Song of Myself an Analysis

Song of Myself

An Analysis of the Symbolism of Grass in "Song of Myself"

Walt Whitman's "Song of Myself" is the answer to Ralph Waldo Emerson's challenge that American poetry define itself according to its own terms. "Song of Myself" -- as the title implies -- does exactly that: It is both revolutionary in design and evocative in its use imagery. Appearing in Whitman's life-long work of revision Leaves of Grass, "Song of Myself" uses the image of grass to define Whitman's democratically American soul -- and at the same time struggles to identify the exact significance of each blade of grass. This paper will analyze the symbolism of grass in "Song of Myself" and show why it takes on a significance that is at once tangible and elusive.

The very first stanza tells us exactly what kind of poem "Song of Myself" is -- it is an exultation of Self: "I celebrate myself, and sing myself" (1.1). It is also a poem of community -- and the bonds of community -- as dictated by Whitman's Self: "What I assume you shall assume, / For every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you" (1.2-3). The reflections that Whitman presents, of course, are his own -- free from "creeds and schools" (1.10), and "without check with original energy" (1.13). Therefore, it is on Whitman's watch that the soul of America will be sung: "I lean and loafe at my ease observing a spear of summer grass" (1.5). And it is the spear of summer grass that becomes for him the object of his ruminations.

The grass is a symbol of all that is common in the common man of America -- it is the new man who has grown up out of the soil of a disparate ancestry, now rooted in the New World. Of course, Whitman invites us to join him as he reflects: "Loafe with me on the grass" (5.3). But his reflections are put into perspective by the query of a child who asks "What is the grass?" (6.1). Whitman is the spokesman of the American soul when he states, "How could I answer the child? I do not know what it is any more than he" (6.2). The American soul is newborn -- without, so it seems, definition.

He guesses that grass might be the symbol of his disposition -- green and growing, youthful and alive; or that it might be "the handkerchief of the Lord / A scented gift and remembrancer designedly dropt, / & #8230;that we may see and remark, and say Whose?" (6.4-6). Or it may be that the grass is a symbol of the child, just as the child, according to Wordsworth, is father of the man: so too is the grass father of us all -- as we are all part of the same life cycle -- samsara, as Eastern philosophy would call it.

The truth is that the grass is all of this: it is representative of life, of friendship, of commonality, of the soul, of God. It is a reminder of the eternal -- of the miracle of nature -- of the necessity for contemplation. Whitman "loafes" -- but only outwardly. Inwardly, he is busy reflecting and contemplating that mystery of nature and the transcendent spirit that is alive in the soul and in the world -- for which reason he remarks, "I believe a leaf of grass is no less than the journey work of the stars" (31.1). It is an acknowledgement of the spiritual union of all things.