Questions on "Song of Myself"

1. Who is this poet and what happens to him? Also consider in stanza #5, what is happening to the poet's body and soul. What wisdom comes from this transformation?

2. His subject matter: what does it include? What seems most important.

3. The form: grass as symbol. What other characteristics of the form of the poem do you see as unusual (and romantic?)?

4. The reader: promises and projection. Also consider what relationship the poet establishes initially with "you," his reader? What sort of person does he seem to be? What does he reject and what does he embrace? What promises does he make?

Consider the stylistic characteristics of the poem: the catalogues (such as #15); the repetitions of syntactic structures; the frequent participial verbs (-ing endings); any others that strike you. Perhaps more than any other writer, Whitman subscribed to the organic theory of writing: that the style must be organically part of the meaning (not imposed mechanically in any way). Think about how any of these stylistic characteristics are essential to his meaning.

By the end of the poem, where is Whitman in regard to the reader? How has the "I" changed in the poem through its experiences? How is the reader supposed to finally understand the "I"?