Of "Song of Myself"

The 1855 edition is dominated by the inaugural poem. Untitled in the 1855 edition, in 1856 it became "A Poem of Walt Whitman, an American"; in the 1881 edition it received the title by which it is known today. "Song of Myself" is written in free verse—a self-conscious and deliberately unstructured form of poetry consisting of long lines, often mixing verse with song. It is a composite of all the ideas that preoccupied Whitman throughout his life and his writing. The title places the poem within two fundamental contexts: autobiography and epic poetry, the ancient tradition of oral poetry in which the poet, or "bard," sings the story of a hero's trials and victories. An epic poem is an extended narrative written in poetic language that sets forth the story of a people or a nation; in a sense, it is a national history, to be memorialized and handed down through generations. In "Song of Myself," Whitman names—and praises—Americans in all walks of life and grants them "divine" status through the combined grandeur of body and soul.