The Transparent Eyeball of the Nation: Walt Whitman’s Imagined Nation in “Song of Myself”

Abstract

This paper provides a textual analysis of Walt Whitman’s “Song of Myself”, revealing its significance as a national poem. The paper argues that Whitman’s "Song of Myself" breaks literary and political limits, challenging the sovereignty of the nation. By examining "Song of Myself" in the six different editions of Whitman’s Leaves of Grass, this paper will further analyze Whitman’s style and his speaker as representations of the limitations and sovereignty of literary tradition and the politics of his nation. By “politics,” I refer to the religious, political, and social doctrines that shape the nation. By “literary,” I mean the traditional literary style of writing, such as the poem’s form, scope, and subject.