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.