Uploaded January 2015 | Updated September 2026, 2 weeks ago
Here's a virtual movie of the great Walt Whitman reading his ode to the beauty of the human form "I Sing the Body Electric". "I Sing the Body Electric" from his 1855 collection Leaves of Grass.
Its original publication, like the other poems in Leaves of Grass, did not have a title. In fact, the line "I sing the body electric" was not added until the 1867 edition. At the time, "electric" was not yet a commonly used term. This is another of the poems from the original 1855 edition of Leaves of Grass. Whitman here explores the physical body at length. In other poems he has established the interconnectedness of the body and the soul; here he celebrates the primacy of the body and its importance in forging connections between people. This is yet another poem of lists, which again imply a democratising force at work. Whitman’s egalitarianism is a particularly important aspect of this poem, for it allows him to argue against the commoditization of the body implicit in slavery. The celebration of the physical and the sexual in “I Sing the Body Electric” was indeed too barbaric for the sensibilities of many people in the nineteenth century. Even Whitman supporter Ralph Waldo Emerson supposedly advised him not to include the poem (or the sexual and homoerotic “Calamus” poems) in the 1860 edition, but Whitman held to his artistic vision. Many readers were outraged. A few years later, Whitman was fired from a government post after a superior read the sexual poems.
Whitman presents his glimpses of the body almost as quick snapshots, and he is both observer and participant in the scenes and experiences. The poem is not concerned with the intellectual question “What is beauty?” but observes beauty at the physical and sensual level—one recalls John Keats’s description of a life of sensation rather than thought.
Whitman’s responses are immediate, bold, and unapologetic....
Kind Regards
Jim Clark
All rights are reserved on this video recording copyright Jim Clark 2015
Here's a virtual movie of the great Walt Whitman reading his ode to the beauty of the human form "I Sing the Body Electric". "I Sing the Body Electric" from his 1855 collection Leaves of Grass.
Its original publication, like the other poems in Leaves of Grass, did not have a title. In fact, the line "I sing the body electric" was not added until the 1867 edition. At the time, "electric" was not yet a commonly used term. This is another of the poems from the original 1855 edition of Leaves of Grass. Whitman here explores the physical body at length. In other poems he has established the interconnectedness of the body and the soul; here he celebrates the primacy of the body and its importance in forging connections between people. This is yet another poem of lists, which again imply a democratising force at work. Whitman’s egalitarianism is a particularly important aspect of this poem, for it allows him to argue against the commoditization of the body implicit in slavery. The celebration of the physical and the sexual in “I Sing the Body Electric” was indeed too barbaric for the sensibilities of many people in the nineteenth century. Even Whitman supporter Ralph Waldo Emerson supposedly advised him not to include the poem (or the sexual and homoerotic “Calamus” poems) in the 1860 edition, but Whitman held to his artistic vision. Many readers were outraged. A few years later, Whitman was fired from a government post after a superior read the sexual poems.
Whitman presents his glimpses of the body almost as quick snapshots, and he is both observer and participant in the scenes and experiences. The poem is not concerned with the intellectual question “What is beauty?” but observes beauty at the physical and sensual level—one recalls John Keats’s description of a life of sensation rather than thought.
Whitman’s responses are immediate, bold, and unapologetic....
Kind Regards
Jim Clark
All rights are reserved on this video recording copyright Jim Clark 2015
