The purpose of this research is to provide an analysis of a short, significant part of Walt Whitman's "Song of Myself," relating that part to the whole poem itself.
The part of "Song of Myself" to be analyzed thus is:
I have no chair, no church, no philosophy,
I lead no man to a dinner-table, library, exchange,
But each man and each woman of you I lead upon a knoll,
My left hand hooking you round the waist,
My right hand pointing to landscapes of continents and the public road.
Not I, not any one else can travel that road for you,
You must travel it for yourself (Whitman 69).
These seven lines are taken from the 46th "paragraph" of Whitman's poem. The first five lines summarize his vision of his own role as a poet; the last two lines explain Whitman's idea of the role that each individual reader must play in the journey through both life and the poem itself. The points made in these lines reflect the heart of the message carried by the entire poemù-that the poet and the reader are travelling companions rather than teacher-and-student. Their travels include local and continental and cosmic excursions; and that each individual alone has the map and the legs that will carry him or her through that journey, over that road. These declarations apply as much to Whitman's entire collection of poetry, but here we will be singly concerned with the relationship of the above-quoted seven lines and the poem from which they are takenù-Whitman's "Song of Myself."
The first line of "Song of Myself"-ù"I celebrate myself, and sing myself" (Whitman 24)ù-typify Whitman's stance throughout the whole poem, and especially echo the sentiments expressed in the seven lines we are studying here. Whitman is saying that, as he celebrates and sings his consciousness of the world, his consciousness of himself, and his consciousness of consciousness itself. Each individual reader make his or her own unique way into, throu...