Analysis Of Walt Whitman's Song Of Myself

Walt Whitman's "Song of Myself" is a free verse poem that transcends typical works of introspection. Because the poem is in open form, Whitman is liberated from conforming to a meter that dictates his stressed and unstressed syllables. The diction throughout the poem has a positive connotation that befits the mood of the speaker. In this poem, the speaker is Whitman, who is praising himself and the beauty of the world that surrounds him, hence the positive diction of the first stanza: "I celebrate myself, and sing myself, / And what I assume you shall assume, / For every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you." (886). Whitman's poem is more than a mindless ramble on self-praise and exploration; the poem is about Whitman's unyielding