Also Read
I am the poet of the Body and I am the poet of the Soul,
The pleasures of heaven are with me and the pains of hell are with me,
The first I graft and increase upon myself, the latter I translate into a new tongue.
I am the poet of the woman the same as the man,
And I say it is as great to be a woman as to be a man,
And I say there is nothing greater than the mother of men.
I chant the chant of dilation or pride,
We have had ducking and deprecating about enough,
I show that size is only development.
Have you outstript the rest? are you the President?
It is a trifle, they will more than arrive there every one, and still pass on.
I am he that walks with the tender and growing night,
I call to the earth and sea half-held by the night.
Press close bare-bosom’d night—press close magnetic nourishing night!
Night of south winds—night of the large few stars!
Still nodding night—mad naked summer night.
Smile O voluptuous cool-breath’d earth!
Earth of the slumbering and liquid trees!
Earth of departed sunset—earth of the mountains misty-topt!
Earth of the vitreous pour of the full moon just tinged with blue!
Earth of shine and dark mottling the tide of the river!
Earth of the limpid gray of clouds brighter and clearer for my sake!
Far-swooping elbow’d earth—rich apple-blossom’d earth!
Smile, for your lover comes.
Prodigal, you have given me love—therefore I to you give love!
O unspeakable passionate love.
EXPLANATION WITH CRITICAL ANALYSIS
I am the poet of the Body and I am the poet of the Soul.The pleasures of heaven are with me and the pains of hell are with me.
These lines epitomize the vocation of the poet Whitman. This is the gist of what he is going to sing eloquently in his Song of Myself. He refers to himself as the Poet of the Body and Soul. The body and the soul are not unequal entities. One is not superior to the other. Both are equal to the poet. He would sing of the glory of the body which attains more grandeur because of the soul. One is meaningless without the other. He also shows that heaven and hell are not external factors. They are the feelings which are inherent in every human being. It is up to a human being to make heaven or hell out of his life. Heaven and hell are the joys and suffering which form the essence of the life of a man made up of body and soul.
SUMMARY AND CRITICAL APPRECIATION
This section authentically presents the vocation of the poet Whitman. It also reflects how Whitman broke away from the shackles of old poetry. He became a pioneer of a new wave of poetry. The main qualities of the new poetry, according to Whitman, were suggestiveness, comradeship, and its sign posts good cheer, content and hope. He treats sex in a frank manner, which was taboo in earlier poetry. Whitman describes Leaves of Grass as “avowedly the song of sex and Amativeness, and even Animality-difficult as it will be, it has become, in my opinion, imperative to achieve a shifted attitude from superior men and women towards the thought and fad of sexuality as an element in character, personality, the emotion and a theme in literature...”. The new poetry, to quote Whitman’s words
I am the poet of the Body andI am poet of the soul, ....I am the poet of the woman the same as the man
He would deal with passions and feelings, good and bad, in his poetry. These were not dealt with in earlier poetry. The new poetry will be more realistic. It would picture the day-to-day life as seen by the poet. There would be no modifications or alterations, While writing about the life and nature around, he would present them as he saw them, in a lucid manner. To quote his own words: “The greatest poet has a less marked style and is more the channel of thoughts and things without increase or diminution and is the free channel of himself .... what I tell, I tell for precisely what it is .... You shall stand by my side and look in the mirror with me .....”
WHITMAN CELEBRATES EQUALITY
This section shows him as the poet of man, woman, nature, and democracy. It exhibits the sexual aspect also when he writes:
I call to the earth and sea half-held by the night, Press dose bare-bosom’d night-mad naked summer night.Smile voluptuous cool'breath’d earth!....I say it is as great to be a woman as to be a man....
He considers all men and women as equal. He has a higher respect for woman as she is “the mother of men”. He does not consider anyone as superior.
He says that the President also is as great as any other human being. The poet’s “self” thus expands, embraces all humanity and attains the cosmic level. He takes delight in seeing the horizon where, he feels, the Earth and the sea are in a close embrace. The ‘unspeakable passionate love’ exists between him and nature. The symbolic physical love transcends into the love of the divine creation. This results in the union of the soul; of the ‘self’ with the cosmos.