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A review by colin_cox
Song of Myself by Walt Whitman
5.0
Part of the joy of teaching a class for the first time in a few semesters is returning to texts that have fallen off my radar. This is the case with Walt Whitman's "Song of Myself." I taught "Song of Myself" earlier this week, and this semester's class and I had an expansive and far-reaching conversation about a variety of topics. However, the one topic of discussion I found the most intriguing was Whitman's depiction and characterization of the body. Whenever I teach "Song of Myself," I emphasize notions of inclusivity, specifically regarding class and race, but this class effectively explored how Whitman's understanding of the body is equally inclusive. That is to say, Whitman uses a variety of descriptive phrases to suggest a more expansive understanding of what the human body can look like.
For example, consider the twenty-eight young men from Section XI. Whitman writes, "The young men float on their backs, their white bellies bulge to the sun." According to Whitman, their stomachs (which he affectionately calls "bellies") "bulge," which suggests these young men are far from lean. Furthermore, earlier in the section, Whitman reveals that the young woman, a point-of-view figure of sorts, prefers the least attractive of the young men. Whitman writes, "Which of the young men does she like the best? / Ah the homeliest of them is beautiful to her."
My class seemed taken by Whitman's celebration of what today we would characterize as less-than-ideally-attractive bodies, which is to say, the way we tend to equate attractiveness and desirability with thinness. I would love to research beauty standards from the 19th century to better understand these references to bulging bellies. Specifically, I would like to know if thinness, particularly references and representations of thinness, signified what they signify today.
For example, consider the twenty-eight young men from Section XI. Whitman writes, "The young men float on their backs, their white bellies bulge to the sun." According to Whitman, their stomachs (which he affectionately calls "bellies") "bulge," which suggests these young men are far from lean. Furthermore, earlier in the section, Whitman reveals that the young woman, a point-of-view figure of sorts, prefers the least attractive of the young men. Whitman writes, "Which of the young men does she like the best? / Ah the homeliest of them is beautiful to her."
My class seemed taken by Whitman's celebration of what today we would characterize as less-than-ideally-attractive bodies, which is to say, the way we tend to equate attractiveness and desirability with thinness. I would love to research beauty standards from the 19th century to better understand these references to bulging bellies. Specifically, I would like to know if thinness, particularly references and representations of thinness, signified what they signify today.