Song of Myself: Motifs

Self versus Other

From the very beginning of the poem, the speaker establishes a relationship between “I” and “you”—which is to say, between self and other. In the opening section, self and other are kept distinct (lines 36–37):

You shall not look through my eyes either, nor take things from me,
You shall listen to all sides and filter them from your self.

As the poem progresses, however, self and other gradually blur together. By the poem’s end, the initial distinction falls away completely, such that the “I” and the “you” become one and the same (lines 1247–49):

I do not say these things for a dollar or to fill up the time while I wait for a boat,
(It is you talking just as much as myself, I act as the tongue of you,
Tied in your mouth, in mine it begins to be loosen’d.)

Here, the speaker insists that his speech doesn’t fully belong to him, and that “I” and “you” are somehow fundamentally connected through the speech act: “I act as the tongue of you.” For Whitman’s speaker, this blurring of boundaries between self and other is no cause for concern. Whereas in other literary contexts such blurring might indicate psychosis or mental breakdown, here it signals the inherent interconnection between beings. Whitman’s speaker doesn’t think of beings as completely distinct. Instead, the boundary between self and other is porous, always allowing for the type of dynamic interchange the speaker refers to elsewhere as “influx and efflux” (line 459).

“Omni-”

One linguistic motif that carries through “Song of Myself” relates to the appearance of words featuring the prefix “omni-.” Omni is a Latin word that means “all,” and when used as a prefix it signals a degree of all-encompassing expansiveness. The first word to appear with this prefix is “omnibus” (line 155). Omnibus is an old-fashioned word for what we now simply refer to as a bus. However, the word’s etymology is telling. That is, it’s a bus that will transport anyone and everyone. The second “omni” word in the poem is “omnific” (line 661), which means “all-encompassing,” or “all-creating.” The third “omni” word is even more ambitious: “omnigenous” (693). This word, which literally means “of all kinds,” signifies exceptional and even unlimited diversity. The fourth and final “omni” word in the poem is perhaps more familiar: “omnivorous” (line 1084), which means “all-devouring.” Though each of these words has a specific meaning in context, taken together they reflect the breadth of the speaker’s awareness and his expansive sense of interconnection. They also hint at a fifth “omni” word that indicates the speaker’s aspiration to become all-seeing and all-knowing: omniscience.

Touch

“Song of Myself” is filled with references to touch and physical intimacy, which communicate the speaker’s investment in sensuality. At times the images of touch are clearly sexual, and often homoerotic in nature. In section 24, for instance, the speaker embarks on an extended passage that’s saturated with queer innuendo (lines 527–542):

If I worship one thing more than another it shall be the spread of my own body, or any part of it,
Translucent mould of me it shall be you!
Shaded ledges and rests it shall be you!
Firm masculine colter it shall be you!
. . .
Mix’d tussled hay of head, beard, brawn, it shall be you!
Trickling sap of maple, fibre of manly wheat, it shall be you!
Sun so generous it shall be you!
Vapors lighting and shading my face it shall be you!
You sweaty brooks and dews it shall be you!
Winds whose soft-tickling genitals rub against me it shall be you!
Broad muscular fields, branches of live oak, loving lounger in my winding paths, it shall be you!

The various references to that which is “masculine,” “manly,” and “muscular” communicate a clear fascination with the male body. But what’s even more potent in this passage is the physicality of engagement with the male body, as with the “mix’d tussle hay of head, beard, brawn.” Elsewhere in the poem, touch takes less obviously sexual forms. In section 27, for instance, the speaker references a wider range of physical contact (lines 614–617):

Mine is no callous shell,
I have instant conductors all over me whether I pass or stop,
They seize every object and lead it harmlessly through me.
I merely stir, press, feel with my fingers, and am happy

Here, the speaker’s body becomes a conduit for many types of touch that at once include and exceed sexuality. For the speaker, entering a relationship of physical proximity with another being offers a profound experience of interconnection. Whether that being is a lover or, say, a bed of grass, touch enables a fuller understanding of the other as well as of himself, and sends him “quivering . . . to a new identity” (line 619).

Animals

Animals appear everywhere in “Song of Myself.” Just as the speaker depicts rural and urban landscapes and the diverse human folks who inhabit them, he also references the many nonhuman animals that occupy country and city alike. The speaker’s keen observation of animals throughout the poem offers yet another example of his expansive, all-seeing nature. Yet the speaker’s awareness of animals also hints at a deeper philosophical paradigm of universal interconnection. Perhaps nowhere does the speaker express this philosophy than in section 33, where he offers a sweeping, panoptic vision in which he conflates his body with the geography of the world (lines 714–716):

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.

Following these lines, the speaker embarks on a long catalog that features animals alongside people, places, and objects. Here’s a brief but representative example (lines 717–725):

By the city’s quadrangular houses—in log huts, camping with lumbermen,
Along the ruts of the turnpike, along the dry gulch and rivulet bed,
Weeding my onion-patch or hoeing rows of carrots and parsnips, crossing savannas, trailing in forests,
Prospecting, gold-digging, girdling the trees of a new purchase,
Scorch’d ankle-deep by the hot sand, hauling my boat down the shallow river,
Where the panther walks to and fro on a limb overhead, where the buck turns furiously at the hunter,
Where the rattlesnake suns his flabby length on a rock, where the otter is feeding on fish,
Where the alligator in his tough pimples sleeps by the bayou,
Where the black bear is searching for roots or honey, where the beaver pats the mud with his paddle-shaped tail

After situating himself in his suburban farmstead, the speaker’s vision begins to expand and encompass the landscape around him. Animals feature as prominently, as do the various men, women, and children who appear in the next two hundred or so lines. The speaker depicts all creatures with equal respect, refusing any implicit hierarchy that would place animals below humans. In the speaker’s world, all are equal.

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