When I first encountered the ‘Song of Myself’, I have not seen such a long poem before so I really wondered what Whitman was trying to say in these fifty-two sections of the epic poem. It took me somewhat a long time to interpret the whole sections but after all, I realized it was more like a journey reading the whole story of fifty-two poems. I believe that the main theme of ‘Song of Myself’ is a journey in finding myself. In the beginning stage of the journey, ‘I’ go through delighted and holy time of union with God but still yet isolated from the outside world. In the middle stage, ‘I’ precede a journey to the outside world, expanding the union to the humanity as a whole, but realizing that the conflicts and differences exist within the humanity and society. Following with the next stage, ‘I’ is able to be beyond the all creations and allows a self totally combining with the outside world. Finally, in the final stage, ‘I’, the poet himself departs a journey recommending the same journey to the audience.
The theme of journey in ‘Song of Myself’ is a very basic and main theme at the same time since journey concept is uniting all the scattered sections and forming a consistent structure to the poem. The fifty-two sections of the poem are gradually gathered in a harmony with the outside world, and myself dissolving the conflicts and opposites, ultimately become one.
The section that interested me the most is where he defines what “I am”
I know I am solid and sound….
I exist as I am, that is enough,
If no other in the world be aware I sit content,
And if each and all be aware I sit content.
One world is aware and by far the largest to me, and that is myself,
And whether I come to my own to-day or in ten thousand or ten million years.
I can cheerfully take it now, or with equal cheerfulness
I can wait. (Section 20 403, 413-18)
I believe the section 20 is the middle stage of the journey. This sections gives questions like “What am I? What is a man? What are you?” which all are very similar to each other and the poet himself answers it in the poem; “In all people I see myself” (Section 20, 401). In this middle stage of journey, he interprets the outside world by expanding the unity as a whole and absorbing every object in the universe reaching to the answer “In all people I see myself” meaning the reflection of myself can be found from looking at the surfaces of the universe. Thus, Me and Not Me from the beginning stage now has reached to the stage where conflicts, opposites and differences can be dissolved prior to the final stage of the journey.