Whitman's "Song of Myself" - Discussion

In many ways, "Song of Myself" was written as a signature poem.  The first edition of Leaves of Grass (1855) contained a version of the poem, in which readers found a picture of Whitman dressed as a working class man and the first mention of the author's name:

"Walt Whitman, an American, one of the roughs, a kosmos,
Disorderly fleshy sensual . . . . eating drinking and breeding,
No sentimentalist . . . no stander above men and woemn or apart from them . . . . no more modest than immodest.

Unscrew the locks from the doors!
Unscrew the doors themselves from their jambs!"
(Norton C 52)

Reading select sections from the numbered 1881 edition (1, 6, 7, 8, 11, 15, 21, 24, 52), you should think about all of the attributes associated with this "I."    The song expresses many of Whitman's most characteristic ideas about freedom, democracy, equality, America, the body, spirituality, time, death, creation.  Who is the speaker of this poem? In what sense is he the "author"?  To what degree is the self too grand, too magnified for any proper name to contain it?  (Remember, it is in part a response to Ralph Waldo Emerson's call for a true "American" poet to rise up and represent the grandeur of the nation, still a very youthful experiment).

Reflect on the following cultural questions:

1. What do the poems suggest about the speaker's values and his perception of the social limits of his day?  
2. What ideas about democracy and freedom are implied, and how does the poem try to use and extend them?
3. What role does it seem to envision for poets and poems in the life of the nation?
4. See part 6 especially - Grass takes on special significance in this poem.  How do the metaphors Whitman spins of it serve to justify or advertise the style, subject, themes of his poem?
5. See part 11 - The language and values related to sexuality have changed some since 1855. What do you think would have struck period-readers about the "Twenty-ninth bather" section? How does it compare to the desire in Dickinson's "Wild Nights" (#249; p. 175)?
6. See part 24 - Think about the commands and promises to unleash various things in this section.  How does it propose the speaker as a kind of poet-representative? How convinced does it leave you that this might be a valid or "praiseworthy" ambition?

For reference, see my note: Overview of Cultural Criticism.