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“I”

In talking about himself, the speaker is also addressing the very nature of selfhood. As such, the speaker’s “I”—the myself in “Song of Myself”—symbolizes selfhood more generally. To understand the significance of the model of selfhood advanced in Whitman’s poem, it’s necessary to know something about the model of selfhood he’s positioning himself against. Specifically, we need to know something about eighteenth-century European philosophy, which was dominated by an obsession with rationalism. Rationalism dictated that a person’s opinions and actions should be determined by reason and factual knowledge rather than belief or emotion. With this framework in mind, the ideal person is someone who’s perfectly objective, self-knowing, and in control. Such an ideal constructs a highly restrictive model of selfhood in which the individual is separate and distinct from others. In contrast to this model, Whitman presents a speaker with a radically expansive self. This self bears witness to the innumerable ways he relates to other beings in the universe. Indeed, the speaker’s connection to others is strong enough that the boundary between self and other begins to dissolve (lines 1001–1002):

     I do not ask who you are, that is not important to me,
     You can do nothing and be nothing but what I will infold you.

The speaker’s “I” therefore symbolizes an expansive, unrestricted, and all-encompassing self.

Grass

Grass plays a significant and complex role in “Song of Myself,” where it has numerous symbolic functions. In the poem’s first section, the speaker describes looking at grass while lazing about outdoors: “I lean and loafe at my ease observing a spear of summer grass” (line 5). This opening reference immediately establishes grass as an object of natural fascination and calm reflection. Throughout the rest of the poem, the speaker goes on to make many additional references that invest grass with different symbolic values. These values may be divided roughly into three categories. First, grass is a universalizing symbol, since it grows everywhere and makes no distinctions between places or populations (lines 359–360):

     This is the grass that grows wherever the land is and the water is,
     This the common air that bathes the globe.

Second, grass symbolizes the perfection of nature, since it’s as ideally itself as any other natural being (lines 663–669):

     I believe a leaf of grass is no less than the journey-work of the stars,
     And the pismire is equally perfect, and a grain of sand, and the egg of the wren,
     And the tree-toad is a chef-d’œuvre for the highest,
     And the running blackberry would adorn the parlors of heaven,
     And the narrowest hinge in my hand puts to scorn all machinery,
     And the cow crunching with depress’d head surpasses any statue,
     And a mouse is miracle enough to stagger sextillions of infidels.

Finally, grass symbolizes regeneration, since it always grows back. The speaker affirms this idea in section 51, where he suggests that, after death, he will regenerate and live on through the grass (lines 1338–39):

     I bequeath myself to the dirt to grow from the grass I love,
     If you want me again look for me under your boot-soles.

The symbolic multivalence of grass in “Song of Myself” helps explain why Whitman used it to title the volume where collected his life’s work: Leaves of Grass.

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