by Mercedes Czlapinski

Created on: May 29, 2009

Literature often reflects governing ideas and concerns, economic and political arrangements, and changes in historical moment. Frequently, authors not only portray these ideas and arrangements in their literature, but attempt to change minds and envision a different sort of economic and political arrangement; Walt Whitman is one of these authors. Walt Whitman was greatly influenced by the social and racial issues of his time. Whitman's poetry came out during the 1850s at a time when America was nearly tearing itself apart over conflicting views on slavery. Whitman, caught up in these conflicting views, used many of his works to portray an antislavery message, including Song of Myself. Though he was not considered an abolitionist, Walt Whitman became determined to create a democratic voice for America in an attempt to keep the nation stable.

The first edition of Walt Whitman's Song of Myself was published in 1855, when America was in the midst of a crisis over slavery. When the Fugitive Slave Law of 1850 and the Kansas-Nebraska act of 1854 emerged, Whitman was shocked at the stress it caused between the North and the South, and decided that the times demanded a poet who could survey the entire cultural landscape and give expression to the full range of voices and images America had to offer (Reynolds, 6). Whitman wanted to be the voice of rationality in a time irrationality was so prominent in our nation.

Walt Whitman used much of his poetry to convey this democratic voice by utilizing the word, I. In Whitman's poems, the I represents an all encompassing voice, in which he expresses both sides of the issue of slavery. One of Whitman's most infamous poems that uses this I is The Sleepers, in which Whitman wrote, I am the poet of slaves and of the master of slaves, []/I go with the slaves of the earth and equally with the masters/ And I will stand between the masters and the slaves,/ Entering into both, so both shall understand me alike (Reynolds, 9). For Whitman, the poet was no marginal artist distanced from the social events of the day, but rather a vital social agent necessary for national healing and reconciliation (Reynolds, 9). In his poem, Whitman becomes both the slave and the master in order to reflect both sides of an extremely controversial conflict.

Whitman's democratic voice also appears in many ways in Song of Myself. In section 33, Whitman writes, I am the hounded slaveI wince at the bite of

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