Whitman’s Perception of the Female Body

Posted on February 9, 2026 by praisedbethefathomlessuniverse aka luca

In section 5 of “I Sing the Body Electric,” we see Whitman praising the female form, even calling it divine – “The female contains all qualities and tempers them/She is in her place and moves with perfect balance” (line 17 – 18). Then, in section 6, he praises the male form. What is the man? He is “action and power” (line 2), but additionally “The flush of the known universe is in him/…Knowledge becomes him” (line 3, line 7). But there is one thing he specifically praises the female body for – procreation. In lines 12 and 13 of section 5 of the same poem, he compares male-female sex to birth, and then praises the female body for being “…the gates of the body… the gates of the soul” (section 5 line 15). Male and female are both described as containing all qualities, but men are distinctly described as embodying action, power, knowledge, the entire known universe. So I have to ask, what besides the general “all qualities” does the woman embody? What besides the bodies and souls of others, which do not truly belong to her? “She is to conceive daughters as well as sons, and sons as well as daughters” (section 5 line 19) – she equally conceives – but I can’t help but notice that the primary clause of this line is “She is to conceive”, she is expected to conceive.

In sections 7 and 8, Whitman mentions the begetting of children again. A man is “…the father of those who shall be fathers in their turns,/In him the start of populous states and rich republics,/Of him countless immortal lives with countless embodiments and enjoyments” (section 7 lines 19 – 21). A woman shares similar characteristics, she is “…the teeming mother of mothers,/She is the bearer of them that shall grow and be mates to mothers” (section 8 lines 2 – 3). But… that’s it. Nothing about populous states, rich republics, embodiments and enjoyments in his description of the female role within procreation – only motherhood and mating. Now, you could argue that he doesn’t need to restate that women are also the start of populous states and whatnot. But Whitman loves his repetitions. So why did he leave those things out when describing how a woman’s role in procreation benefits the world? Why does she only create more procreators? Because of this, I can’t help reading women as portrayed as lesser than men in this poem.

Now, I’m not definitive about all this – maybe Whitman is biased like this towards the male body because he’s gay, maybe I’m that one friend who’s too woke. Just wanted to share some of what I thought about while reading parts of Children of Adam.

From “A Sunset” by Robert Hass (1941-)

Posted on February 9, 2026 by mns

Here’s another hard right turn. Think
Of how Walt Whitman loved this country,
Loved the President who died. Imagined
Himself as a hand brushing a fly from the brow
Of a sleeping child. In the dark
I thought of a radiant ordinariness
That burned, that burned and burned.

Keller’s CS for February 10

Posted on February 9, 2026 by kellerdillman

In this reading in the Children of Adam, the themes of the natural body, carrying over from Calamus, are still the focal point, but what I picked up on particularly in this reading, was both the description of the body outside of its sexual nature (before the dive into sexual desire of course) in its sanctity as well, and then the progressiveness with Walt tying the body to democracy,

In “I Sing the Body Electric” section 2, Walt states “But in the expression of a well-made man appears not only in his face, / It is in his limbs and joints also, it is curiously in the joints of his hips and wrists, / It is in his walk, the carriage of his neck, the flex of his waist and knees, dress does not hide him.” I personally found this section particularly compelling because of the appreciation for the common and normal. Above this section he expresses that the body of both the male and female are perfect, and I like this idea, but I especially like the idea that the body in its brokenness is also perfect. Whitman grew up working and self sufficient at 14(if I’m remembering correctly), so he was no stranger to the effects of time and exertion on the body, and I thought it was pretty powerful to have him express the perfection even in an “abnormal” (meaning “flawed” or weathered) gait. I have continually been an appreciator of Whitman’s almost seeming compulsion to describe the mundane or common, and I think it might be due to my unfamiliarity with Whitman and poetry as a whole, but I think that is his point… He wants people to be able to enjoy his poetry and appreciate his message and not necessarily have had extensive studies in poetry before, and reach the masses. So I thought this particular description of a perfect body was pretty powerful (alliteration- I am learning). But a question regrading this idea would be how do you personally read the descriptions of “worn” bodies after describing them all as flawless? Do you read them in a different way or find different aspects of the same descriptions more compelling than others?

The second pretty compelling piece that I gathered from “I Sing the Body Electric”, is the connection to democracy through the description of perfection in nature. All throughout, he speaks of both male and female bodies in tandem, interchangeable in their perfection, calling out perfection of both at different times. In section 8 he does it again, “Have you ever loved the body of a woman? / Have you ever loved the body of a man? / … And in man or woman a clean, strong, firm-fibered body, is more beautiful than the most beautiful face.” Okay so there definitely more to unpack in this particular quote, but my point is the unity and discussion of both bodies in the same breath as perfect and sanctified. Again in section 9, “O my body! I dare not desert the likes of you in other men and women, nor the likes of the parts of you”. Another example of both the body as a whole, and parts of the body as being perfect, not to be ashamed or shunned from discussion, but male and female alike they are perfect. I thought this was a perfect example of his progressive, democratic stance on male and female, and thought it was compelling because through his discussion of the body; both are perfect, neither is above the other, and frequently he mentions the female body first and the male second as almost an afterthought. My questions based on this is: Is the order in which he talks about the male and female bodies important in any way? Or am I reading too much into it? Also, at what point do you think WW is guilty so then he adds in an equalizing description? For example, “The female body is perfect. Oh wait yeah so is the the male body.”

Thank you for bearing with me I apologize if this is much too surface level for you all. Let me know what you guys think and I will be looking forward to learning from your responses!

Luca’s CS for February 5th

Posted on February 3, 2026 by praisedbethefathomlessuniverse aka luca

So sorry I’m posting these so late, I was planning to write them yesterday but then I saw Iron Lung and it was all I could think about for the rest of the day…. anyway. Fun fact – did you know the acorus calamus plant, which this collection of poems is named for, contains psychoactive chemicals? Now you do! I wonder if Walt did…

Throughout these poems, Walt seems to be exploring a number of underlying themes. Something I picked up immediately in “Scented Herbage of My Breast” is the body-soul-nature collective we briefly talked about in class today, or rather the blurring of lines between each. What exactly are the plants Whitman is writing about here? What do they represent? They’re linked to his body, particularly his heart, in the title of the poem itself and in lines like “…O blossoms of my blood! I permit you to tell in your own way of the heart that is under you” (line 7). The body as nature, and nature as the body. “Roots and Leaves Themselves Alone” repeats this theme, but on a universal rather than personal scale – “Roots and leaves themselves alone are these/Scents brought to men and women from the wild woods and pond-side/Breast-sorrel and pinks of love, fingers that wind around tighter than vines” (lines 1 – 3). Here, the language used to describe the plants in line 3 clearly associates them with the body, but rather than being part of “the men and women,” they are brought to the people.

In “Scented Herbage of My Breast,” these plants are also connected to both cyclical renewal – “Every year you shall bloom again…” (line 5) – and death – “…you make me think of death,/Death is beautiful from you…” (lines 8 – 9).

Speaking of death, the way Whitman talks about it in these poems is really interesting. In “Scented Herbage of My Breast, the lines “…it is not for life I am chanting here my chant of lovers, I think it must be for death” (line 10) and “Through me shall the words be said to make death exhilarating” (line 25). The Great Poet speaks not only for America, nature, and whatever other conventions we’ve come to expect from Whitman – here, he explicitly establishes himself as speaking for death. Again I wonder, what exactly is this death? Is it literal, or representative of something more complex? The unique kind of love Calamus centers on has a surprising amount to do with this mysterious death. In “Whoever You Are Holding Me Now in Hand,” Whitman says that “thus touching you [a lover, presumably] would I silently sleep and be carried eternally” (line 26). Silently sleeping eternally certainly sounds like death, but what kind of death is inspired by the touch of a lover, and why? There are a couple other unusual death-related things I noticed throughout these poems but they may be more of a stretch, so I’ll leave them out of this particular post.

I could probably go on a lot longer about Calamus, but for now I’ll just briefly mention a few other repeated themes I noticed in case you want more to discuss or think about:

Society, and what exists outside of it – particularly in the context of the homosocial (?) love these poems are about
In a related vein, society/heteronormativity as a false reality or illusion, versus homosocial love as the true or transcendent reality (this one really interests me but I can’t quite wrap my head around it enough to write a constructive paragraph about it)
American identity and the so-called “robust love”
The juxtaposition of homosocial-ity and heteronormativity

Sarah’s CS for February 5th

Posted on February 3, 2026 by styreehe

Hi all! In stark contrast to the other works of Whitman that we have read and focused on so far, the Calamus poems allow us to take a deep breath after engaging in Whitman’s long-winded and rambling nature, and instead take a dive into his homosexual side.

As mentioned above, the Calamus poems, a collection of 39 relatively, at least by Whitman’s standards, short poems, explore a variety of themes. This is drastically different than the type of long-form writing we have seen from Whitman in “Song of Myself” and “Song of the Open Road”. What does this difference signify? How did this shorter form affect your reading and understanding of the works? Did you feel as though there was an overarching theme found amongst most, if not all, of the poems, or did each poem feel distinct and separated from the others?

One theme that I noticed developing, especially as I continued further into the collection, was the idea of homosexual love, specifically between two men. In the first few poems, such as “Whoever You Are Holding Me Now in Hand”, Whitman’s description of a romantic and/or sexual connection between two men (one of those men presumably being himself) feels more obscure and almost hidden: “With the comrade’s long-dwelling kiss or the new husband’s kiss, / For I am the new husband and I am the comrade” (Whitman 271). To some, this may feel obvious, but compared to the ways that Whitman describes this relationship in poems further within the collection, such as the line “And when I thought how my dear friend my lover was on his way coming, O then I was happy,” (Whitman 276) from “When I Heard at the Close of the Day”, the first quote feels less public and more shied away. Why do you feel that Whitman’s descriptions of homosexual relationships, both romantic and sexual, became more clear and obvious as he gets further into the collection? Is he becoming more comfortable with himself or does he feel that he needs to speak out about this love and desire because he is growing old and running out of time to say it?

Throughout all of these poems, Whitman describes and labels homosexual love and desire, and people who engage in those types of love and desire, different things. For example, in some poems, such as “For You O Democracy” and “The Base of All Metaphysics”, he refers to men who are involved in these relationships as comrades, while in other poems, such as “Are You the New Person Drawn toward Me?” and “City of Orgies”, he refers to them as lovers. Do you see these terms as interchangeable, or is there a distinction between when someone is a comrade versus when they are a lover? In “O You Whom I Often and Silently Come”, Whitman seems to hint at the idea of an unrequited love in the line “Little you know the subtle electric fire that for your sake is playing within me” (Whitman 286); is comrade used when someone does not reciprocate the feelings Whitman has for them, and is lover used when those feelings are returned?

There are so many more questions I could ask, and so many other things I could talk about when it comes to this collection of poems, but I will leave it there for now! Please let me know what you think about any of the things that I mentioned above, or anything else you noticed in this collection of poems; I have a whole list of other things I would love to talk about in regards to them 🙂

The ethics of representation

Posted on February 3, 2026 by mns

As promised in class, I am opening this topic for discussion since we didn’t get to it today. I think there are many ways that this connects to (but is not the same as) Whitman’s model of selfhood, which some of you may be writing about through the prompt in Response #1. The basic question might be phrased something like this: when Whitman represents, includes, or speaks for others, does he do so ethically and in a way that respects their otherness from him (in identity and experience)? I think we also want to think through what might be our contemporary understanding of that question as well as what it might have meant in his own historical moment.

A few passages in which we might ground discussion. Feel free to add more.

Section 24, page 211, the two stanzas beginning “Through me many long dumb voices”

Section 33 following the long catalog, starting page 224 with “I am a free companion” and continuing through the rest of section on 226.

Which is the Better “Song of Myself”?

Posted on February 1, 2026 by styreehe

When reading the Deathbed version of “Song of Myself”, I kept thinking back to the first version that we read. Specifically, I kept trying to find what the differences between the two versions were, and what the significance of those differences is. The main thing that stuck out to me, as I’m sure it did to most other people, was the inclusion of section breaks. We have seen sections in other of Whitman’s writing, such as “Leaves of Grass”, but we did not have them in the first version of “Song of Myself” that we read. Last class, we talked about how the pacing and flow of “Song of Myself” (due to a minimal use of periods and instead a constant use of commas) lead us to feel like we are always moving forwards, unable to stop and sometimes unable to breathe. I felt as though the usage of separate sections slowed down this pacing and made the act of reading more manageable, but also less unique and interesting. What did you think of the usage of sections? Do you feel that it helped or hindered the reading experience? What do you think the intention was behind separating the poem into sections?

Aaliyah’s CS for January 27

Posted on January 25, 2026 by aaliyahandersonpoet

Snow and Whitman, what more can we ask?

We’ve read two versions of “Song of Myself,” and I instantly noticed a different tone in the 1891-92 version. These lines from the opening section were seemingly added in:

My tongue, every atom of my blood, form’d from this soil, this air

Born here of parents born here from parents the same,

I, now thirty-seven years old in perfect health begin,

Hoping to cease not till death. (lines 6-9)

Here, it seems to be an older Whitman reflecting on his past self. There’s almost this conclusion that this poem started in 1855, and, although he’s about to die, this conversation existed before and will continue after him.

Because we are aware of his life story and the context he lived in, our reading is inherently altered. When I first read these lines, it set a tone of death and intrinsic sadness to the entire poem as I knew Whitman was revising this on his literal death bed.

But do you have any other interpretations of how this first section functions as a “prelude” to the rest of the poem? How did you feel initially reading this? Does this say anything about the process of a writer?

A contributor to this sadder tone is the lack of ellipses and his demure use of exclamation marks. In our class on January 22, we discussed his use of punctuation in the 1855 version, and how the ellipses provide space for both the speaker/Whitman and the reader to contemplate his points. In the “death bed” edition, Whitman omits ellipses, giving a definitive and serious voice. Part of me believes this has to do with his age and gained maturity (as a person and writer) but also because of the change in broader America. Whitman initially wrote “Song of Myself” before the Civil War, and, in this final version, the country was dealing with the effects of reconstruction and the promises of the 20^th century.

Are there different ways the tone is being depicted other than punctuation? Any other parts where the tone seems extremely precise, even morbid? How do you think his experiences as a nurse contributed to his more certain tone? Are there specific parts which document America’s change?

Enjoy the snow and stay safe!

Aaliyah

Walt Witness

Posted on January 22, 2026 by aaliyahandersonpoet

Just wanted to drop in a quote said by Yusef Komunyakaa from in an interview back in 2013 (thank you, Dr. Scanlon)!

I think that what happened is that Whitman gave me a deeper hearing, which may be in concert with a deeper singing. Because I think it’s all about listening. And sometimes if we have, even accidentally, listened, we can hear an echo of the singing. I don’t think that Whitman really sets out to make sense of the world. However, we participate as listeners and readers, to make sense of Whitman. And in that sense, we are making sense of Whitman’s world. Maybe what’s most constructive, for me, is to continue to believe that there’s mystery. Whitman I think taught me to accept mystery. Everything doesn’t have to be explained. Everything doesn’t have to equal a neat number. But there is this immense mystery.

This made me think about our class today, the idea of witnessing (which Komunyakaa discusses more, especially in regards to Whitman and race), and how the act of witnessing can be a song in itself. To witness means to see, to conversate, to repeat, to answer, to reflect—all of which Whitman/the speaker and the reader are required to do in “Song of Myself.” We echo each other in both concrete and ambiguous ways.