Evolution of LaGuardia Airport

Song of Myself

“Song of Myself,” the first poem of the original Leaves of Grass, is one of Whitman’s most famous poems. However, according to former United States poet laureate Robert Hass, it wasn’t until the end of Whitman’s life that it was given that name—one previous name was “A Poem of Walt Whitman, an American.” More radical though, Hass notes, is Whitman’s use of free verse instead of a traditional rhyme scheme, something poets didn’t start really experimenting with until the early 1900s. This work, along with some of the work of writers such as Emerson, Henry David Thoreau, Louisa May Alcott, and Nathaniel Hawthorn, exemplifies the transcendental movement. The works of this movement placed value on intuition over rationality, with the belief that a divine spirit resides within everyone and that knowledge of oneself “transcends” what can be seen, tasted, felt, smelled, or heard.

In simpler terms, it was a belief in the inherent goodness of nature and people as well as a connectedness to the world around. This manifests in three major themes in Whitman’s poem: the idea of self; the self in relation to others; and how the self relates to elements in nature and the universe. These themes are emphasized through Whitman’s use of repetition and exclamation, with many sections cataloging individuals, locations, and actions that moved him. And though the poem is written with the first person “I,” that “I” is not meant to represent Whitman, nor one individual at all. Instead, that narrative voice is meant to transcend the boundaries of what is typically considered “self.” With this in mind, the title of Gunderson’s play, I and You, through the lens of Whitman, the two pronouns essentially mean the same thing. This poem, and this larger sense of self, becomes the connective tissue between the characters of Caroline and Anthony.

Whitman’s annotated copy of Leaves of Grass