The Song About Myself Is One of the Creations of Leaves of Grass

Literature is the foundation of life. The meaning of literature is any written work. It focuses in many topics that took from human tragedies and transfer it to tales if love. Also literature refers to the life experiences from the saddest stories to the most joyful ones that will touch their hearts. There are many purposes to literature, which are: a material to explore what is to be human. Also, it is a way for communication with others around large group of ideas and concerns.

Walt Whitman was one of an important American writer, he was an American poet, essayist and journalist. Its work was controversial in its time exactly his poetry collection “Leaves of Grass”. The aim of my study is to examine the concept of self in “Song of Myself” (one of Walt Whitman works). Many researches have been conducted on exploring the concept of self in “Song of Myself” and the things that was effected on. Many studies have been conducted on exploring the concept of self in this poem such as:

The first study (Kurraz, 2015) explores the Ingredients of Walt Whitman’s poetic self that was represented in body and soul.

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The study focuses in the poem of “Song of My Self” which shows some symbols that related to his life and the things which changed him to another person, who loves the loneliness and sit apart of people, and it created a new characteristic for him. This change resulted because it was in the postmodern practices, human identity has some difficulties and pressures that cause to damage the human self and confuse it, and this related to the American nation in that time and their wrong ideas/ concepts about the equality, community, racism, segregation, sexism and Marxism.

In this poem Whitman tries to reconcile his hopes with this dream within the changes in the political and cultural of his time. Also, he tries to reconcile himself with his contemporary social and political habits in his society after experiencing instability.

The aim of Whitman’s poetic is revealing the nature of the poet’s journey through his life and the spiritual knowledge as (Buke,1972) comments “song” represents an actual self-experiences occurred in1853.

The results of this study showed:

1. Whitman applied the “revolutionary religious doctrine” as a defense mechanism against his deep feeling of suppression, depression, confusion and estrangement, and how he saw that the good poetic’s self is which doesn’t have any bad feelings like confusion. He states that the self must be strong to complete the life, and it has full awareness of the integrity of the body and soul and to achieve the balance between the various aspects of the culture.
2. In this song he expresses the self as confused, and it could be for any person who has the same feelings or experiences, that expressed in this poem.
3. Moreover, he interprets the self as his masculine that refers to American itself, the American soul and his more ambiguous persona.
4. The study found that the poet finally recognized that life is eternal while bodies will die and only their thoughts and works that will live. Also, he stated that he must do what he wants against the difficult circumstances. he expresses his feelings and experiences in this poem to the readers to encourage them to build their dreams and thoughts to be able to build their societies / worlds.

The other study provides analysis about the poem of “Song of Myself” and expresses structure, mode, tone of this poem. Also, it shows the various sections of the poem and the stages that the poet went through.

It found that this poem has 6 sections which are:

1. The mysterious situation.
2. Self-awakening.
3. Self-purification.
4. The light and the night of the soul.
5. Union in terms of emphasis on faith and love/ focus on perception.
6. Finally, getting out of the mysterious situation.

(Cowley,1855) provides a comparison between “Song of Myself” and “Four Quartets in terms the meaning of life, death and the mysterious experience.

(Waggoner, 1968) explores that this poem considered as Whitman’s most important and most characteristic work.

“Song of Myself is mystical poem, and it summarizes the journey of the most traditional Christian mystics by emphasizing the goodness of the created world, and it is one of the most self-revealing poems in literature. Moreover, Whitman considered himself as a prophet, and he stated that duty of the prophet is to always be right.

The results that this study found it are:

1. This poem is considered the greatest long poem in American literature which considered the self as the hero of the poem that was portrayed as America, and it referred to the self as the personality that tries to define itself through its repeated attempts, but at the end it does not get a suitable definition for it.
2. He also portrays himself as the leaves of grass that suffer and possess the distinctive American characteristics, which are tolerance, equality and fun.

(Miller Jr, 1953) showed that his poem has undergone several modifications and this study is one of them. Whitman searches for freedom and tries to do the ethics appropriate for his time.

In a similar study, (Kolbe, 2009) explains the contradictions in this poem between Whitman’s works which were misunderstand by people in his time and the contradictions which Whitman tries to do to fix himself to be a prophet who suffered a lot and he had a lot of experiences that he can show it to the people. This study shows that, there is a contradiction between his passion to achieve himself and his desire to be a lone.

This study provides detailed analysis about the poem, Whitman’s life and Whitman’s split poetic personalities. Moreover, it explores that we have many characters to the poet in this poem such as: the narrator, the hero, the Christ, sympathetic, traveler, superman, soul, myself, Mr. and rough man and all of these terms refer to different actions in poet’s life.

It showed that Whitman had a great passion to try everything that comes to his mind, and this made many problems to him and suffered a lot, so he preferred to ne a lone, so he decided to make his relationship with his God strong.

This study stated that “Song of Myself” talks about a slave who is escaping from the cruelty of life and his bad actions, because he was attacked on all sides by fanatics and supporters so, he decided to develop/ improve himself.

The results of this study are:

1. Self considers in this poem as Whitman’s muse which is a kind of spiritual self that is genius and it has super power and it is the hero, who searches about the spirituality unity that damaged from devastating encounters. The soul considered as the dark side or the alienated element, that separated to contemplate the nature to make a new character (distinctive).
2. The study stated that “Myself” is a deeply personal and internal figure that considered as a part from the experience of life and the narrator’s access to it exceeds some external boundaries in this time.
3. Also, “Myself” was represented in the experience and feelings that underlying physical negativity. There are several characters that appear to represent the poet like coarse (embodies the aggressive sexual life and potential violence with the ideal blood man who has self-confident, the hero and who has good relation with people.
4. Whitman describes himself as a mysterious inner being who still like the narrator’s personal experience accumulates, who represents a spiritual part of separation thoughts and emotions of its owner.
5. This character is as a partial mirror of the poet who is watching himself through it, he likes the hero who changes himself to a new character who can be different person.

(Bauerlein,1986) conducted a study to illustrate the style that poet uses in the poem to influence the reader, and he explained the aesthetic images and the metaphor in this poem, the poet’s relationship to nature and describes his journey with frustration and despair, but he overcame all these difficulties in the end.

Also, his study shows the role of the language that used in the poem to understand the meaning of the poem in terms of existence of imaginary verbs that make the relationship appear strong and familiar between the listener and the speaker by common experiences. The content of the poem revolves around the poetic self that the poet merges the entire universe into that self. Whitman’s all- encompassing vision offers all the experience, good and bad, pleasure and pain in his expanding self.

The results of this study are:

1. The self is anything that the poet did not understand, whether it is traditions or actions that did not arise in himself and he did not accept it. He thinks that he has a kind of cosmic consciousness.
2. The self is the poetic self, which witness a contradictory relationship between what he wants and what he contemplates, and the self is also interpreted as the same reader who reads the poem.

The last study (Qasim, 2018) explains the meaning of the self as Whitman’s describes it as his journey (the journey of the self) and he invites others to it because he thinks it arouses the senses, and embraces all people and places from the Atlantic to the Pacific. Also, he thinks that when the self understands what is going on around it or around the world it can contain the whole world, which gives it the freedom to express itself. This study shows that, the freedom that is celebrated in the poem is the independence from the old restrictive systems.

The self must accept the facts, the self must not deny any of its aspects and accept everything in it. Whitman mentions that the accomplished personality is who can communicate with others, doesn’t deny anything and be ready to meet anyone and to try anything to reach self-sufficiency and to the point of perfection.

The poem includes several characters based on each journey, where he divided the stages into 4 stages:

the first is being that he becomes aware of himself. In the second stage, his concept of self evolves to include the souls of all men. In the third stage, God embraces, and in the fourth stage he embraces / realizes the entire universe, and this explains that the poem begins in the self, and returns to the self, so this shows that his experience with the infinite self is universal and not eccentric.

The results of this study are:

1. Whitman considers that the self is the same as the entire world, and not just himself, it refers to all humanity. Self-discovery takes place through a sense of joy, well-being and self-acceptance as it is, and by building more personal relationships with reality.
2. Whitman also calls himself 'Cosmos', which means the universal self that loves everyone (for all humanity) and speaks with the voices of people (the voices of men, animals, and even instincts).
3. Also, Whitman considers the self as a process like any other process such as life and experience, process is a continuous and comprehensive process for all aspects, so the self is also continuous and comprehensive, and he describes the self as the endless procession of his journey / career and there is no port where this ship / procession can be docked and get comfort Also, it must be explored about all aspects of life and eternally in the meaning of the self, which Whitman envisions is a link in the great chain of life.

These studies summarized the life of the poet and the difficult circumstances that he was suffering from and changed him to another person, who established himself and achieved many achievements that help him to continue his life. Many of Critics and readers confused in the definition of the word “self” in this poem and they defined it as the situation of the poet in the poem. There are many definitions that appeared for the word “self” (which considers the hero of the poem) that will help me in my research such as the poet’s self, the readers, the leaves of grass, America, the poet’s experiences and the things that the poet lost it. He tries to document his hopes in political and cultural changes and reconcile his social and political habits after suffering from instability. Also, Whitman encourages the people to discover their selves and the surrounding world.

References:

1. Bauerlein. M. (1986). The Written Orator of 'Song of Myself': A Recent Trend in The Written Orator of 'Song of Myself': A Recent Trend in Whitman Criticism. Walt Whitman Quar Terly Review, 3,1-12. https://ir.uiowa.edu/wwqr/vol3/iss3/2/
2. Cowley. M. (1855). ANALYSIS “Song of Myself,” Leaves of Grass. Introduction, Leaves of Grass, 1, 9-11. www.amerlit.com/poems/POEMS%20Whitman,%20Walt%20Song%20of%20Mysel
3. Kolbe. B. (2009). Walt Whitman’s Split Poetic Personalities. Brandeis University,1,3-39. http://bir.brandeis.edu/bitstream/handle/10192/23301/WHITMAN%20THESIS%20BK.pdf;sequence=1
4. Kurraz. A. (2015). Revisiting Walt Whitman's 'Song of Myself ': The Poetics of Human Self and Identity. Al-Azhar University – Gaza, 29(8), 2-19. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/283346747_Revisiting_Walt_Whitman's_Song_of_Myself_The_Poetics_of_Human_Self_and_Identity
5. Miller, Jr. J. (1953). ANALYSIS “Song of Myself,” Leaves of Grass. The Literature of the United States II,2,1-2. www.amerlit.com/poems/POEMS%20Whitman,%20Walt%20Song%20of%20Mysel
6. Qasim. K. (2018). Exploration of The Concept of I in Walt Whitman's Songs Of Myself. International Islamic University. Islambad, 3, 39-5. https://www.researchgate.net/institution/International_Islamic_University_Islamabad
7. Waggoner. H. (1968). ANALYSIS “Song of Myself,” Leaves of Grass . American Poets: From the Puritans to the Present,2, 174-76. www.amerlit.com/poems/POEMS%20Whitman,%20Walt%20Song%20of%20Mysel