Sense Of Self In Walt Whitman's Song Of Myself

Acclaimed as one of America’s most influential authors, Walt Whitman wrote of and for the common people. Living through the Civil War and the social reforms that occurred, Whitman’s work is rife with democratic ideals and his views on America. As a poet, Walt Whitman explored one’s sense of self in America, with abundant references to the politics of the 1800s and the Civil War.
Walt Whitman was born in 1819 in New York. His childhood was tumultuous, partly because of his family’s lacking economic status. His relationship with his father was not the healthiest, and his father died a few years after Whitman came out as a poet. His family relations and surrounded greatly influenced “Song of Myself”. Whitman worked as a journalist and typesetter
“When Lilacs in the Dooryard Bloom’d” is primarily about Lincoln, but can also extend to mourn for all lives lost during the Civil War. Whitman opens the poem with two symbols that he carries through, lilacs and a fallen star. Lilacs are a perennial flower that could represent spring, birth, or life. Because Whitman tied lilacs so closely to Lincoln’s death, the lilac’s perennial season can symbolize the long-lasting love and adoration the poet felt for Abraham Lincoln. The great fallen star is Lincoln, who guided America through its bloodiest war, but ultimately fell. The narrator breaks off a lilac from those growing around his home and takes it to Lincoln’s coffin. He also states that flowers are for all the coffins, the others who had died in the war, I break the sprigs from the bushes, / With loaded arms I come, pouring for you, / For you and the coffins all of you O death” (canto 7, lines 7-9). Of the star, the narrator says that he “saw you had something to tell as you bent to me night after night” about a month before Lincoln’s assassination, when the star then “dropt in the night, and was gone” (canto 8, lines 4, 11). The narrator does not know how to properly commemorate his loss, “And what shall the pictures be that I hang on the walls, / To adorn the burial-house of him I love,” but is slowly progressing towards the acceptance of death (canto 11, lines
Much of it is autobiographical and also projects who Whitman wishes to be. Whitman believes that his poem works the best when readers actively and creatively participate. “Song of Myself” expands on the different versions of Whitman through time and how he his writing was heavily influenced by his surroundings. Part one opens the epic with a celebration of self. This sets the mood of the poem with an uplifting tone of self-love. The narrator is easy-going, at least in this moment, and mentions small details about family and himself, such as “I, now thirty-seven years old in perfect health” (10). In the second part, Whitman uses perfume as a metaphor for other people, saying places are filled with perfumes and while the smell is nice, it is overbearing. While he likes company, the narrator will not let others affect or change him, even if they are close. He draws references to nature, and how the atmosphere is not a perfume, so nature will not try to change him. Nature will take him as he is. Going to nature, he feels all of his senses and he can feel his body working, “...the beating of my heart, the passing of blood and air through my lungs” (30-31). He invites the reader in towards the latter half and directly addresses the reader with questions. He invites the reader to learn with him and to find the meaning behind all poetry, but to make their own opinions with all the knowledge