Song of Ourselves

In the midst of a crisis of democracy, we have much to learn from Walt Whitman's journey toward egalitarian selfhood.Walt Whitman knew a great deal about democracy that we don't. Most of that knowledge is concentrated in one stunning poem, Song of Myself.Esteemed cultural and literary thinker Mark Edmundson offers a bold reading of the 1855 poem, included here in its entirety. He finds in the poem...