"Self"

I am not very sure of what Whitman is trying to convey in his idea of “Self”. At first, it comes off as a totally egotistical and vain. Even when you look further into and see the Christianity that is brought into and weaved into the rest of the Self philosophy, it still feels like Whitman is a little too centered on himself. It seems like he takes the phrase “God is everywhere and everything” and applied that a little too literally to his own life. He thinks that is God is everything, and everything is God. This interpretation of the idea itself seems much too literal to be applied to literature, especially Whitman’s poems, which go against social protocol and were seem as unacceptable by many readers and critics of the time.

This philosophy of Self seems way to complicated, and is a little hard to understand. There are a lot of different ideas behind it, and therefore it is kind of hard to apply to things, even Whitman’s own writings. It’s pretty obvious that Self exists in his own work, mostly because he ties so many things back to religion in very obscure ways that the reader can only truly understand if they are knowledgeable in the philosophy of Whitman’s self. But it kind of seems too time consuming to learn everything you can about Whitman and Self just to analyze a poem and see what is behind it. That doesn’t mean that this analyzing and interpreting is pointless, but just that Self seems too complicated for what it is. Everyone has a different interpretation of things, and the nice thing about poetry and literature in general is that everyone can look at it in a different way and apply their own ideas to it. Everyone can see so many things differently, so Self is complicated in that sense as well.

Because Whitman wrote about pretty controversial topics, it’s weird to see how often he relates back to religion and Christianity. Whitman’s presumed homosexuality and other aspects of his life go against some the teachings of the Bible, even though this is much more acceptable in society today. Self was unusual for the time period, but also a little odd for this time period. People are still pretty focused around themselves, although I don’t think there are that many people who have such a God complex these days even though there are probably some that do.
There are a lot of parts of life that tie back into Whitman’s idea of Self- personalities, characteristics, ego, and religion. All the emotions and feelings of life are entangled in the idea, which contributes the complicated part of the philosophy as well. Self is about finding the “real person” behind people and not the person that is just on display to the world.

Works Cited

Bauerlein, Mark. "Whitman's Language of the Self." American Imago 44, no. 2 (Summer 1987). Quoted as "Whitman's Language of the Self" in Bloom, Harold, ed. Song of Myself, Bloom's Modern Critical Interpretations. Philadelphia: Chelsea House Publishing, 2002. Bloom's Literary Reference Online. Facts on File, Inc. http://www.fofweb.com/activelink2.asp?ItemID=WE54&SID=1&iPin=MCISOM004&SingleRecord=True (accessed January 20, 2010).