truths can invent a language that will convey these visions or truths to the
reader? Perceiving tokens of divine truth in the emblem-¤lled world in
which he lives, the persona declares (“Song of Myself,” section 20), “All
are written to me, and I must get what the writing means.”
What the poet knows about the meaning of death—what he feels has
been revealed to him—is likely to be something intangible or even un-
translatable; and his task, therefore, is to discover or invent an “idiom”
that will make this revelation translatable and comprehensible even to
those whose language skills are far weaker than his own. Whitman is
keenly aware of the dif¤culty of conveying his vision of death, both to the
individual reader and to the masses. Thus, near the end of “Song of
Myself”—a poem in which the Whitman persona melds his vision of
death with his vision of a rich and ample life—the persona voices his
frustration in having apparently perceived the truth about the unbroken
cycle of life and death but having failed to ¤nd the language that would
make the reader “see” what has ostensibly been communicated to him or
her. “Perhaps I might tell more,” he cries falteringly. “Outlines! I plead for
my brothers and sisters.” But these “outlines,” he is obliged to admit, are
only the rudimentary linguistic approximations of the inspired messages
he wishes to convey. So he cries out, almost in desperation,
Do you see O my brothers and sisters?
It is not chaos or death—it is form, union, plan—it is eternal
life—it is Happiness.In a note that is related to “Song of the Answerer” (a composite poem,
many of whose lines are related to the prose preface of the 1855 edition of
Leaves of Grass) Whitman attempts to explain his critical role as poet and
“translator” of cosmic truths:
Every soul has its own individual language, often unspoken,
or lamely, feebly, haltingly spoken; but for a true ¤t for that man,
and perfectly adapted to his use.—The truths I tell to you or any
other, may not be plain to you, because I do not translate them
fully from my idiom into yours.—If I could do so, and do it very
well, they would be as apparent to you as they are to me; for they
are truths.—No two have exactly the same language, and the
great translator and joiner of the whole is the poet. He has the6 / Introduction