"For every atom belonging to me as good as belongs to you." (l. 3)
How would you describe the status of the body in Whitman's poem At what points in the poem does Whitman have a strong bodily presence and at what points does he seem bodiless? To what extent is Whitman's "Me" dependent on his physical self? How does he relate to other people: as bodies? as souls? Find an example to discuss that seems important, or relevant, or weird.
Reading Whitman for the first time can be a disorienting experience. In addition to responding to the question above, feel free to post questions that came up for you while reading.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
9 comments:
In “Song of Myself” Whitman seems to give the body a high status, at least when he is talking about his own body. Whitman thinks of his body as being divine: “Divine am I inside and out…If I worship one thing more than another it shall be the spread of my own body or any part of it” (2249). If he considers his body as being divine he must consider it to have a high status. He also describes how “the soul is not more than the body” (2272). Here Whitman is ascribing the body the same status at the soul, which is traditionally thought to have a higher status.
Although Whitman has somewhat of a bodily presence in certain parts of the poem, he is mostly bodiless throughout the poem. He has a strong bodily presence when he is describing his own body. On page 2233 Whitman describes his bodily sensations such as respiration and he beating of his heart. He is very aware of his body. He also describes how his body perceives aspects of nature through his sense of smell and his hearing: “The sniff of green leaves and dry leaves, and of the shore and dark-color’d se-rocks, and of hay in the barn, the sound of the belch’d words of my voice loos’d to the eddies of the wind.” Whitman seems bodiless and also omnipresent when describing his numerous observations. He also mentions how he is everyone: “In all people I see myself, not one a barley-corn less” and everything: “I depart as air, I shake my white locks at the runaway sun, I effuse my flesh in eddies, and drift in lacy jabs. I bequeath myself to the dirt to grow from the grass I love, If you want me again look for me under your boot soles.” Whitman seems bodiless when he discusses his immortality, which he does on multiple occasions.
I do not think that Whitman’s “Me” is dependent on the physical self due in part to the fact that he is bodiless through most of the poem. In addition, he describes how such physical things as illness, lack of money, and depression are “not the Me myself”(2234).
I agree with Tara P. that Walt Whitman gives the body a high status. Throughout the poem "Song of Myself" Whitman tries to tie nature in with God and human beings. In the beginning of the free verse he talks about his "tongue, every atom of his blood" (2232) He goes on to say that they form the soil and the air, which ties in his pantheistic view of the world around him into his poetry. He loses his sense of body when he talks about the soul in the sections of passage 21, when he states that "I am the poet of the Body and I am the poet of the Soul." However, he does not put a hierarchy to either the 'Body' or 'Soul' as Tara has already mentioned. He sees them as equal counterparts and equally essential to fulfilling 'myself.' (Whitman) He writes, "Divine am I inside and out." (2249) This is further evidence that Whitman does not hold one over the other.
Another time when Whitman has a strong sense of body and physical interaction in his writing when he describes the stallion. (2254) He describes how he outpaces the graceful stallion. We can use our mind to send us off to places far away, further than any stallion could take us at its fastest gallop.
If I can recall my Junior year of English correctly and interpreted this poem somewhat satisfactorily, Whitman believes that we are all connected, body and soul. We all live on this world and are united as one. He says, "I am the old and young...maternal as well as paternal..." (2243) He demonstrates his belief that "In all people I see myself." (2245)
Whitman’s “Me” is not dependent of his physical self. In part it is, but as mentioned above, he does not hold his physical status at a more prestige level than his spiritual self. (soul) He believes that he is everybody. He defines them as their actions. “The canal boy trots on the tow-path; Yankee girl works with her sewing machine.” (2242) He identifies himself with everyone as he believes we are all connected in this pantheistic world as mentioned before. Eventually he returns to nature. “I depart as air…I effuse my flesh in eddies.”
Off topic, I agree with his quotation: I too am not a bit tamed, I too am untranslatable.” (2274) I think others will agree.
In “Song Of Myself”, Whitman goes back and forth between a strong bodily presence and being nearly bodiless. He opens with “I celebrate myself and sing myself” (2232), which hints at a strong bodily presence. However, as the poem progresses the line between Whitman himself and society as a whole becomes very blurry. This is seen in Tara’s example of how Whitman believes he is in everyone. Not only that, but Whitman also does not make a distinction between humans and the actual Earth either. An example of this is when he states”grass itself is a child”. Whitman stresses the fact that we are all connected on earth by saying “all the men ever born are also my brothers, and the women my sisters”. He becomes bodiless again however, when he cycles through the everyday actions of carpenters, machinists, and even wolverines.
As the poem continues, Whitman becomes very unclear as a “self” in the poem. As Eric previously mentioned he states “I am maternal as well as paternal, a child as well as a man”, highlighting again the bodiless sense that the reader gets. Whitman certainly worships his own body as seen when he states “If I worship one thing more than another it shall be the spread of my own body”, however as others have previously mentioned he does not favor body over soul or vice versa. Whitman is very fixated on the idea of death throughout the poem. In fact he views it in a positive sense stating” I hasten to inform him or her that it is just as lucky to die, I know it”. Whitman goes on to describe himself as “deathless”, perhaps reiterating the fact that we all live within each other even if our physical bodies no longer reside on the earth.
Whitman disregards all forms of social class systems when he states that “For every atom belonging to me as good as belongs to you”. He is able to connect everyone on earth into one category for the sole reason that we are all humans, and that parts of us are within one another no matter whom we are or where we come from.
Whitman seems to value his body above all else, claiming that it is more powerful than God. This empowering of the human body allows him to relate everything to the self. He allows the body and soul to be on the same level, writing: “I have said that the soul is not more than the body, And I have said that the body is not more than the soul, And nothing, not God, is greater to one than one’s self is” (48, 1269-71). In this way, he tries to establish a strong physical bodily presence by allowing the physical to be equal with the mental and emotional.
At the same time, however, his style of writing seems to create the illusion that he is bodiless. He allows himself, as Tara P. wrote, to exist in multiple areas/forms. He states that he is present in each person, writing “I teach straying from me, yet who can stray from me? I follow you whoever you are from the present hour” (47, 1244). Through this statement, Whitman suggests that he is in multiple places at once, with various groups of people. The reader, therefore, assumes that he is bodiless in that he can exist with all peoples in all places.
Like tara and eric I think that Whitman gives the body a high status. He seems to be very aware of his body and how his physical presence and state can effect his overall effect. In the first few pages he talks of "admiring himself" and also how no inch of himself is vile and that every part is completely familiar to him. I think this is a very different way of dealing with place and space. A physical awareness and control can greatly affect a mental presence as well. He also talks about his soul. And I have to admit much of this writing I dont think I fully grasped but I interpreted as he has a great respect and awareness of his soul. "I believe in you my soul, the other I am must not abase itself to you, And you must not be abased to the other." I think he is saying, and goes on to say is that he should interpret the soul as a seperate being. He only likes the lull, the "hum of your valved voice". Rather than listening to his soul as a sort of inner voice telling him what his passions, loves, and purpose is, he simply enjoys the soul's presence and being able to feel it, much like his body. Overall I struggled through both the content of poem and also the form. It almost gave me new appreciation for Thoreau.
:)
I would have to agree with Tara's statement that Whitman's "Song of Myself" places the physical body in high status. Not only does Whitman think of his own body as divine, but he also believes this to be true of any physical body. The mere fact that, like Tara said, he places the body and soul with the level of value, clearly shows his belief that the body is a precious and divine entity. I thought Whitman's interaction within the poem with others reiterated this fact. On page 2238 Whitman speaks about a female who is watching on as twenty eight males bath in the water. She wishes to join in with the men, but stays at a distance. The woman is clearly fasinated with the male body, "the beards of the young men glisten'd with wet, it ran from their long hair, little streams pass'd over their bodies" (2239). Whitman's eroticized details of males, as with other human bodies throughout the passage, show his adoration of the human body.
As many have mentioned before, Whitman seems to fluctuate between a strong connection with the physical body and a serious presence of mind. I would argue, however, that it is not meant to be seen as being at one moment one, and in the next moment another, but an odd amalgam of the two, in which Whitman is everyone and everywhere at all times, yet secure in his identity and his own physical body.
The soul, spirit, it seems to me, is the universal aspect of himself- with it and through it he embodies others. Upon retelling a distinguished naval battle “as my grandmother’s father the sailor told it to me,” (897-900), Whitman immediately begins to speak as though he were present at the event, as if he is the leading character, becoming then both his grandmother’s father and the sea captain himself, and all the dead about him who’s identity Whitman has assumed through this discourse. He does not trade his body for their body, but assumes their stories and characteristics through his own transcending spirit, telling the reader “You shall not look through my eyes either, nor rake things from me,/You shall listen to all sides and filter them from yourself,” (36-37). Similarly, his character has a rather spectral quality to it in the poem, ever-present and lurking on the scenes of history. When he says “all goes onward and outward, nothing collapses/And to die is different from what any one supposed,” (129-130) he does not mean to say the physical body, for he notes “I see that the elementary laws never apologize,” (415), but that the collective spirit knows no end, and is timeless.
The body, on the other hand becomes the most distinguishing feature, the part that keeps people unique from each other and from animals. While he posits that grass may be some left over part of man, imbued with spirit, when he is speaking of animals Whitman rarely describes them beyond their physical forms and actions, which man would not attend to. He does not credit them to this seeking soul that men posses, saying “I think I could turn and live with animals, they are so placid and self-contain’d,” (684-685). In describing the lives of others he lists the actions they make due to their vocations, their places in history, those aspects that retain their separateness from him even when they are melded together.
In concluding Whitman reminds us “I have said that the soul is not more than the body, /And I have said that the body is not more than the soul,” (1269-1280) and it seems that his sense of self is preserved in the same ratio, a self-admitted egoist, vampire of others’ experiences, continually grounded by his enjoyable entrenchment in the physical world.
Whitman’s “Me” is dependent on his physical self. Both the “Me” and the physical self have to mutually agree that one is not significant or insignificant to the other to keep the peace. “ I believe in you my soul, the other I am must not abase itself to you, and you must not be abased to the other”(lines 82-83) So that when the two are in harmony they can fully complement Whitman as a physical and spiritual being.
I really like the imagery that the following passage implies. It’s like the moment right when his soul is ready to divide from his body. “My ties and ballasts leave me, my elbows rest in sea-gaps, I skirt sierras, my palms cover continents,I am afoot with my vision” (lines 714-716).
Whitman talks about his soul in a very psychedelic manner. He alludes to the idea that his soul has the ability to transport anywhere to observe and connect with its surroundings. “Speeding through space, speeding through heaven and the stars, Speeding amid the seven satellites and the broad ring, and the diameter of eighty thousand miles…Storming, enjoying, planning, loving, cautioning, Backing and filling, appearing and disappearing…I fly those flights of a fluid and swallowing soul” (lines 791-800) In my mind it creates the image of a colorful light just soaring through the sky. His soul also makes me think of like when a caged bird is released enjoying its freedom outside before it has to return to its pen.
The following phrase has no real relevance to the blog question yet it really stood out while I was reading. “The clock indicates the moment – but what does eternity indicate?”(Line 1137)
This is a rewrite of my comment. I had it all planned out, and then deleted it from the box...so here goes.
While I agree with Whitman's belief in the importance of body and soul as others have pointed out, I think he means to say that they serve different purposes and thus are equally important. What I gathered from reading "Song of Myself" is that the body represents the potential of connection and interaction, while the soul is the motivation and inspiration for such acts. In the 15th "stanza", Whitman enumerates dozens of bodies and their actions, in a seemingly random fashion. He obviously cannot be present, so the listed events must be in either is past, or currently happening. In either case, his physical presences is of little importance. The emotions related to each act listed show the connection of people, rather a social soul, as everyone goes through The anxiety of the hunter, the desperation of the prostitute, and the happiness of the riding children. At the end, Whitman adds that, "these tend inward to me, and I tend outward to them/ And such as it is to be of these more or less I am". Yoda-like speech aside, Whitman means to point out the healing power of the soul, that you can look inward and understand that others experience similar situations. Whitman later adds also that “I am of every rank and religion”, opposing the traditional idea of spiritually according to certain religion. He instead believes that the individual and their actions are the real source of power, the motivation of the soul and the body expressing it. The example of the woman watching the twenty eight men bathing, bar far one of the most bizarre references, again points out that the soul wants to express an undying urge to physically (sexually in this case) connect, but for some reason the body is incapable of expressing it, possibly due to some outside force battling against the unified soul and body. I shy away from using the word “dependant” when referencing the idea of “Me” in “Song of Myself” but would rather substitute the words “symbiotic with.” The body needs inspiration from the “me” and the “me” is useless without the ability of the body.
Post a Comment