1. Reader Reaction: Had I written ‘Song of Myself’ it would have been multitudes less flattering and feeling. I do not see myself as wonderfully as Mr Whitman seems to see himself. I understand that he was being poetic – still. I wish that I could understand such portly optimism. A truly romantic sentiment was his.

2. Plot: Walt Whitman entreats humanity to value itself as he values himself. He frolicks through nature – a nature he is in tune with when naked and thinks him funny when he is not. He loves and breathes the outdoors, and wishes those he sees around himself (the wedded couple, his hunting partners) to be able to drink from his same cup not-meaning-the-sports-gadget.

3. Character: Walt Whitman – beautiful, thirty-seven years old, occasionally naked, consumed; Wedding party – merry.

4. Setting: Walt Whitman is in nature, enjoying himself and enjoying humanity.

5. Point of View: First person

6. Objects/Events:

*Stave 10 is narrative, though it is two different narrations. It tells first of hunting in the woods and cooking his game. It tells next of a wedding of the trapper and the red girl. The remainder of what is included in the excerpt is not so much narrative as rhapsodic episodes of thought.

*God is often mentioned with varying degrees of importance. His ante-penultimate stave included (48) tells humanity not to worry about God, for God is natural; God is everywhere.

*Much religious reference is used (not including those mentioning ‘Biblical’ sin)

*Several sections use repetitive sentence structure in close proximity, creating units of their own. The first noticeable example is in stave 21 (‘Earth of…’). Most of the examples are in this section of the poem. Stave 24 includes four (‘No sentimentalist…No more’ ‘Unscrew the…’ ‘Voices of…’ ‘And of the…’). These are episodes of rhapsodic structure to elevate the emotional tug of his words.

*The poem is mostly un-rhymed and unstructured. Very little alliteration is used; very little internal rhyme is used. The rhyming is generally sporadic, and frequently only repetition of words (‘talkers were talking’ ‘you…you…you’).

*There is a general flow of thought. The first third is mainly a praise to himself. The second third is a praise to nature. The remaining third is mainly praise to humanity (often by praise to himself) above God.

7. Mood: Mostly, the mood is exultant. This is seen in his glorious blanketing and petal-throwing (sorry, couldn’t think of better words) of language. However, within his exultant praises, there is a very distinct and slightly bitter touch of defiance – particularly in his mentions of sex and lust and God.

8. Ideas: Innate goodness of man: Man, in his nature, is glorious. Glories of genius and youth: nothing is better in life. Nothing is comparable to a fantastic human being. God in nature: God is everywhere; he is natural. He is not something to be bothered over, for he is already everywhere.

9. Style: His sentences are long and purposefully semi-wrongly punctuated. There is an abundance of commas where, technically periods, dashes, semicolons, or some other general form of punctuation would have been preferable. He had quite the affair with commas. He used the commas to create an aura and string of long thought. For the longest time, I thought that the entire thing might be one sentence – which would be a feat to perform unnoticed.

10. Metre: Free verse. However, his rhythm of thought is very distinct, nearly always beginning his thoughts with an unstressed syllable followed by a single stressed syllable. After that point, the patterns differ greatly. Two are most prevalent. The first is a series of three or four unstressed syllables followed by sporadic accentuation. The second is a series of trochaic or spondaic, repetitive parallels meant to drive the brain from one point to another (much like quick cuts in film).

11. Sound: It sounds grand. His thoughts and language are so childlike and beautiful while punctuated with just a dabble of bitterness and sour – much like fine chocolate. His rhapsodic, quick, and yet groovily slow writing paints the most beautiful images, so, though he did not use much strict poetic sound, he created a feel with his words that is driving and doping.

12. Worldview: Humanist. Man is the centre of the world; there is nothing greater than man, for nothing greater can be seen. Man is the most beautiful and most solemn of creatures.