Duke University Press

Union and Disunion in "Song of Myself"

Author(s): Herbert J. Levine
Source: American Literature, Vol. 59, No. 4 (Dec., 1987), pp. 570-589
Published by: Duke University Press
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 Unionand Disunionin "SongofMyself"
HERBERT J. LEVINE
College
andMarshall
Franklin

TN when Californiasoughtto enterthe Union as a non-

I 850,
slaveholdingstate,the Southernstatesthreatenedto secede
unless compromisesextended slaveryto other territorycon-
quered in the Mexican war. During the acrimoniousdebate,the
leading disunionist,JohnC. Calhoun, pointed out the insuffi-
ciencyof politicalrhetoricto prop up the AmericanUnion: "It
cannot be saved by eulogies on the Union, howeversplendid or
numerous.The cry of 'Union, Union, the gloriousUnion!' can
no more preventdisunionthan the cryof 'Health, health,glori-
ous health!' on the part of the physiciancan save a patient."1
During the I840s, Walt Whitman had offeredsuch eulo-
gies, but in his anger at the Compromiseof i85o, he stopped
praising so he could administerphysic to a sick Union. In a
group of satiricpoems, he railed againstthe Congressionalbe-
trayersof freedom,the veryprincipleforwhich the Union had
been founded.One recentstudyhas argued that the escalating
crisis of the Union allowed Whitman to discover the healing
role so centralto "Song of Myself."2Anotherhas argued that
the economic downturnof i854, which put Whitman out of
the housebuildingbusiness, allowed him to discover his role
as celebratorof the artisan,who was rapidlybeing displaced
by entrepreneursand managersof capital.3Such studies have
made obsolete the widespreadview thatin the i850s Whitman

1 Quoted in Paul C. Nagel, One Nation Indivisible:The Unionin AmericanThought

1776-1861 (New York: OxfordUniv. Press, I964), p. 248.
2 George B. Hutchinson,The EcstaticWhitman:LiteraryShamanismand the Crisisof
the Union (Columbus: Ohio State Univ. Press, I986); on the satiricpoems of I850, see
pp. ii-i6.
3 M. Thomas Wynn,The Lunar Lightof Whitman's Poetry(Cambridge:Harvard Univ.
Press, I987).

AmericanLiterature,Volume 59, Number 4, December I987. Copyright? I987 by the

Duke UniversityPress. CCC 0002-983I/87/$I.50.

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 UnionandDisunionin "SongofMyself" 57I
detachedhimselffrompracticalpoliticsin orderto advocatea
purelyspiritualdemocracy. This essayseeks to anchorWhit-
man'sfirstgreatpoem,theI855 "SongofMyself," in thepoliti-
cal discourseof the i850s. PartI surveys thatdiscoursein order
to illuminatetwoimportant earlyprosestatements byWhitman:
themanuscript, "Slavery-theSlaveholders," and theprefaceto
the i855 poems. Part II demonstrates thatWhitmanreflected
contemporary politicalconcernsin the figurative languageof
"Songof Myself," wherewe findfigures ofunioncounterpoised
by figuresof disunion.Finally,Part III proposesa three-part
plotfor"Song of Myself," a structureof Union,Disunion,and
Reunion,whichanticipates the painful trajectoryof American
destinyin theera of theCivilWar.

I
Disunionistrhetoric, as old as anti-Federalist resistanceto the
Constitution,reappearedperiodically throughthe firsthalfof
the nineteenth century. New Englandersresortedto it at the
HartfordConvention aftertheWarof i812; Southerners tookit
up at thetimeoftheMissouriCompromise (I820), againduring
theSouthCarolinanullification crisis(I833), and duringeach of
the greatlegislative battlesovertheextension of slaveryin the
I84os and i85os, all won bySouthern interests,in part,at least,
because Northerners so fearedthe disunionthatSoutherners
threatened.WhenJohnQuincyAdamswas prevented frompre-
sentingto Congressan abolitionist petitionin I842, calls for
disunionrosein theNorthand soonbecamean articleof faith
forGarrisonian abolitionists. Northern radicalskepttalkof dis-
unionaliveaftereverydefeatforanti-slavery: thefailureof the
WilmotProviso(i847), whichwas to havebannedslaveryfrom
theMexicanterritories; theCompromise of i85o, and especially
its new FugitiveSlave Law, enforceable by Federalauthority;
the Kansas-Nebraska Act (I854), which repealed the Missouri
Compromisethathad keptslavery outofmostof theLouisiana
Purchaseterritory.
While thissortof disunionism was fuelforNorthernaboli-
tionistsand Southern"fire-eaters," it was anathemato Walter
Whitman,journalistand ardent nationalist. "This Union dis-

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572 American
Literature
solved?"he wrotein I847. "Why the verywordsare murky
withtheirown mostmonstrous portent!And yetthesewordls
are flippantlyturnedoverand overin the mouthsof men,at
the presenttime.... Thinking,as we do, thathardlyanyevil
whichcould be inflicted on thepeopleof thishemisphere, and
the cause of freedomall overthe world,wouldbe so greatas
thedisunionof theseStates-theirpartingin bitterness and ill-
blood-we believeit incumbent on everyDemocratalwaysto
bear testimony in the samespirit,and the same words,as one
now in heaven-the Union!it mustand shall be preserved!"'
Nor did he adopttherhetoric of disunionin breakingfromthe
DemocraticPartyand takingup withtheFree Soilersand the
Free Democratsin theelectionsof I848 and I852. One of that
party'sleadersproposedin i85I thatit adoptthetime-honored
mottoofDaniel Webster, "Libertyand Union,"to impressupon
theelectoratebothitsessentialgoals.5
Whitmanpreserved thesegoals evenas politicalrhetoricbe-
cameincreasingly divisiveand moreand moreAmericans "came
to thinkof themselves as forming notone buttwodistinct peo-
ples."6His own Senator,WilliamH. Seward,who had vaunted
the inevitablecontinuance of the Union in i85o had become
by I854 duringthe Kansas-Nebraska debatesa sectionaltacti-
cian, appealingto the Northto preserveits interests, not the
a
Union's,against growing Southern conspiracy to extend its
slaveholdingempire.7Whitman, bycontrast,spokeon behalfof
"all Freemennorthand south. . . thewholepopulationof the
31 stateswho haveno humanproperty." In a little-knownprose
manuscript thathe entitled"Slavery-theSlaveholders-The
Constitution-thetrue Americaand Americans,the laboring
persons,"Whitmanaddressesthe slaveholders froma Unionist
4 The Gathering of the Forces,ed. Cleveland Rodgers and JohnBlack (New York:
Putnam's, I920), 1, 230, 238.
5 Eric Foner, Free Soil, Free Labor, Free Men: The Ideologyof the RepublicanParty
Beforethe Civil War (New York: OxfordUniv. Press, I970), p. 309.
6 David HerbertDonald, Liberty and Union(Boston: Little,Brown, I978), p. 8i.
7 Seward's speech of ii March I850, on the admission of California,should be
compared with that of I7 Feb. I854, on the Kansas-Nebraskabills: in both, images of
geographydominate,but in the firstSeward cites the East-Westlinks that unifythe
country,while in the second,he tracesthe South's attemptedtakeoverand incorporation
of the West into its domain. See The Worksof WilliamH. Seward,ed. George E. Baker
(Boston: Houghton Mifflin,I884), I, 57-58, 83-84; IV,44I-42.

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 Unionand Disunionin "SongofMyself" 573
pointof view. "Our territory of Nebraska and Kansas is wanted
for our Children.... If you or yourchildrenchoose to come,
of course you have the same rightto come that we have, and
on the same terms.-This vast tractis ours-ours, the people's
of the whole 31 states,northand south.. . ." To an anti-slavery
advocatelike Seward,the struggleoverKansas was betweentwo
systemsof labor, one moral and the other immoral.To Whit-
man, that moral strugglewas subordinatedto a more pressing
politicalquestion: whetherthe Territories,which the Constitu-
tion mandated to the whole Union, would continueto belong
to the millionsof freeworkingmenor to the few "hundreds"of
slave-owners8
The slave-ownerswere representative for Whitman of the
capitalistclass thatthreatenedhis egalitarianvisionof the Union.
Democracy and riches,he understood,were opposed. "For this
circlingConfederacy,standingtogetherwith interlinkedhands,
ample, equal, each one with his grip of love wedged in life or
in death to all the rest,we must share and share alike. . . . If
therebe any of good dish,and not enoughof it to go completely
round,it shall not be broughton at all" (NUPM, VI, 2178-79).
Opposed to this ideal was the realityof exclusive self-interest
that Whitman saw everywherearound him, North and South.
"Is the whole land becomingone vast model plantation,whose
inhabitantssuppose the ultimateand best ends of man attained
when he drivesa profitablebusiness,no matterhow abject the
terms-and when he has enough to wear and is not bothered
forpork?"(NUPM, VI, 2190).
Whitman'sconcernforthe Union is also evidentin his anger
at Federal enforcementof the Fugitive Slave Law, which the
Constitutionhad leftup to thediscretionof the States.The same
week that the Kansas-Nebraska Act was passed by Congress,
a fugitiveslave named AnthonyBurns was arrestedin Boston
by Federal marshals.9Whitman'sacerbic poem on the subject,
8 Noteboos and Unpublished ProseManuscripts,ed. Edward F. Grier(New York: New
York Univ. Press. I984), VI, 2I76-77; hereaftercited as NUPM within my text. The
referenceto thirty-onestateswas later amended to thirty-two, upon the admission of
Minnesotain I858.
9 The orderof theseeventsstructuresWhitman'saddress,suggestinga clear date for
"Slavery-the Slaveholders"in the summerof I854. Edward Grier, the editor of the
manuscript,findsthe circumstances of compositionuncertain.

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574 American
Literature
includedin the firstLeaves of Grass(latertitled"A Boston
Ballad"), beratesthe people of Bostonforlettingthemselves
be trampledby a tyrannical authoritythat remindshim of
GeorgeILL.In theprosepiece,he entersintothepoliticalprinci-
ple at stake,theConstitutional
theoryofstates'rightsthatshould
limitthe powersof the Union.Tell the Union,he exhortsan
imaginedaudience,"thathavingdelegatedtoitcertainimportant
functions,and having entered into certain importantengage-
mentswith our brotherstates,we like all the rest,have reserved
more importantfunctions, embodyingour primaryrights,exclu-
sivelyto ourselves"(NUPM, VI, 2I89). Whitmanthuscombined
an egalitarianvisionof Union witha fiercelyindividualisticview
of states'rights,a balancingof the one and the manythatwould
prove crucial in his poetic reworkingof the political problems
facingthe AmericanUnion.
Both "Slavery-the Slaveholders"and "A Boston Ballad" are
fueled by Whitman's anger,which he chose to bury in order
to become the healer of the nation in Leaves of Grass. In what
appear to be the firstnotebook lines that he draftedfor "Song
of Myself,"Whitmanadopts an equalizing perspectivethatwas
inconceivableforany contemporary politician:
I amthepoetofslavesandofthemasters
ofslaves

I go withtheslavesoftheearthequallywiththe
masters
AndI willstandbetween themasters andtheslaves,
Enteringintobothso thatbothshallunderstand
me
alike. (NUPM, 1,67)
The poet, Whitman says in his i855 preface,"supplies-what
wants supplyingand checks what wants checking, O such as
checkingthe angrydivisivenessof contemporary politics,includ-
ing his own angerat the betrayalsof democraticideals, whether
on the part of slaveholders,Congressmen,or Presidents.
Anger erupts occasionallyinto both the prefaceand "Song
of Myself,"where he is ironicat the expense of slave-catchers,

10Walt Whitman'sLeaves of Grass: The First (i855) Edition,ed. Malcolm Cowley

(New York: Viking, 959) p. 8; furtherquotationsfromthe prefacewill be paginated
withinmy text.

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 UnionandDisunionin "SongofMyself" 575
greedycapitalists,andself-servingpoliticianswhorefusetocome
intothedemocratic feasthe has prepared.But,giventheback-
groundwe have been examining, it is remarkable how serene
Whitmanis about the contentious politicalissuesof his day,
almostas ifhe deliberately resethis clockto a timewhenmost
of the countrybelieveddisunionan utterimpossibility. "The
union" he describesas "alwayssurrounded by blatherers and
alwayscalm and impregnable" (p. 7). As to slavery,he put his
faithin the inexorable unfolding of progressive laws.
historical
The Americanpoetwill therefore allow to enterintohim both
"slavery and thetremulous spreading of handsto protectit,and
the sternoppositionto it whichshallnevercease till it ceases
or thespeakingof tonguesand themovingof lipscease"(p. 8).
Whitman'sreference to anti-slaveryspeechis butthefinalitem
in a long list of all thatthe Americanpoet is to "enclose,"
includingwhatwereforhimtheprimary bondsof Union,the
geographical, natural,and humanhistory of his vastland.1"
EnclosingAmerica,thepoetunitesitsdiversity in himselfso
thathe comesto embodytheUnion.Like theUnion,thepoet
makesan equal placein hispoeticmicrocosm forall "strata"and
forwestern
"interests," and eastern,nothern and southern states
(p. 14). And liketheUnion,too,thepoetrecognizesindividual
differences,beginningwiththosequalitiesdistinguishing him
fromothers,makinghim "a greatmaster"(p. I5), "complete
in himself"(p. 9), his soul,"president of itselfalways"(p. 14).
As a new kindof egalitarian master, balancing"sympathy" and
"pride"(p. 12), thispoethas theconviction thathe can perfect
the workthatthe peopleof the UnitedStatesstartedin their
Constitution, namely, "to forma moreperfect Union."

II
"Poetrysituatesitself,"the poet-critic
Allen Grossmanhas
said, "whereotherinstruments 12
of mind findimpossibility."
11 Whitman'sbonds of Union are all includedin Seward's speech of II March I850,
as is his argumentthatinexorablehistoricallaws will eliminateslavery(see Seward,I, 87).
In an i855 letterto Seward,Whitmanindicatestheirpoliticalaffinity: "I too have at heart
Freedom, and the ameliorationof the people"; see The Correspondence, ed. Edwin H.
Miller (New York: New York Univ. Press, I96I), I, 4I-42.
12 "The Poetics of Union in Whitman and Lincoln: An Inquiry toward the Rela-

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576 AmericanLiterature

Where political rhetoricwas failing to preserve the Union,

poetry,Whitman saw, could attemptan alternativediscourseof
union based on the unityof a representative Americanself.With
respectto such a unifiedself,the experienceof his own body
and soul, his land, its animals, people, occupationsand history,
the earth, its evolutionarypast and cosmic future-all was to
be portrayedas a vast seamless web, withinwhich differences
could be accommodatedwithoutdismemberingthe whole.
But when we begin to take apart Whitman's style,we can
see the seams. Two very differentpersonal and verbal styles,
as the warp and the woof of the carpet, are woven into his
seeminglyunifiedpoetic practice.The one is based on connec-
tion and inclusion,the otheron disconnectionand exclusion. I
call them stylesof union and disunion,divergingorientations
to the relationshipof selfand world,which Whitman offersto
reconcile the democraticparadox of the many individualsand
States affirmingtheirown separateidentitiesunder the banner
of Union, e pluribusunum.
In Whitman's style of union, the figuremost closely asso-
ciated with the speaker's political self-presentationis a serial
synecdoche, a list of parts democratically a whole
representing
that includes them all.13If we separateout the parts of one of
Whitman's lists, they seem to stand on their own, as a Ken-
tuckian,a Hoosier, a Badger,a Buckeye(Sec. i6).14 Yet, just as
in classical synecdoche,the sail that standsfor the ship cannot
functionapart fromit, so too in Whitman'sseries,individuals
(and their states)are dependenton the Union that gives them
both individual and collectiveidentity.Whitmanspells this out
in a line describingAmerican Federalism. The speaker is, he
says,"one of the greatnations,the nationof manynations-the
smallest the same and the largestthe same." Having provided
the allegorical key to his synecdochiccatalogue, he goes on to

tionshipof Art and Policy,"in The AmericanRenaissanceReconsidered, ed. Walter Benn

NS 9 (Balti-
Michaels and Donald E. Pease, SelectedPapers fromthe English Institutes,
more: JohnsHopkins Univ. Press, I985), p. I87.
13 On synecdocheand political representation, see Kenneth Burke,A Grammar of
Motives(New York: PrenticeHall, I945), p. 5o8.
quotationsfromthe I855 "Song of Myself"(ed. Cowley) will
14 For ease of reference,
be referredto by theirlatersectionnumbers.

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 UnionandDisunionin "SongofMyself" 577
counteract bothsectionalism and nativism, two of the greatest
dangersto theUnionin thei850s. He is therefore "a southerner
soon as a northerner," and "notmerelyof theNew Worldbut
of AfricaEuropeor Asia,"in short,a trueAmerican.As he ex-
plainsin thepreface, in America"a bardis to be commensurate
witha people"(p. 6).
Anothercharacteristic devicein Whitman'sstyleof unionis
what we mightcall redundantmetonymy, a tropeso nearly
transparent thatit hardlyseemsa deliberatefigure.Wherein
classicalmetonymy an idea is evokedbythesubstitution of some
closelyassociatedterm,Whitmangenerallysuppliesboth the
idea and the association,theoccupation and the instrument or
sign by which it is known.15 Insteadof substituting a thing
fora person,as in theclassicalmetonymy of armsforsoldier,
Whitmanmultiplies thetermsbywhichanyonepersonis repre-
sented.Thus, in theserialline,"The heavyomnibus,thedriver
withhis interrogating thumb,theclankof the shod horseson
the granitefloor"(Sec. 8), the secondand thirdtermscould
be metonymically substituted forthefirstterm,but havebeen
deliberatelyaddedon instead.By extending thisprincipleacross
manylines,Whitmancreatesa realisticsenseof physicalinter-
connections amongthedemocratic mass.M. ThomasWynnhas
suggested thatWhitman's catalogues portray all workersas inde-
pendentartisansratherthanas employeesin orderto displace
ontoa fewmercantile villainshisanxietyaboutthewidespread
capitalizationand consequent alienationof labor(pp. 79-82). I
wouldadd thatredundant metonymy contributes directlyto this
compensatory project.ThoughWhitmancannotmakethedriver
own his meansof production, he makeshim and everyother
workerpoetically inseparable fromthetoolsof his or hertrade.
Whitmanusesmetonymy figuratively(thatis,substitutingone
termforanother)to represent personal, union,
especiallyerotic,
15Classical definitionsof metonymyinclude these distinctsubstitutions:cause for
effectand vice versa,containerforcontained,possessorforpossessed,sign forofficeor
occupation,instrumentforaction,the physicalforthe moral,an adjunct of the subject
for the subject itself.Discussions of Whitmanianmetonymyhave not noted the crucial
differencein the poet's use of the figure:see D. S. Mirsky,"Walt Whitman: Poet of
American Democracy,"trans.B. G. Guerney,Dialectics:CriticsGroup, I(I937), 23-24,

and C. Carroll Hollis, Language and Stylein "Leavesof Grass"(Baton Rouge: Louisiana
State Univ. Press, I983), pp. I73-203, esp. pp. I77-78.

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578 American
Literature
whichalso has politicalimplications forthepoet.For instance,
hisdepictionofthesoulas a sexualbody,"You settledyourhead
athwartmyhipsand gentlyturnedoveruponme" (Sec. 5), uses
themetonymy ofthecontainer (thebody)forthecontained(the
soul). With his soul and body interpenetrating and becoming
indistinguishable fromone another, Whitmanshowshimselfto
be a non-hierarchical being.Laterin thepoem,in a momentof
ecstaticunionwiththenightandtheocean,Whitmancharacter-
izes thesewitheroticadjectivesproperly belongingto himself,
usingthemetonymy an adjectivefromone sub-
of transferring
jectto a relatedone: "Pressclosebarebosomed night"(Sec. 20);
"You sea! . . . Dash me withamorouswet" (Sec. 22). Whit-
man'smetonyms, bothredundant and figurative,alwaysconnect
humanbeingsto thematerial world they inhabit. These figures
showa representative Americanselfexperiencing lifeas a union
of each and all.
In his styleof disunion,by contrast, Whitmanallows him-
selfto becomedisengagedfromthevastunionhe has formed.
He relieson thetensionin metaphoric expressions thatreveals
thedifferences betweentenorand vehicleas muchas it suggests
theirsimilarities.16His mostcharacteristic figureof disunionis
an extendedpersonification-built up ofsimiles,metaphors, and
metonyms-inwhichan aspectof the worldor of the selfis
evokedby animalor demonic,ratherthanby humanimagery,
thus openinga gap betweenthe speakerand the personified
agent(e.g., the sun in Section24, his own sexualityin Sec-
tion28). As if to overcomethisself-created senseof difference,
Whitmaninteracts withhispersonifications,struggling withthe
metamorphosing figuresforcontrolofhisidentity.In thesepow-
erful,fictitiousscenarios,transitive
and intransitivedangerously
switchplaces:orchestral music"throbs"and "sails"thespeaker
till he loses his hold on reality(Sec. 26); not he but "pruri-
entprovokers" externalto himare "straining theudder"of his
"heartforitswithhelddrip"(Sec. 28). Ratherthanunitingself
and worldor integrating variousaspectsof the self,such fig-
uresact,as RichardChase has noted,"as a radicalindividualist

16 This view of metaphoris memorablydescribedin Max Black,Modelsand Metaphors:

(Ithaca: CornellUniv. Press, I962), pp. 25-47.
Studiesin Language and Philosophy

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 UnionandDisunionin "SongofMyself" 579
conceivessocietyto act. They breakdown the self.""17Unlike
the synecdoches and metonyms thatare spreadthroughoutthe
poem, Whitman'smetaphoric figuresof disunionare concen-
crisissectionof thepoem.They are
tratedin a singlesustained
bestunderstood thereforein termsofthepoem'soverallplot,to
whichI now turn.

III
Whitmanbegins"Song of Myself"by establishing what I
call a federated modelof personalidentity: selfand world,soul
and body,Whitmanand his compatriots, shownas equal parts
withina unifiedwhole,whichis at oncepolitical,religious, and
cosmic.He goes on to dramatizea rupturein thatfederated
identity,depicting hisseveralfacultieseachinsistingon theirdis-
tinctiveseparateness. Then Whitmanrepresents theirreintegra-
tion.Thesethreelargemovements in Whitman's poem-Union,
Disunion,and Reunion-dramatizethe crisisof the Union in
I855. To Whitman's threats
highlypoliticalsensibility, of seces-
sion by the Statesshoweddemocratic individualism grownto
monstrous proportions, justas Federalenforcement oftheFugi-
tive Slave Law showednationaluniformity overcoming indi-
vidual states'rightsand becominga tyranny. Whitmantakes
thesedangersintohis poem and represents themas crisesof
his own identity. In the phase of Disunion,we see the dis-
memberment of an identitywhosevariouspartsrefuseto work
together as one.In thephaseofReunion,we witnessthetyranny
of an egalitarianism thatswallowsup all individualdistinctions
beforelearningto relinquish authoritariancontrol.The outcome
of Whitman'spoem was intendedto showthatit was possible
to unifya highlystressedselfand, by analogy,an increasingly
dividedcountry.
The phaseof Unionopenswiththepoetinviting his soul to
connectwiththeleaningbodyon thegrass.He thengoes on to
attachhimselfto whatlies aroundhimthroughthepermeable
membrane of hisidentity.Suchinterpenetration ofone'soutside
and insideis bivalent:it can eitheropen thepoetand poem to

17 Walt WhitmanReconsidered(New York: William Sloane, I955), p. 69.

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58o Literature
American
an idealizedembraceofselfandworld,or itcandissolvea stable
personalidentity altogether,as happenslaterin thepoem.At the
in Section12, Whitmanchoosesto
startof his self-presentation,
open themembrane, so as to integrate with
his body'sactivities
itsenvironment:18
The smokeof myown breath,
Echos, ripples,and buzzed whispers .... loveroot,silkthread,
crotchand vine,
My respirationand inspiration.... the beatingof my heart
.... the passing of blood and air throughmy lungs,
of greenleavesand dryleaves,and of the
The sniff
shoreand darkcolored and of hayin thebarn
sea-rocks,
To definea selfwith permeableboundaries,Whitman needs
an assemblage of images whose limitscannot be preciselyde-
fined: "echos, ripples, and buzzed whispers." The terms are
metonyms,effectsof unnamedcauses. In namingonlyperceived
effects,the speakerexternalizeshimselfthroughhis senses and
internalizeswhat is sensed as part of the self.The poet cannot
easily externalizehis sexuality,however,which remainsprivate,
even in the boundarilessworldof Whitman'spoetry.So he safely
evokes the male genitalsby substitutingthe genus "loveroot"for
the species, penis, the material"silkthread"forthe pants made
of it, the container"crotch"forwhat it contains,and concludes
with the nearby"vine," apparentlybegottenby the "loveroot."
Whitman was wise to use such ellipticalmetonymies.His more
overt treatmentof phallic imageryin Section 24 (II. 532, 536,
538) provokesan undesirableself-consciousness, the dangers of
which we shall note below.
In the long firstmovementof the poem, Whitman's bodily
awareness is integratedwith non-physicalaspects of his con-
sciousness,most famouslyin the marriageof body and soul in
Section 5. It is impossiblefor an observerof the scene to tell
that one of the two bodies on the grass is anythingother than
body. Whitman avoids the traditionalhierarchicaldualism of

18 My commentaryon Whitman's consciousnessof the body has been informed

and
especially by Michael Fried, "The Beholder in Courbet: His Early Self-Portraits
TheirPlace in His Art,"Glyph,4 (1978), 97-98; and JeanStarobinski,"The Inside and
the Outside,"Hudson Review,28 (1975), 333-51.

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 UnionandDisunionin "SongofMyself" 58i
bodyand soul in favorof a complementary notionof identity,
the"I" remembering a momentwhenitfeltitselfto be an indi-
visible"we." The "I" is thusrepresented as a federation of two
equal selves,a sortof "We,thepeople"withina unifiedbody.
The poeticgainfromthisexperience is represented in a listthat
spansthe largestprinciples ("a kelsonof the creationis love")
and the smallestentities("mossyscabsof the wormfence, and
heaped stones,and elderand mullenand poke-weed"),which
growon thegroundwherethepoetlies.
From thesespecifically namedgrasses,it is a small stepto
the child'squestion,"What is the grass?,"but a much larger
one to Whitman'sprovisional answers.These offerthe reader
varioushermeneutic techniquesthatunitethe simplephysical
object,grass,witha rangeof abstractmeanings,so that"the
unseenis provedby the seen" (Sec. 3). The poet startsSec-
tion6 withpersonaland impersonal allegory:thegrassas the
"flag"of his dispositionor theemblemof a coyGod's design-
inghand.Qualifying hisanthropomorphism, he thensuggestsa
contextual,almostliteralreading of the grass as "theproduced
babe of the vegetation." Focusingon the grassas "a uniform
hieroglyphic," Whitman'sstudyof signsbecomesa democratic
homily,as he actualizesthe meaningof the grass,"growing
among black folksas amongwhite,"by his equal namingof
thered,white,and blackinhabitants of America.Seeingin the
grassa traditional icon of mortality,"the beautifuluncuthair
19theexegetetransforms
of graves," theimageintoitsopposite:
"The smallestsproutshowsthereis reallyno death."Its climac-
ticplacement and lengthyexposition showthisto be Whitman's
preferred Whythendid he teaseus withhisseries
interpretation.
of artificial
guesses?
Whitman'spoliticalideal of Unionrequiredbothlibertyand
equality,whose aestheticequivalentswerevarietyand unifor-
mity.Uniformity is represented herebyWhitman'sdemocratic
homilythatthegrasshasa universal meaning.Butin theinterest

19Gay W. Allen, The SolitarySinger:A CriticalBiographyof Walt Whitman(New

York: Macmillan, I955), p. I59, cites Homer as the sourceforWhitman'simage; there
are also numerousbiblical uses of grassas a metaphorformortality(e.g., Psalm 90:5-6;
Isaiah 40:6-8; Matthew6:30).

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582 American
Literature
of variety,he makesroomforotherpossibleviewsamonghis
audienceor withina pluralizeddemocratic self.Onlyafterpre-
senting theseotherinterpretations,doeshe present hispreference
fora spiritualizedreadingof physicalmatter.
Aftertheseset-pieces on body-soul unionand thevarieties of
unionconceivable toa democratic Whitmanlaunches
interpreter,
intothemeatofhisfirst phase:catalogingtheworldaroundhim
fromhis unifiedvantagepointon the grass,merginghimself
in the unityof the seen and the unseen.This procedurecon-
tinuesthroughthe firsthalfof the poem: he and everyother
selfare depictedas beingof a piecewiththeobjectsand activi-
ties withwhichthatselfassociates.The mergingswellsto an
ecstaticcrescendoin Section24 (II. 530-44),wherehis sexual
euphemisms elaboratelyconflateselfand nature.
In the next moment,however,beginsthe dismantling of
Whitman'senlargedself,thesecondphase,Disunion,in hisplot.
In the clear lightof dawn, the speakerreportsa doubt-"I
pausetoconsiderifit reallybe"-followedbya growingunease,
signalledby his alienatingshiftto a non-humanpersonifica-
tion:"SomethingI cannotsee putsupwardlibidinousprongs,/
Seas of brightjuice suffuseheaven.""Libidinousprongs"and
"seas of brightjuice" defamiliarizethesunrise, evokinga non-
humanworldofmythand archetypal Whitman
battle. identifies
thesun'sseemingcouplingwiththeearthas a challengeto his
own sexualpotency. He further admitstheprecariousness of his
boundariless "how quick thesunrisewould kill
self-definition:
me .... " The hyperbolic languageindicateshow muchis at
stakein thisencounter: if Whitmanand thesun are notequal,
thentheegalitarian poeticuniverse he has so carefullybuiltup
crumbles.Therecan be no unionof selfand world,wheneach
aggressively identity.
assertsitsdistinctive
Whitmandramatizes thedestructiveness ofsuchself-assertion
in Sections24-28. In thesecrisissections,thepoet'spreviously
unifiedidentitybreaksintoparts,each secedingin turn.He
assumessuccessively the exclusiveviewpointof vision,speech,
hearing, and touch,onlytodiscoverthathistotalidentity begins
to malfunction, leadingto feelingsof madness and suffocation,
his figuresforpsychological and physicalbreakdown. Contem-

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 UnionandDisunionin "SongofMyself" 583
porarypoliticians,it is worthrecalling,describedthosewho
woulddismember theUnionas "madmen"belonging"in an in-
Whitman'ssecedingsensesare similarly
sane hospital."20 those
of a madman imprisoned in a
subjectivity,feelingthe poet ex-
pressesthroughfiguresthatdisconnect and excludehim from
his previouslyequalizedworld.
The firstsenseto separatefromthe whole beingis vision,
threatened by the sun's visual brilliance.The poet seeks fig-
ures of speechto reestablish himselfas a masterequal to the
sun. Transferring modifiers appropriateto the sun ("dazzling
and tremendous") to himself, he sendssunrise"out of me,"so
thatthe threatening externalsunrisebecomesa self-validating
internalone: "We also ascenddazzlingand tremendous as the
sun,/ We foundour own mysoul in thecalm and cool of the
daybreak"(Sec. 25). Whitmanhas switchedfrom"I" to "we,"it
seems,as a defensive maneuver, reaffirming thepluralizedunity
of bodilyselfand soul at thismomentof challengeto his iden-
tity.Apostrophically,he callsupon"mysoul"(clearerin the"O
mysoul"of latereditions)to drawa boundary betweenhimself
and thethreatening worldaroundhim.In a worldof inequali-
ties,the poet relieson a figureof poeticself-consciousnessfor
self-protection.2"
he turnsto his all-encom-
To restorehis feelingof mastery,
passingvoice,but speechbecomes secondfaculty
the to secede
fromWhitman'sfederatedself.Turningon the poet, speech
Walt,youunderstand
sayssarcastically, enough.... Whydon't
you let it out then?"The poet'sspeech,his essentialgenius,
refusesto be manipulated by one who,sun-like,would ascend
above the democraticmass.Whitmanwisheshe could retreat
intosilence,thoughof coursecarryingout thisQuakerishboast
would put an end to his poem.22Instead,he challengesspeech
whatcannotbe articulated,
to articulate thesheerphysicality of

20 Commentsby Seward and Lewis Cass, quoted in Nagel, p. 268.

21 See JonathanCuller,"Apostrophe,"Diacritics,7 (1977), 59-69.
22 As backgroundto Whitman'sambivalentattitudeto speech,see Richard Bauman,
in theEthnog-
"Speaking in the Light: The Role of the Quaker Minister,"in Explorations
raphyof Speaking,ed. RichardBauman and JoelSherzer (Cambridge:Cambridge Univ.
Press, 1974), pp. 144-60.

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584 Literature
American
grass:"Do younot knowhow thebudsbeneathare folded?"23
By attempting inarticulateness,
thisquid proquo of privileging
Whitmanironically stumblesin speech,his agrammaticallan-
guage mirroring abouthow to demarcate
his confusion public
fromprivateidentity:
Waitingin gloomprotected byfrost,
The dirtrecedingbeforemyprophetical screams,
causesto balancethemat last,
I underlying
My knowledge my live parts .... it keepingtally
withthemeaningof things,
Happiness .... which whoeverhears me let him or her
setout in searchof thisday.
Whatis thesubjectof thissentence? First,thegrass,thenhim-
self,thenan ambiguous"it"-for none ofthesecan he providea
predicate to completean action.So he turnsto thesilentreader/
listener,seekingfromhimor hersomeequivalentactin pursuit
of the inalienablerightof happiness.Only by bringingthose
who hearhis messageintoharmony withthefounding purposes
of theUnioncan thepoetjustify theundemocratic rolehe has
takenin separating himselffromthedemocratic massin order
to speakforit.
To becomeagain a representative memberof his society,a
listener,Whitmanturnsto his senseof hearing.Withthecata-
logue of "I hear"statements in Section26, Whitmanabandons
thealienating ofhisdialoguewithspeechfill-
self-consciousness
ing himselfwiththe soundsof the naturaland social worlds:
"I hearthebravurasof birds.... thebustleof growingwheat
.... gossipof flames.... clack of stickscookingmy meals."
When he beginsto listento music,however, he is disconnected
fromhis externalenvironment and propelledinward:"I hear
thetrainedsoprano.... sheconvulses meliketheclimaxofmy
lovegrip."The one similegivesrisetoa crescendo ofmetaphors,
and as Whitmaninteracts withthepersonified music,he expe-
riencesthe polaritiesof his imagination-passing from"wider
thanUranusflies.... to gulpsofthefarthest downhorror."

23 I am indebtedto KerryCharles Larson, "Voices in the Grass: Whitman and the

Conceptionof 'Free Growth,'" CentennialReview,26 (I982), 203-04, forhis explication
of this image.

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 UnionandDisunionin "SongofMyself" 585
In thesetwokindsofhearing, Whitmanoffers a parableabout
bothegalitarian and individualistmodelsofidentity. On theone
hand,the shared,socialexperience, represented by theuninter-
pretedlistening halfofthesection,
in thefirst is overwhelmed by
thegreatervividnessof privatefantasy. Yet thisprivateidentity,
discovered byWhitmanin hiseroticresponseto theopera,can-
notsurvivethefigurative oceanintowhichit has beenplunged.
In Whitman'simagineddescentintoself,his bodilyidentity is
represented as beingat risk.He is one momentpleasantly laved
and licked,but in the next,his bodyis defacedand drugged,
"cutby bitterand poisonedhail,""steepedamid honeyedmor-
phine"; his windpipeis squeezed as if by the looped coil of
a rope,the "fakes"(or also feigning) of death.If one's breath
cannotcirculateoutsidethebody,lifeends;analogously, anyone
secedingintoa privateselfhood,withoutsalutary interchange
withtheworld,is consignedto a death-in-life.
The explosionof figurative languagein thissectionsuggests
the alienationWhitmanexperiences by withdrawing into his
own finiteness. Too vulnerable to touchanotherpersonand to
haveto relateon another's terms, Whitmantoucheshimself only
to becomeabsorbedagainin private eroticfantasy. In Section28,
we witnesshis tragicisolationthroughan extendedallegorical
image,whichshowshimas bothanimaland human,alternately
pitiableand condemnable. Picturedas a pasturedanimalalone
on a headland,he is leftdefenseless bytheothererrantmembers
of the herd, his fellowsenses, against theincursions of "pruri-
entprovokers" and a "redmarauder," demonizedimagesof his
handsand penisduringmasturbation. Again,he uses tightness
of breathto conveyhis feelingof entrapment: "my breathis
tightin itsthroat;/ Unclenchyourfloodgates! youaretoomuch
forme."
The outwardthrustof ejaculation, however, offersthe poet
a safe,externalvantagepointforviewingthecrisishe has just
represented His spermbecomesmetaphoric
allegorically. rain,
whichproducesreal growth,and throughthesecompensatory
imagesofnaturalfecundity, he reconnects to a non-fictive world
of his own imagining:"Rich showering rain,and recompense
richerafterward. / Sproutstakeand accumulate.... standby
thecurbprolific andvital,/Landscapesprojected masculine full-

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586 Literature
American
sized and golden" (Sec. 29).24 These lines conclude Whitman's
representation of Disunion. In them,we see him relearningwhat
he seemed to know at the startof the poem: thatto establishan
equalized identitywith the world he has to turnconsciousness
into physicalpresence.The poet can speak of the soul, but only
in connectionwith the equalizing bodily world. In extremity
the poet had used the soul-termto differentiate himselffrom
the sun, but henceforth, he mustuse it also as an equalizer. To
do this he mustanchorit again in the body.
Commencing the third phase of the poem's plot, Reunion,
Whitman embarkson a journeythroughspace and time,taking
in American places, people and the wars thatfoundedand ex-
panded the country,demonstrating, as in other catalogue se-
quences, the myriad connectionspossible and necessaryin a
unifieddemocraticland. During this journey,Whitman leaps
not only to otherhistoricalmomentsbut also beyondearthitself
into space. His lived body, which can only exist at one point
in space and time, is joined by his embodied soul: "I visit the
orchardsof God and look at the sphericproduct,/ And look at
quintillionsripenedand look at quintillionsgreen" (Sec. 33).
In this leap, Whitman delights in presentinghimself as a
poet of the imagination,seeingorchardsamong the quintillions
of stars,gaily incorporatingingestion,the aerial grace of birds,
and the slipperinessof waterintoa compositemetaphorforthe
imagining soul: "I fly the flightof the fluid and swallowing
soul." A few lines later,he anchors his "ship," and sends the
messengersof his imaginationoffto reportback to him. Such
bird and ship metaphorsforthe soul could as easilybe foundin
"Alastor" or "PrometheusUnbound."25But such images,which
traditionallyprivilegeand disconnectthe aspirationsof the soul
fromthose of the body,do not exhaustWhitman'spresentation,
which is also anchoredin bodily metonymsforthe soul. Whit-

24 Roy Harvey Pearce,The Continuity ofAmericanPoetry(Princeton:PrincetonUniv.

Press, I96I), p. 79, argues similarlythat Whitman solves the mysteryof being by
reconceivingit as the mysteryof creativity.
25 Suzanne Nalbantian, The Symbolof the Soul fromHolderlinto Yeats:A Studyin
Metonymy(New York: Columbia Univ. Press, 1977), provides a useful compendium
of nineteenth-century poetic figuresforthe soul, thoughshe does not treatWhitman,
who cannot fither neat classificationof laternineteenth-century dark
poets preferring
pessimisticimages forthe soul.

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 UnionandDisunionin "SongofMyself" 587
man s soul does not simplyflybut, as a body,also swallows and
swims. This soul does not sail in unchartedmetaphoricwaters,
but ratheris stationedbythe poet in a veryreal Arcticsea, where
nineteenth-century explorers,painters,and poems did venture.
Whitman brings his body with him when he visits those
realms to which only soul has traditionallyhad access. To be
"the poet of the body" and "the poet of the soul" (Sec. 21),
Whitman developed figuresthat could treatbody and soul as
identicalwholes, as in the body-soulcouplingof Section 5, and
as partsof one whole, as in the body-souljourneyof Section 33,
which hoversbetween the difference-making of metaphorand
the connection-makingof metonymy. For when the body-soul
no longerfunctionsas a union of its differentparts,but lets any
one part separatefromthe othersor dominatethem, then the
selfcan no longerfunctionas a coherententity,as he showed in
thecrisisof Sections24-28.
There is another parallel danger faced by Whitman's self,
which he has yetto dramatize.Justas the Federal Union could
abuse its power over statesand individuals,so Whitman's re-
united "I" can succumbto the temptationto swallow up every-
thingoutside the selfand therebyerase the distinctionbetween
persons so necessaryin a democraticsociety.It is one thingto
keep open a membraneforinterchange betweenselfand others,
but it is quite anotherto promotea tyrannicalunion and claim
survivorof a
to be other selves. He is, he tells us, the suffering
shipwreck. "All this I swallow and it tastes good .... I like it
well, and it becomes mine, / I am the man .... I suffered ....
inges-
I was there."This totalitarianincorporation(figuratively,
tion) of the other,is followedby severalmore illocutionaryacts
of total identification: "I am the hounded slave .... I wince at
the bite of the dogs"; "I am the mashed firearmwith breast-
bone broken"; "I am an old artillerist,and tell of some fort's
bombardment .... and am there again" (Sec. 33). These synec-
dochic statementsof identity(the whole subsumingthe parts)
isolate the speakerin self-glorifying just as much as the
fantasy,
earliermetaphoricpersonifications miredhim in self-destructive
fantasy.
In statinghis identitywithothersthroughthe construction"I
am," Whitmanwas adoptinga divineprerogative used by Christ

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588 Literature
American
in the Gospel of Johnand by Krishna in the Bhagavad Ghita.26
In these scriptures,each of them has an a priori rightof uni-
because he is thoughtto embody the com-
versal identification
plete divine presence.Though Whitmancalled himself"divine"
earlierin thepoem (Sec. 24, 1.526), in Section38, he confronts
the perplexitiesof his mortalnature.His images of the grave,
paired antitheticallywith those of Christ's resurrection,show
thatwhateveridentityWhitmanfeelswiththe resurrected Christ
is preciselya functionof theirsharedmortality. While thinking
of himselfas a god bolstersWhitman'segalitarianrefusalto be
subservientto others,it also impedes his social intercoursewith
his fellows. Therefore,he changes his "I am" discourse after
this point in the poem (see Sec. 47) to referonly to his wholly
human role as teacher,preachinghis faithin the united body
and soul.
Near the end of the poem, Whitman'schastened,reunitedself
claims thatthe essenceof his experience"is not in anydictionary
or utteranceor symbol."Nevertheless,he proceedsto definethat
essence: "It is not chaos or death .... it is formand union and
plan .... it is eternallife .... it is happiness" (Sec. 50). The
opposition of chaos and death to form,union, plan, life and
happiness could not be clearer.Nor is it an accident that the
crucialword "union" comes togetherwith"life"and "happiness"
fromthe Declarationof Independence.Whitmansaved "union"
for this exegeticalmoment,for making plain the meaningsof
what Whitmancalls in his prefacethe new,"indirect"American
poetry(p. 8).
The time had passed for Whitman to write another series
of ineffectualeditorialseulogizing the Union. What Whitman
could do for the country,he ambitiouslyhoped, was to offer
a book so governed by principlesof natural and harmonious
union,so aware of the alternativedangersof both secessionand
tyranny, that his readerswould be persuaded of the analagous
politicalbenefitsof the ConstitutionalUnion forthemselves.We
know now that his contemporariesdid not possess the literary

26 See John6:35; 8:12; 9:5; lO:7, II; 11:25; 14:6; 15:I; and J.A. B. Van Buitenen,
The Bhagavadgitain the Maharabata,Text and Translation(Chicago: Univ. of Chicago
Press, I98I), pp. 99, 105, 110-II.

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 Unionand Disunionin "SongofMyself" 589
necessary
sophistication figuresin his carpet.
to see theindirect
We also know thateven if his few readershad been able to
decipherhis politicalmessage,theywere helplessto fendoff
the economic,social,and politicalforcesleadingto disunion
and war. Whitman,of course,lackedour hindsight.Instead,
he had faithand hope. And out of the extravagance of that
hope,he createda poeticblueprint ofan ideal America,so that
mightyetretreat
his compatriots fromdisunionand constitute
in all theirconflicting
themselves, as one nation.27
diversity,

27 I am indebtedto the AmericanCouncil of Learned Societies and the Committee

on Grants,Franklinand Marshall College, forfundinga year'sleave spentat Brandeis
University, where a seminarand conversationswith Prof.Allen Grossmanand Claudia
Yukman stimulatedthis work. I have also benefitedfrom the researchassistanceof
Heather Fitzgerald throughthe Hackman Scholars Programof Franklinand Marshall
College. I want to thank Ellen Frankel,RobertGreenberg,C. CarrollHollis, and David
Leverenz forcommentingon earlierdrafts.

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