All of Walt Whitman’s poems are included in a collection of books titled ‘Leave of Grass.’ In that poem, I focused on the poem ‘Song of Myself.’ This poem is a total of 52 copies, but does not have a coherent context throughout the psalm, nor does it have a regular narrative, so that each psalm can be seen as an independent poem.
Whitman reveals that in ‘Song of Myself’ he is an individualist based on freedom and equality. For him, the individual is the universe and God. Individuals have infinite possibilities and are worthy and mysterious. Thus, Whitman’s longest poem and masterpiece, ‘Song of Myself,’ is dignified and mysterious human song. Whitman’s “self” is humans itself, including Whitman himself. Historical heroes and ordinary people can be the theme of the poem and to be praised. And the man he praises is a man who is out of social class or the gap between the rich and the poor and is a primitive human. ‘I’ is not an isolated person. ‘I’ is a person who reflects deep inside of self as part of ordinary people. Whitman shows his democratic poetry that ordinary people can also discover the infinite depth and beauty of souls.
In ‘Song of myself,’ Whitman tells the voice of a powerful self. By saying that he is the universe, he sees the individual as a spiritual being, not a real being who dies temporarily. From that perspective, he sees the man as the spirit of the eternal universe and the unified mystical being. It can be seen as a divine and universal being. Whitman sings the fusion of conflicting objects like heaven and hell, men and women, as well as body and. It also makes the sea and the earth a great subject in this poem, and the sea seems to represent a man and the earth to a woman. When I read this poem, I live vividly as see the wide plains unfolding, and the ocean facing the end of the plains, receiving the moonlight in the darkness. The scene of the feminine night seems to symbolize nature where all things are fused together and it seems like looking at the mysterious stage with eyes.
Whitman divines nature. The nature he considers is equality, including grass, trees, worms, and beasts as well as humans, who are neither superior nor inferior. He said in “Song of Myself’, the grass is the very essence of human beings that no one can understand. If one treats nature with the idea that both human beings and all-natural things are inherently sacred and honorable, one can also read the mysteries of the universe. Walt Whitman is a mystic natural poet. But for Whitman, nature is not an abstract concept, it is a place of life and a human friend. He also sings humans, animals, and plants in nature as the same as the universe. So, he considers that natural world is mysterious, and he praises everything, as well as plants and animals.
‘Song of Myself,’ is one of Walt Whitman’s most famous poems in “Leaves of Grass.” It helped readers understand the self as an individual and another human being. After I read this poem, I thought of myself and realized that how great and important an individual was.
https://www.poets.org/poetsorg/poet/walt-whitman ( Here is a link that explaining about Walt Whitman’s life story)