I Sing the Body Electric Flashcards
Summary.
- Whitman celebrates the glories of existence, explores the body as a whole & in its parts, & the equal importance of both body & soul & that **all bodies are equally sacred (despite gender & race, everyone has the same blood running through their veins **.
- Whitman grounds all of his observations & discoveries in the body. He does so because he believes that the one thing we all share in common is the body & thus, the body becomes the root source of all society, equality & democracy.
- The poem states the similarities between body & soul, arguing that the body doesn’t corrupt the soul.
- Whitman / the speaker includes an extensive lists of the features of the human body to illustrate the individual importance of each feature that makes the body perfect.
- Whitman talks about the similarities & dissimilarities of the male & female body to highlighting the importance of women as well as men.
- Whitman expresses his condemnation of slavery, believing that all bodies are equally sacred as everyone has the same blood running through their veins.
Themes.
- The Body
- Sexuality
- Equality
- Human Connection
- Evils of Slavery
Section 1:
I sing the body electric,
The armies of those I love engirth me and I engirth them,
They will not let me off till I go with them, respond to them,
And discorrupt them, and charge them full with the charge of the soul.
Was it doubted that those who corrupt their own bodies conceal themselves?
And if those who defile the living are as bad as they who defile the dead?
And if the body does not do fully as much as the soul?
And if the body were not the soul, what is the soul?
- The body is charged “full with the charge of the soul” & “I sing the body electric” - poem begins with electrical-themed terms. Electricity has connotations of lively, vibrant & potentially dangerous energy. Thus, it prepares the reader for praise for the human body as an entity that is mysterious, enlivening & an awe-inspiring force.
- “And if the body were not the soul, what is the soul?” - The body & spirit are presented as one unified object.
- Rhetorical questions - invites readers to question their own comfortable assumptions in preparation for unexpected truths such as the body being just as important as the soul.
Section 2:
The love of the body of man or woman balks account, the body itself balks account,
That of the male is perfect, and that of the female is perfect.
The expression of the face balks account,
But the expression of a well-made man appears not only in his face,
It is in his limbs and joints also, it is curiously in the joints of his hips and wrists,
It is in his walk, the carriage of his neck, the flex of his waist and knees, dress does not hide him,
The strong sweet quality he has strikes through the cotton and broadcloth,
To see him pass conveys as much as the best poem, perhaps more,
You linger to see his back, and the back of his neck and shoulder-side.
The sprawl and fulness of babes, the bosoms and heads of women, the folds of their dress, their style as we pass in the street, the contour of their shape downwards,
The swimmer naked in the swimming-bath, seen as he swims through the transparent green-shine, or lies with his face up and rolls silently to and fro in the heave of the water,
The bending forward and backward of rowers in row-boats, the horseman in his saddle,
Girls, mothers, house-keepers, in all their performances,
The group of laborers seated at noon-time with their open dinner-kettles, and their wives waiting,
The female soothing a child, the farmer’s daughter in the garden or cow-yard,
The young fellow hoeing corn, the sleigh-driver driving his six horses through the crowd,
The wrestle of wrestlers, two apprentice-boys, quite grown, lusty, good-natured, native-born, out on the vacant lot at sun-down after work,
The coats and caps thrown down, the embrace of love and resistance,
The upper-hold and under-hold, the hair rumpled over and blinding the eyes;
The march of firemen in their own costumes, the play of masculine muscle through clean-setting trowsers and waist-straps,
The slow return from the fire, the pause when the bell strikes suddenly again, and the listening on the alert,
The natural, perfect, varied attitudes, the bent head, the curv’d neck and the counting;
Such-like I love—I loosen myself, pass freely, am at the mother’s breast with the little child,
Swim with the swimmers, wrestle with wrestlers, march in line with the firemen, and pause, listen, count.
- Repetition of “balks account” - The speaker’s language suggests that the difficulty of putting the body into words is partly to do with the body’s own lively energy. Putting this inarticulable wonder right up front, the speaker invites readers to see the bodies the way he does.
- “That of the male is perfect, & that of the female is perfect” - Language & parallel lines suggests a broad, egalitarian vision of what makes bodies special.
- Repetition of “expression” - The “well-made man’s” “expression” comes from the way he carries himself. His movement says something about who he is.
- The “strong sweet quality” of his powerful physicality cuts right through “cotton and broadcloth”, right through the clothes that mark him out as a man in a particular place & time. His bodily “expression” communicates what words cannot.
- “To see him pass conveys as much as the best poem” - Invites readers to consider how poetry & the body are both forms of “expression”. In Whitman’s eyes the body is a work of astonishing art, much like an individual poem. He believes both entities to be of serious power in their ability to connect people with their very souls.
- “The sprawl & fulness of babes…The march of firemen in their own costumes” - From admiring one specific “well-made man”, the speaker turns to a rapturous appreciation of different kinds of people. In admiring them, he takes note of the particular qualities that their bodies give them: their “varied attitudes”, strength & beauty. These bodies do not only display their health or beauty, but also give these people their characters & unique identities.
- “The swimmer naked in the swimming-bath, seen as he swims through the transparent green-shine” - the steady polyptoton & hushed sibilance that runs all through the lines, vividly evoke the experience of swimming, its repetitive motions & the soft swish of water around the arms & legs. The speaker’s visual imagery is no less bright: the “transparent green-shine” of the water seems to glow. The overall effect is one that inspires the reader to appreciate the simple joys in life.
- “The wrestle of wrestlers, two apprentice-boys, quite grown…” - Asyndeton evokes the speaker’s fascination: linked together without conjunctions, the lines feel continuous & hypnotic, as if the speaker is utterly entranced by these beautiful men. The speaker’s descriptions demonstrate how people can be connected by habitual human activities, by empathy, & attraction to each other’s bodies.
Section 3:
I knew a man, a common farmer, the father of five sons,
And in them the fathers of sons, and in them the fathers of sons.
This man was of wonderful vigor, calmness, beauty of person,
The shape of his head, the pale yellow and white of his hair and beard, the immeasurable meaning of his black eyes, the richness and breadth of his manners,
These I used to go and visit him to see, he was wise also,
He was six feet tall, he was over eighty years old, his sons were massive, clean, bearded, tan-faced, handsome,
They and his daughters loved him, all who saw him loved him,
They did not love him by allowance, they loved him with personal love,
He drank water only, the blood show’d like scarlet through the clear-brown skin of his face,
He was a frequent gunner and fisher, he sail’d his boat himself, he had a fine one presented to him by a ship-joiner, he had fowling-pieces presented to him by men that loved him,
When he went with his five sons and many grand-sons to hunt or fish, you would pick him out as the most beautiful and vigorous of the gang,
You would wish long and long to be with him, you would wish to sit by him in the boat that you and he might touch each other.
- The speaker introduces his friend, a “common farmer”, describing him to be of “wonderful vigor, calmness, beauty of person”, thereby casting him in a grand & mystical light. The farmer may be an ordinary guy, but he is also the beginning of whole generations. Each of his five sons will have sons, & those sons will be “the fathers of sons”, & those sons will be “the fathers of sons”. In other words, when the speaker looks at this farmer, he sees not just a man, but an unfolding, infinite, fractal pattern of humanity.
- “And in them the fathers of sons, and in them the fathers of sons” - The echoing diacope & parallelism evoke the speaker’s feeling that, in seeing this one old farmer, he is looking down a continuous, branching family tree far into the future. These lines introduce yet another way that the body connects people: through reproduction.
- This old man seems to unite all the different kinds of bodily wonder the speaker examined in section 2. Like the “wrestlers” & “swimmers”, he is an active man, who goes out shooting, fishing & sailing. Like the “firemen” & “mother[s]”, he is deeply connected to other people, part of a loving family & community. He is also physically desirable, everyone wishes to be close by him. In short, this old man expresses everything about the body that the speaker finds moving, beautiful, & fascinating. If the body is, as the speaker aruges, the same thing as the soul, then this old man’s soul - that quality that makes him himself - is rich & complete.
- There is something deeply attractive about the old man’s embodiment of his soul as his children love him “with personal love” & are genuinely connected to him. In the speaker’s eyes, inspiring this kind of love is a real achievement.
Define asyndeton.
The omission or absence of a conjunction between parts of a sentence, as in I came, I saw, I conquered.
Section 4:
I have perceiv’d that to be with those I like is enough,
To stop in company with the rest at evening is enough,
To be surrounded by beautiful, curious, breathing, laughing flesh is enough,
To pass among them or touch any one, or rest my arm ever so lightly round his or her neck for a moment, what is this then?
I do not ask any more delight, I swim in it as in a sea.
There is something in staying close to men and women and looking on them, and in the contact and odor of them, that pleases the soul well,
All things please the soul, but these please the soul well.
- A quiet hymn to the joy of being around other people & good company.
- Parallelism in “To stop in company with the rest at evening is enough, To be surrounded by beautiful, curious, breathing, laughing flesh is enough, // To pass among them or touch any one” - the speaker appreciates the physical presence of people around him, describing them as “beautiful…flesh”. He finds pleasure in the tangible reality of human existence; the companionship & sensory experiences it offers.
- “There is something in staying close to men & women & looking on them, & in the contact & order of them, that pleases the soul well,” - the intimacy & connection that comes with being in close proximity with others or lightly touching them creates a delight & spiritual satisfaction in the speaker.
- Repetition of “enough” - the speaker expresses his contentment with the simple pleasure of being in the company of people he likes. While all things bring some amount of fulfilment to the soul, the companionship of other human beings brings a profoundly satisfying kind of joy.
Section 5:
This is the female form,
A divine nimbus exhales from it from head to foot,
It attracts with fierce undeniable attraction,
I am drawn by its breath as if I were no more than a helpless vapor, all falls aside but myself and it,
Books, art, religion, time, the visible and solid earth, and what was expected of heaven or fear’d of hell, are now consumed,
Mad filaments, ungovernable shoots play out of it, the response likewise ungovernable,
Hair, bosom, hips, bend of legs, negligent falling hands all diffused, mine too diffused,
Ebb stung by the flow and flow stung by the ebb, love-flesh swelling and deliciously aching,
Limitless limpid jets of love hot and enormous, quivering jelly of love, white-blow and delirious juice,
Bridegroom night of love working surely and softly into the prostrate dawn,
Undulating into the willing and yielding day,
Lost in the cleave of the clasping and sweet-flesh’d day.
This the nucleus—after the child is born of woman, man is born of woman,
This the bath of birth, this the merge of small and large, and the outlet again.
Be not ashamed women, your privilege encloses the rest, and is the exit of the rest,
You are the gates of the body, and you are the gates of the soul.
The female contains all qualities and tempers them,
She is in her place and moves with perfect balance,
She is all things duly veil’d, she is both passive and active,
She is to conceive daughters as well as sons, and sons as well as daughters.
As I see my soul reflected in Nature,
As I see through a mist, One with inexpressible completeness, sanity, beauty,
See the bent head and arms folded over the breast, the Female I see.
- This section of the poem encourages women to embrace their inherent beauty, unique qualities & power.
- “…all falls aside but myself & it, // Books, art, religion, time, the visible & solid earth, & what was expected of heaven or fear’d of hell, are now consumed,**” - illustrates the incredible power of attraction that all women exude.
