At the end of the poem one is left with a sense of the poet’s spirit not shining over but running under the bootsoles of his protégés.

Equality between writer and reader was not the only difficult balance Whitman attempted to achieve in the poems of Leaves of Grass. As part of his plan for a new democratic art, he questioned and disrupted many other long-standing cultural boundaries: between rich and poor, men and women, the races and religions of the world. His most direct way of doing so was by observation and aggressive questioning, as in his discussion of a slave at auction in “I Sing the Body Electric”:

This is not only one man .... he is the father of those who
shall be fathers in their turns,
In him the start of populous states and rich republics,
Of him countless immortal lives with countless
embodiments and enjoyments.

 

How do you know who shall come from the offspring of his
offspring through the centuries?
Who might you find you have come from yourself if you
could trace back through the centuries?
(“[I Sing the Body Electric],” 1855, p. 125).

Such passages were obviously meant to shock and provoke the American conscience, especially considering that slavery was still a legal and accepted activity. Whitman, who was close friends with Paulina Wright Davis, Abby Price, and several other reformers, also attacked the common acceptance that women were the “weaker sex.” Eight years after the first women’s rights convention took place in Seneca Falls, New York, he set out to liberate a population still falsely confined by their society’s written and unwritten rules, their own fears—even their clothing:

They are not one jot less than I am,
They are tann’d in the face by shining suns and blowing winds,
Their flesh has the old divine suppleness and strength,
They know how to swim, row, ride, wrestle, shoot, run, strike,
retreat, advance, resist, defend themselves,
They are ultimate in their own right—they are calm, clear,
well-possess’d of themselves
(“A Woman Waits for Me,” pp. 263-264).

A less confrontational method for “democratizing” his image of America was the “catalogue,” a list of people, places, items, events that sometimes went on for pages. Whitman might have been inspired by the new art of photography in creating these lists; reading through them has an effect that’s similar to looking through a photograph album, though a closer comparison may be to watching a video montage. By verbally connecting the marginalized and the mainstream, Whitman puts them “on the same page”—in the book, and hopefully in the mind of the reader.

The affectionate boy, the husband and wife, the voter, the
nominee that is chosen and the nominee that has failed,
The great already known, and the great anytime after to day,
The stammerer, the sick, the perfectformed, the homely,
The criminal that stood in the box, the judge that sat and
sentenced him, the fluent lawyers, the jury, the audience,
The laugher and weeper, the dancer, the midnight widow,
the red squaw ...
I swear they are averaged now .... one is no better than the
other (“[The Sleepers],” 1855, pp. 116-117).

Whitman’s idea of a “passionate democracy” encouraged an awareness and appreciation of others as well as one’s own self. The strong sensual and erotic passages in Leaves must have been especially shocking in the mid-nineteenth century, when underwear was called “unmentionables” and piano legs were covered with pantaloons because of their suggestive shape; but even in the twenty-first century Whitman’s openness about sexuality makes readers question their own body consciousness and personal taboos. “Spontaneous Me” is but one of the poems describing masturbation; “I Sing the Body Electric” includes a lengthy catalogue of all body parts-including sex organs—described with the meticulousness of a physiognomist; “Unfolded Out of the Folds” takes place at the entrance of the birth canal (also described as the “exquisite flexible doors” in “Song of Myself”); “To a Common Prostitute” honors the profession of the most marginalized of women; “[Song of Myself]” contains passages suggestive of oral sex (“Loafe with me ... ,” p. 32), voyeurism (“Twenty-eight young men ... ,” p. 38), and homoeroticism (“The boy I love ... ,” p. 86). Whitman also describes scenes of shame, as in the “wet dream” episode of “[The Sleepers]” (“Darkness you are gentler ... ,” p. 111). Whitman apparently realized that, in order to institute change regarding societal sexual hang-ups, he had to sympathize with his embarrassed readers as well as provide models for a healthy, open-minded attitude.

Once the doors of perception were cleansed, the relationship between body and soul would be seen as it really is: connected, infinite, divine.

Divine am I inside and out, and I make holy whatever I touch
or am touched from;
The scent of these arm-pits is aroma finer than prayer,
This head is more than churches or bibles or creeds
(“[Song of Myself],” 1855, p. 53).

It would be a mistake to overlook Whitman’s down-home sense of humor, tickling the edges of some of his touchiest passages (“I dote on myself,” he purrs later in the same passage. “There is that lot of me, and all so luscious”). But there is serious, deliberate provocation here. He is raising the significance and worth of the physical realm to meet that of the spiritual. Whitman was not denying the existence and importance of God, or attempting to lower the soul’s worth: He simply saw God in everyone and divinity in everything, and wanted to encourage his fellow Americans to do so, too.

Why should I wish to see God better than this day?
I see something of God each hour of the twenty-four, and each
moment then,
In the faces of men and women I see God, and in my own face
in the glass;
I find letters from God dropped in the street, and every one is
signed by God’s name,
And I leave them where they are, for I know that others will
punctually come forever and ever
(“[Song of Myself],” 1855, p. 88).

Simple language, complex ideas: This is Whitman’s Leaves of Grass. Achieving balance between contrary notions, questioning the accepted or unquestionable, pushing every known limit or boundary-all characterize the work.