Free “Song Of Myself” And “A Sight In Camp:” The Loss Of Self To War Essay Example

Walt Whitman wrote much of his poetry during a very tumultuous time in American history. During this time period, the American Civil War was in full swing, and this war brought with it casualties unlike any that had been seen before. Whitman was present on the battlefield, as he spent part of the war working as a nurse on the front lines (Greenspan and Nathanson 792). Although Whitman is commonly known for his hopeful, nature-laden poetry, in his wartime era poetry he deviates from this transcendentalist philosophy and style significantly (Greenspan and Nathanson 792). In his earlier poetry, Whitman’s speaker and narrator—ostensibly Whitman himself-- is very concerned with his own inner vision, but as he experiences more of war, the narrator’s focus turns outward, away from the speaker’s inner turmoil, toward the plight of the narrator’s fellow man.
War seems to have a humbling effect on Whitman’s speaker. Greenspan and Nathanson suggest that the speaker in Whitman’s poetry is Whitman himself; this is reflective of Whitman’s engagement in the transcendentalist movement (Greenspan and Nathanson 792). In “Song of Myself,” he is concerned with his inner vision, and the ways in which the world is affected by his presence. In “Song of Myself,” Whitman writes, “In all people I see myself, none more and not one a barleycorn less/and the good or bad I say of myself I say of them” (Whitman). In this poem, Whitman only seems capable of empathizing with others insofar as he can see himself in them; he does not seem capable of seeing other people as individuals who have disparate and different experiences (Fabb).
This self-centeredness is reflected throughout the text in “Song of Myself;” Whitman’s ability to empathize with others is continuously limited to using the characters in his text as a mirror. This is partially an aesthetic choice, because it reflects the philosophy of transcendentalism, in which everyone is part of a larger whole. It also reflects the romanticism that Whitman strove for in his work (Sarracino 4). However, the manner in which Whitman chooses to link himself and others together in “Song of Myself” is certainly egocentric in certain ways. However, this egocentrism all but disappears once Whitman begins to experience the realities of war.
Death is something that occurs naturally in the world, and it is something that Whitman touches briefly on during “Song of Myself,” but the death that occurs in that piece is a more natural death; it is the death that occurs at the end of a long, fruitful life. The death that occurs during “A Sight at Camp,” conversely, seems to be senseless; the narrator seems incapable of understanding or processing the horror that is in front of his eyes as a result of the war. All the death seems to have set him apart from his fellow man; he seems to feel much less cohesion with the rest of humanity as a result of the war.
When Whitman begins to experience war and writes about it in “A Sight in Camp,” he is decidedly sobered. Accepting, once again, that Whitman’s speaker and Whitman himself are one and the same, it is clear that war has a transformative impact on Whitman himself (Greenspan and Nathanson 792). In the final stanza of the poem, Whitman writes:
Then to the third--a face nor child, nor old, very calm, as ofbeautiful yellow-white ivory;Young man, I think I know you--I think this face of yours is the faceof the Christ himself;Dead and divine, and brother of all, and here again he lies. (Whitman)
Unlike the narrator in “Song of Myself,” this narrator does not liken himself to the dead; he knows that he, unlike the dead, is very lucky to be alive. Instead, the narrator looks in horror and sadness upon the faces of the dead. When he gets to the young man, he sees the face of Jesus Christ, and reflects on the cruelty of man (Whitman).
This is a distinct difference from the narrator in “Song of Myself.” Where that version of Whitman saw himself in all the people around him, this iteration of Whitman seems tired, wearied by the long war and the never ending stream of death that he almost certainly saw as a nurse during the American Civil War. There is no elation in “A Sight at Camp,” and the romanticism that does exist in the poem is a sad romanticism of the beauty of the dead, not the beauty of death. Although Whitman has retained many of the same stylistic elements from “Song of Myself” to “A Sight at Camp,” the subject matter and the tone have changed entirely. War altered Whitman’s vision, and the post-war poem “A Sight at Camp” reflects his new, slightly less romantic view of the world and the people around him.

References

Fabb, Nigel. 'Poetic Form As Meaning In Walt Whitman's Leaves Of Grass'. Journal of Literary Semantics 41.2 (2012): n. pag. Web.
Greenspan, Ezra, and Tenney Nathanson. 'Whitman's Presence: Body, Voice, And Writing In "Leaves Of Grass."'. American Literature 65.4 (1993): 792. Web.
Sarracino, Carmine. 'Figures Of Transcendence In Whitman's Poetry'. Walt Whitman Quarterly Review5.1 (1987): 1-11. Web.
Whitman, Walt. 'A Sight In Camp'. PoemHunter.com. N.p., 2015. Web. 23 Mar. 2015.
Whitman, Walt. 'Whitman's "Song Of Myself"'. English.illinois.edu. N.p., 2015. Web. 23 Mar. 2015.