In the first line of the poem, Walt Whitman boldly declares its subject: himself. Indeed, “Song of Myself” is, on one level, an unabashed celebration of Whitman the individual. The poet draws on real details of his life and personal experiences. He mentions his roots in Manhattan (Section 24); he alludes to the ambiguity of his sexual desires throughout the text. He even plucks a war story from his family history in Section 35. Readers have taken his point to heart. Throughout its reception history, “Song of Myself” has been closely identified, for better or for worse, with Walt Whitman himself.

But Whitman’s concept of self is more nuanced than it seems at first glance. It is true that the poem is about Whitman, but as the poet explains in the earliest lines, “Every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you” (Section 1). When Whitman writes of himself, he writes of you, of me, of all of humanity. Whitman’s vision of self is informed by radical, democratic empathy.

Throughout “Song of Myself,” Whitman clarifies and revisits this idea. “In all people I see myself,” he writes in Section 20, “None more and not one a barley-corn less.” He is “no stander above men and women or apart from them” (Section 24), he is a member of a body politic made reality.