Song of Myself: Themes

The Capacious Nature of the Self

Perhaps the most central theme in “Song of Myself” relates to the capacious nature of the individual self. The reader might already pick up on this theme before starting to read. Between its title and its sheer length, it’s clear that the poem will be something of an epic about an individual. To be sure, the poem doesn’t take the form we might expect of such an epic, since it doesn’t follow a linear narrative outlining the growth and development of one person. Instead, the speaker takes a more nonlinear and varied approach. At times he reflects on his own thoughts and experiences. Other times, he describes the various people, animals, and plants who inhabit his local environment. Yet other times, his perspective zooms out to encompass entire landscapes, continents, and even the solar system. These various areas of interest and observation showcase the speaker’s wide-ranging mind, which he addresses explicitly in lines 564–565:

My voice goes after what my eyes cannot reach,
With the twirl of my tongue I encompass worlds and volumes of worlds.

Here, the speaker indicates his aspiration to inhabit a near-infinite perspective, able to see and know everything and yet always capable of more. The speaker again confirms the capacious nature of his self near the poem’s end, when he declares, “I am large, I contain multitudes” (line 1325).

The Perfection of the Living World

The speaker is primarily concerned with the living “flesh” of the material world. That is, he’s interested in people, plants, and animals, as well as the material and energetic exchanges between them, which he refers to as a dynamic process of “influx and efflux” (line 459). The speaker emphasizes the perfection of this material world and of all the beings who inhabit it. As he puts the matter in line 648: “All truths wait in all things”—meaning that every material creature both contains and express the essential “truths” of the universe. The speaker elaborates further in lines 663–669:

I believe a leaf of grass is no less than the journey-work of the stars,
And the pismire is equally perfect, and a grain of sand, and the egg of the wren,
And the tree-toad is a chef-d’œuvre for the highest,
And the running blackberry would adorn the parlors of heaven,
And the narrowest hinge in my hand puts to scorn all machinery,
And the cow crunching with depress’d head surpasses any statue,
And a mouse is miracle enough to stagger sextillions of infidels.

The speaker claims that a humble leaf of grass is as much an ideal expression as “the journey-work of the stars,” and hence equally worthy of our admiration. All other beings are “equally perfect,” and some might even be considered “a chef-d’œuvre”—that is, a masterpiece. Far from being a fallen realm, the world of material beings is a perfect creation, and hence divine. The speaker makes this last idea explicit with reference to his own body, in lines 524–526:

Divine I am inside and out, and I make holy whatever I touch or am touch’d from,
The scent of these arm-pits aroma finer than prayer,
This head more than churches, bibles, and all the creeds.

In an express revision of Christian ideas about the fallen and sinful body, the speaker insists that his flesh reflects the divinity of Creation.

Being Is a Democracy, Not a Hierarchy

One of the key themes that appears implicitly throughout “Song of Myself” is the idea that the realm of being is a democracy, not a hierarchy. The speaker makes this point in section 31, describing how “a leaf of grass is no less than the journey-work of the stars” (line 663). He insists that the spatial or temporal scope of a particular being or phenomenon doesn’t determine its worth. Hence, a humble leaf of grass and a massive star have equal value. Perhaps the most powerful and sustained expression of this idea occurs in section 33, where the speaker presents an epic list of people, places, plants, and animals. By situating all these entities on the same plane of description, the speaker implicitly emphasizes that none is more important than the others. As one small, representative example, examine lines 768–771:

Where the yellow-crown’d heron comes to the edge of the marsh at night and feeds upon small crabs,
Where the splash of swimmers and divers cools the warm noon,
Where the katy-did works her chromatic reed on the walnut-tree over the well,
Through patches of citrons and cucumbers with silver-wired leaves

In just four lines, the speaker references animals (“the yellow-crown’d heron,” “small crabs”), humans (“swimmers,” “divers”), insects (“the katy-did”), and plants (“patches of citrons and cucumbers”). The indiscriminate mixture of references powerfully demonstrates a democracy of attention. The speaker also extends this nonhierarchical view to the human sphere (lines 374–377):

I will not have a single person slighted or left away,
The kept-woman, sponger, thief, are hereby invited,
The heavy-lipp’d slave is invited, the venerealee is invited;
There shall be no difference between them and the rest.

For the speaker, the realm of being—human and otherwise—is a democracy.

The Unity of Opposites

A final key theme in “Song of Myself” relates to the more abstract principle of the unity of opposites. Throughout the poem, the speaker makes numerous statements in which he breaks down the opposition between apparently contradictory ideas or traits. In line 463, for instance, he proudly declares: “I am not the poet of goodness only, I do not decline to be the poet of wickedness also.” Here, the speaker refuses to confine himself to one value over another. In addition to writing about “goodness,” he will also insist on writing about “wickedness”—for in writing about both, he will achieve a balanced perspective that yields greater truthfulness. Elsewhere in the poem, the speaker refuses to uphold similar oppositions. For instance, he consistently rejects any oppositional distinctions between himself and others. As he puts it in line 52: “Clear and sweet is my soul, and clear and sweet is all that is not my soul.” Likewise, the speaker rejects the conventional Christian doctrine that ranks the soul above the body (lines 1270–71):

I have said that the soul is not more than the body,
And I have said that the body is not more than the soul

Taken together, these and other examples indicate how the speaker’s mind has a unifying force, at once encompassing and resolving all types of contradiction.

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