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“Song of Myself” as Inverted Mystical Experience

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 December 2020

James E. Miller Jr.
James E. Miller Jr.*
Affiliation:
University of Nebraska, Lincoln 8
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Extract

Whitman's “Song of Myself” has long been considered a loosely organized, perhaps even chaotic poem which is held together, if at all, by his own robust personality. He himself may have contributed to this concept of the poem. Untitled when it appeared in the first edition of Leaves of Grass in 1855, it was called “Poem of Walt Whitman, an American” in the 1856 edition; “Walt Whitman” in the 1860 edition, and was given the present title in the 1881 edition. This frequent change of title together with the many revisions made in the numbering of the sections and in the text itself suggests one of two possibilities: either Whitman was uncertain, perhaps confused as to the basic nature of what he was writing; or he was struggling to perfect a work of art the execution of which had fallen short of the conception. Too frequently the critics have assumed as self-evident the first of these possibilities. Inability to find a structure in “Song of Myself” has resulted, I believe, from a failure to find a center of relevancy, an “informing idea,” to which the parts of the poem may be related. It is the purpose of this paper to propose such a center, to show how it gives structure to the poem, and to examine the parts of the poem in detail to test their relevancy to this central “informing idea.”

Type
Research Article
Information
PMLA , Volume 70 , Issue 4-Part-1 , September 1955 , pp. 636 - 661
Copyright
Copyright © Modern Language Association of America, 1955

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References

Note 1 in page 636 A notable exception is Carl F. Strauch, “The Structure of Walt Whitman's 'Song of Myself,” English Journal, xxvii (Sept. 1938), 597–607. Strauch's analysis of the poem, in which he combines sections 1–18, 19–25, 26–38, 39–41, 42–52, has been widely quoted. Although my analysis differs considerably from his, I agree thoroughly with his basic thesis that the poem has a structure and that “Whitman was in command of his materials.” Gay Wilson Allen's valuable Walt Whitman Handbook (Chicago: Packard, 1946) also contains an illuminating discussion of “Song of Myself” (pp. 114–121).

2. Mysticism: A Study in the Nature and Development of Man's Spiritual Consciousness (London: Methuen, 1926), 11th ed., used here. The 1st ed. appeared in 1911.

Note 3 in page 637 Varieties of Religious Experience (New York, 1920), pp. 395–396. James cites section 5 of “Song of Myself” as an expression of the “sporadic type” of mystical experience.

Note 4 in page 638 All quotations from “Song of Myself” may be easily located by my references to the sections of the poem. I have used the so-called Deathbed edition of Leaves of Grass as it appears in The Complete Writings of Wall Whitman (New York, 1902), ed. Oscar Lovell Triggs.

Note 5 in page 640 Underbill, p. 205.

Note 6 in page 640 Underbill, p. 213.

Note 7 in page 644 Underbill, p. 205.

Note 8 in page 649 Among these traits, the only one which resembles the ideal of the mystic is the indifference to “owning things.” In the purification of self, the traditional mystic cultivates poverty, chastity, and obedience, all of which results in the desired humility. (Underhill, pp. 247–248.)

Note 9 in page 649 Underhill, p. 205.

Note 10 in page 650 Underbill, p. 289: One of the characteristics of the stage of Illumination is that the “self perceives an added significance and reality in all natural things: is often convince! that it knows the ‘secret of the world’.”

Note 11 in page 650 Underhill, p. 289. Another characteristic of Illumination.

Note 12 in page 651 Underhill, p. 206.

Note 13 in page 652 Underhill, p. 207, 497. These are characteristics of Union.

Note 14 in page 654 Underhill, pp. 497–498.

Note 15 in page 655 There are echoes in this stanza of several biblical passages. The reference to the spiritually dead (“dimes on the eyes walking”) is similar to Christ's in his advice to let the dead bury their own dead (Luke ix.60). The rich who are so busy buying and selling that they never once go “into the feast” are similar to those who refused the invitation in Christ's parable of the great supper (Luke xiv.16–24).

Note 16 in page 656 Evelyn Underhill, p. 100: “True mystical experience is the most complete and most difficult expression of life which is as yet possible to man. It is at once an act of love, an act of union, and an act of supreme perception; a trinity of experiences which meets and satisfies the three activities of self.”

Note 17 in page 657 Joseph Beaver's Walt Whitman—Poet of Science (New York: King's Crown Press 1951) gives many excellent interpretations of the passages in “Song of Myself” containing scientific imagery.

Note 18 in page 660 Underhill, p. 206.