for the book and even different pricing schemes so that
the book was as accessible as possible.
One edition was about the size of a yearbook and meant to be a coffee-table book.
Others were fancier or smaller and more portable.
The first two editions of Leaves of Grass were published in the mid-1850s, a time of
great social unrest and dissension.
As David Reynolds points out in his influential biography
of Whitman, in 1854, the Kansas-Nebraska Act “was passed, and the fugitive slave Anthony
Burns was seized.
Disunion seemed a real possibility.”
Plus, the economy, which had been booming since the 1848 gold rush, contracted sharply
in late 1854, resulting in widespread unemployment and suffering” (206).
As Reynolds notes, there were few people who believed that the “dis-United States could
be made to cohere”—to remain united—through “normal political means” (307).
“The individual and the mass; states’ rights and the Union.
. .tensions between these opposing tendencies had preoccupied politicians and social thinkers
for decades and were especially pronounced” now that “the national fabric seemed to
be unraveling” (307-08).
Whitman had what Reynolds describes as a “strong impulse to hold America together”—and
used his poetry as a means of holding it together.
Reynolds argues that Whitman “believed that resolution could be achieved through
poetry that powerfully affirmed the individual while equally powerfully absorbing
the mass” (307-08).
I really want you to think about these issues when reading “Song of Myself.”
How does he hold the nation together through his poetry?
How does he dissolve oppositions?
How does
the poem function to bring together, heal, and
celebrate?
I also want you to concentrate on Whitman’s style.
In the introduction to American romanticism video, I told you about how the Romantics
broke with previous poetic traditions because they didn’t wanted more natural forms of
expression that were suited to their particular ideas.
How does the style of Whitman’s “Song of Myself”
relate to his subject matter—to his underlying concerns and beliefs?
But most of all, I want you to let yourself enjoy Whitman’s poem.
Don’t worry about trying to get every reference.
Take it in. . .lean and loafe and invite your soul.
. .
If you’ve got any questions, ask them!