The essay that follows is intended to be read alongside "Song of Myself," Walt Whitman's masterpiece and the longest poem in Leaves of Grass. Whitman published several editions of Leaves of Grass in his lifetime, and he revised "Song of Myself" slightly in every edition between 1855 and 1881. Many critics regard the first (1855) version of "Song of Myself" as the best, but the final version is the one printed in most editions of Leaves of Grass available today, and it is the one I follow in this essay. For ease of reference, I identify all quotations from "Song of Myself" by section number.
Readers who do not own a copy of Whitman's poems can easily find "Song of Myself" online at the "Walt Whitman Archive," a superb site edited by two of the country's top Whitman scholars, Ed Folsom and Kenneth M. Price: www.whitmanarchive.org. There are many excellent selections of Whitman's poems available; I particularly admire The Portable Walt Whitman, edited by Michael Warner (New York: Penguin, 2003). For those who would like a complete one-volume edition of Whitman's poetry and prose, I recommend the Library of America edition of Whitman's Complete Poetry and Collected Prose, edited by Justin Kaplan (New York: Library of America, 1982).
