LEAVES OF GRASS

The poet feels as if he is Adam as he walks forth in the morning after a refreshing sleep. He asks the reader to look at him and to touch him without fear: “Touch me, touch the palm of your hand to my body as I pass,/Be not afraid of […]

Read more Summary and Analysis: Children of Adam As Adam Early in the Morning””

The poet becomes Adam himself He returns to the earth to chant “lusty, phallic” songs. In the West, home of the new Garden of Eden, the great cities call him. He offers his songs and himself, bathing both in the sex which issues forth from his body. Merging his identity […]

Read more Summary and Analysis: Children of Adam Ages and Ages Returning at Intervals””

The spontaneous and instinctive force within the poet is nature. The rising sun, the “blossoms of the mountain ash” on the hillside, and the grass are all parts of nature, as is “the friend I am happy with.” The “real poems” are inside man himself. These “poems of the privacy […]

Read more Summary and Analysis: Children of Adam Spontaneous Me””

Man endeavors to ascend to the Garden of Eden again. But only through love can he achieve this goal. Physical love gives meaning to man’s life and the body lends substance to his existence. The poet is ready for rebirth. Life seems beautiful and wondrous to him and the quivering […]

Read more Summary and Analysis: Children of Adam To the Garden of the World””

A group of fifteen poems in the 1860 version of Leaves of Grass was entitled Enfans d’Adam. In 1867, these poems, after a few changes, were retitled Children of Adam. In the 1892 edition, the group consists of sixteen poems. The major themes of Children of Adam are procreation and […]

Read more Summary and Analysis: Children of Adam Introduction

“A call in the midst of the crowd,/My own voice, orotund [strong and clear] sweeping and final,” says the poet, who assumed the position of prophet while acknowledging his kinship with mankind. He says, “I know perfectly well my own egotism,” but he would extend it to include all humanity […]

Read more Summary and Analysis: Song of Myself”” Sections 42-52, lines 1054-1347

These three sections express the idea of the poet as a sort of superman, flowing through life and the world doing good. He transforms the common into the Divine. In this process, the “common modes” assume “new forms.” He answers the call of the needy and the despairing and even […]

Read more Summary and Analysis: Song of Myself”” Sections 39-41, lines 976-1053

The poet resolves to listen and be receptive to all sounds. The sounds are familiar: the “bravuras of birds,” the “bustle of growing wheat,” and “the sound of the human voice.” Soon they reach a high pitch and the poet is ecstatic at this “music.” Sections 27-30 reveal that the […]

Read more Summary and Analysis: Song of Myself”” Sections 26-38, lines 582-975

The poet declares that all he says of himself the reader is to say of his own self, “else it were time lost listening to me.” He declares himself to be “solid and sound,” “deathless,” and “august,” and, while no one is better than he, no one is worse, either. […]

Read more Summary and Analysis: Song of Myself”” Sections 20-25, lines 389-581

Section 6 presents the first significant transition in the poem and introduces the central symbol in “Song of Myself.” A child appears with both hands full of Leaves from the fields and asks the poet, “What is the grass?” The poet at first feels incapable of answering this question but […]

Read more Summary and Analysis: Song of Myself”” Sections 6-19, lines 99-388