In 1855, the Christian Spiritualist gave a long, glowing review of "Song of Myself", praising Whitman for representing "a new poetic mediumship," which through active imagination sensed the "influx of spirit and the divine breath." Ralph Waldo Emerson also wrote a letter to Whitman, praising his work for its "wit and wisdom". In 2011, writer and academic Jay Parini named it the greatest American poem ever written. Reception įollowing its 1855 publication, "Song of Myself" was immediately singled out by critics and readers for particular attention, and the work remains among the most acclaimed and influential in American poetry. The number of sections is generally thought to mirror the number of weeks in the year. The poem was divided into fifty-two numbered sections for the fourth (1867) edition and finally took on the title "Song of Myself" in the last edition (1891–2). In the second (1856) edition, Whitman used the title "Poem of Walt Whitman, an American," which was shortened to "Walt Whitman" for the third (1860) edition. The first edition was published by Whitman at his own expense. The poem was first published without sections as the first of twelve untitled poems in the first (1855) edition of Leaves of Grass. It has been credited as "representing the core of Whitman's poetic vision." Publication history " Song of Myself" is a poem by Walt Whitman (1819–1892) that is included in his work Leaves of Grass.
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