Rapture and Release: The Delirium of Desire in Chant 28 of Walt Whitman's "Song of Myself"

Beginning at a point nearly halfway through Walt Whitman's "Song of Myself," the speaker, having been established as the consummate passive observer (leaning and loafing at his ease), reorients himself towards an experience that constitutes a substantial shift of focus: the eye which has been trained for some time upon the surrounding world turns suddenly in on himself. Interestingly, this passage manages to maintain a sense of passivity in what is otherwise difficult to read as a passive experience: a sexual union. 

The section designated as chant twenty-eight in the 1855 edition of the poem sees the speaker succumbing to an ecstasy that is both welcome and unwelcome; while it is clearly a moment of rapture, it is a rapture mindful of its etymology. Indeed, the passage bears the assignation of a term like "rape" not only for the physical violation depicted, but also for the turbulent manner in which the speaker's mental and spiritual serenity is upset. At the same time, however, there exists within the lines a sense of euphoria repressed—of bliss anticipated and ultimately realized. Throughout, the line between passion and violence is blurred. Whitman captures this chaotic ambivalence by creating a dreamlike scene in which reality and fictive elements intermingle, echoing the inherent equivocality of the sexual act.

The sense of ambivalence that suffuses the passage is anticipated in the very first few words. "Is this then a touch?" asks both. Oh, is that what is happening to me—a touch? and: So, is this what a touch consists of? We feel the speaker's sense of wonderment and discovery, and the softness of the moment is visually transmitted by a gently trailing ellipsis; the punctuated pause allows us to vicariously enjoy that magical first caress as we wait for the speaker to register it. The manner in which the line is constructed seems to suggest that the remainder of the text forms a sort of response—as if the entire section is a question, answered. In other words, yes, this is what a touch is—all the confusion, delirium, and ecstasy detailed below. Here, then, the whole of the sexual union is contained and compressed within this brief moment of contact—magical, indeed. The ellipsis also momentarily suspends our progress as readers; we hover over the page, anticipating a continuation of this tender tone.

Whitman, however, has other plans for us...and for his speaker, who is suddenly set to trembling, "quivering" like a tuning fork. We feel this vibration as it ripples outward from his veins to his (unavoidably phallic) "treacherous tip." If there is treachery taking place, it is because he has long been enjoying a stance of easy repose, loafing and observing the world at his leisure. But now his own body is (rather loudly and abruptly) demanding his attentions. Indeed, the speaker is about to experience something new: a conspiracy of the body's needs against the contemplative complacency of the soul. His "new identity," the role of lover, is unexpected and somewhat fearsome: he feels himself assaulted, and by elements (the "flames and ether" of his latent passion, his own "flesh and blood") which are within him. The speaker's passivity is clear. He seems to be drawn, set, and launched, with "quivering" setting up an arrow metaphor continued in "tip" and "strike" (Cupid is on the loose). Whitman further establishes in this first section (of four divisions within the chant) a series of helplessness by way of a pattern of transitive verb/passive object repetition. Things keep happening to the speaker; witness the "prurient provokers" which are "behaving licentious towards" him, then "depriving" him, then "unbuttoning [his] clothes." It is as if a scene is unfolding that the speaker himself is cognizant of, but also somehow detached from. One can almost see him gazing down at his body in genuine amazement. Even his own hand in the matter—his own ineluctable tumescence (the "reaching and crowding" of his "treacherous tip" and the "stiffening of his limbs") strikes him as an act of complicity with forces beyond his control—forces that brook "no denial."

At the same time, however, there is an interplay between the energies which are localizing (truly) in the speaker's own body and for those which the blame is elsewhere—both of which are unclearly realized. Do the "flames and ether" make a rush towards his veins (in the spirit of an attack) or for them (as to facilitate an imminent erotic release)? Who are the "prurient provokers" the speaker envisions, and are they armed with malice or pleasure? Whitman has curiously chosen this particular phrase as the place to turn a poetic device; the deliberate alliteration reads playfully, a la "Keystone cops" or even "masked marauders." This it would seem the speaker needn't worry about them...though from their list of increasingly invasive and violative tasks, one cannot be so sure. Indeed, these "provokers" have quite a job to do: stiffening, behaving, depriving, unbuttoning, deluding, sliding, bribing, fetching, and finally, uniting. They are, if nothing else, an effective means of passing the buck; thanks to them, the speaker needn't take responsibility for The Act, or for the concomitant disruption to his mind/body/soul harmony. This is a good thing, since this disruption is apparently a matter of crisis to him, perceiving it as he does as treachery—as a betrayal of the calm self-awareness he is reluctant to abandon. And to step "outside the box" momentarily, the "prurient provokers" also provide a nice negative to the picture previously formed in "Song of Myself" of the speaker as watcher. When they gather round to "stand on a headland and worry" him, the tables are truly turned.

It seems plausible (if not simply easier) to read these provokers as figurative figures in an otherwise literal event. Their provocation contains neither danger nor rancor; it is solicitous, meant to arouse and incite the speaker's desire so that he, too, may begin "behaving licentious" as we well suspect he might want to. The prurient provokers seem to symbolize a dreamlike vision of the natural world: the trees, grass, leaves, an animals of earlier meditations, personified and observing this, the most natural of acts. At the same time, though, someone quite real is engaging the speaker in this meeting of bodies—holding him "by the bare waist" (our first glimpse of human-to-human interaction, and a first intimation of anything resembling intimacy). By this point, details actual and imagined are becoming considerably conflated: "sunlight and pasture fields" are tangible backdrops to a scene where the "fellow senses" are "bribed to swap off with touch." These other senses (sigh, sound, and perhaps even taste) are of a far less urgent cast than all-consuming touch, and cast as players in this scene, they are relegated to "go and graze at the edges" of the speaker, such that they might not interfere with this primarily visceral experience.

Further complicating the realism of the erotic experience is Whitman's somewhat baffling use of cow/bull imagery: "the udder of my heart," "pasture," "graze," and "herd." One possible reading relies on the poet's tendency to celebrate the mystical but entirely knowable sanctity of the natural world, and to emphasize the equalization of genders--even species. In other words, man = woman = cow = bull. All are one and the same in that they all experience sexual union; all couple and reproduce. Indeed, line 621 sees the speaker moved to "strike what is hardly different from myself." Man or woman—in the philosophy expressed here, it does not matter what he "strikes"--whom he connects with. Whitman's is a gender-oblivious world, at least concerning which of life's pleasures can be shared...they all can. This complicity of existence is therefore never clearer than in physical (and concurrently, spiritual) intercourse. Thus in "uniting to stand on a headland," the mysterious provokers are expressing a solidarity with the speaker; their consolidation neatly parallels the consolidation of his erotic energies. This "headland" is the stage that's been set. Now, with the prologue enacted and main conflict established, all that remains are climax and denouement.

And at line 633, we are finally permitted a breath to prepare for these final movements: after fifteen lines of commas, we hit a short, three-line section ending with a full stop. While the preceding continuous string of actions serves to build momentum, here there is a palpable pause in the action. But the speaker himself is not quite relaxed. He is guarded. Or rather, unguarded, as “the sentries” of his other senses (which would warn and protect him against this dangerous encounter) have deserted “every other part” of him. So we have around again to a sense of violation. The enrapture moved towards earlier vanishes, and the shadow of rape looms again. For the speaker is “helpless to the red marauder”—another dreamlike manifestation of passion—invading his body like an armada of overwhelming sensations. “They all come to the headland to witness and assist against me” seems to layer the spectacle—one has the impression that the speaker is at once in the middle of and at a remove from the episode, watching himself being watched. Moreover, the fact that the sentries are bearing “witness” to the event suggests ritualization, which in turn implies that this is a sacred (read: celebratory) moment, in spite of the undertones of aggression.

The third section of the chant is undeniably hallucinatory; several ellipses make the speaker sound dreamy and far-off. His own admission of mania (“I talk wildly”) explicitly expresses what has been rhetorically implied: he feels wildly, as one truly does when approaching orgasm. The erotic rapture he’s been drifting towards (and has been pulled to) is thrilling, even as it is terrifying. Likewise, the antilogy of “I am given up by traitors” and “I and nobody else am the greatest traitor” reflects the uncertainty of the moment: Did they do this? Did I do this? The statements seem to come from two disembodied speakers—a schism of one narrative voice. They compete in the confusion, ratcheting up the tension much like the stichomythia between lovers in classical drama. Indeed, the speaker and his seen-but-unseen, real-but-unreal lover of the passage are now on the cusp of consummation, and the ecstasy underlining his trepidation (and undermining his calm) comes through in the speaker’s acknowledgment, “I went myself first to the headland…my own hands carried me there.” Or, I brought this on. I instigated this event. This is an intense moment of self-realization—apt, since it is coupled with the intense (and literal) self-actualization of climax.

And yet, just as it seems that some sort of erotic détente might have been reached, and that the speaker will melt with sensuous abandon into his hard-won (hard-fought?) release, “You villain touch!” sends us careening back to the violent mood of earlier lines. This shift in narrative voice to a direct address of the speaker’s lover/assailant captures his sense of hysteria and reflects the tumultuous final moments of sexual intercourse. The second question of the chant, “what are you doing?” mirrors the opening inquiry of “Is this then a touch?”However, where once there was quiet curiosity, there is now vehement resistance. This resistance, nevertheless, is ultimately futile, the speaker is in the iron grip of climax just as his “breath is tight in its throat.” Read one way, (his breath is tight in his breath’s throat), his very life is in someone else’s hands…truly a kiss of death (of petit-mort, as well). In either case, the feeling is “chokingly” rapturous. And finally, delicious defeat as the speaker gives in. “Unclench your floodgates!” he commands his own body (with euphemism so hyperbolic it might be comic did it not portend a cataclysm so disturbing)…”you are too much for me.”

Naturally, any explication of Whitman's "Song of Myself" will produce myriad reactions. This is a good thing, since one can only conjecture so much about the poet's intended meanings—the risk of being "overanalytical" is balanced by the equally undesirable risk of being too facile. If either of those points is reached, Whitman's poetry supports (and encourages) a second and third and fourth reading. The twenty-eighth chant, however, remains decidedly stubborn in at least certain aspects: there is something dreamy about the sexual experience, something mystical and wonderfully non-literal. And yet, while remaining enraptured by (and rapt with attention to) this strange and novel encounter, the speaker clearly keys in on a sense of the sinister—on the undercurrent of violence in the human sexual act.