Walt Whitman's Song Of Myself

"I sound my barbaric yawp over the roofs of the world" (Whitman, 74). This famous line from Walt Whitman 's "Song of Myself" is more than just a fun sounding piece of poetry. This line, like Whitman himself, contains multitudes and is indicative of the rest of the poem. Although you can read "Song of Myself" and take it as just a poem and nothing more, you would be missing the meaning behind each word, each stanza. "Song of Myself" is a call to arms, a manifesto, and a portrait of human life all at the same time. "Song of Myself" is not unlike a gift, wrapped up in pretty paper and nice to look at, but what is inside, and the reason behind what is inside, matters most. If the poet is, as Emerson says, the sayer, what is he saying? In "The Poet" Emerson says, "The poet does not wait for the hero or the sage, but, as they act and think primarily, so he writes primarily what will and must be spoken, reckoning the others, though primaries also, yet, in respect to him, secondaries and servants..." (Emerson). What he means is that while others follow the rule that actions speak louder than words, poets think the opposite. More important than the actions or thoughts of other men,
Whitman may not be overtly against the idea of Manifest Destiny, but he was not for it either. Lines four and five of section one seem to show what Whitman thought of Manifest Destiny. "I loafe and invite my soul, I lean and loafe at my ease observing a spear of summer grass." What this seems to be saying is that the country as a whole should just sit back and relax, asking if conquering our way to the opposite shore really matters. Whitman obviously does not think so, he is happy lying in the grass, not caring whether America advances its borders or not. The first of these lines also seems to say that America should be looking inwards and dealing with more important things first, before we go grabbing up all the land we