Quotations and Literature Forum

Two things. Re: First Song of Myself, I thought the quote ran: Do I contradict myself? Very well then I contradict myself. I am vast, herein I contain multitudes.
I could well be wrong and I don't have an original hardcopy handy.
Secondly all this piffle about Whitman being gay is preposterous. If one reads Song of Myself ( notice Myself is capitalized) much as ME is in the Bhagavad Gita, then references to loving men and women alike becomes and omnipotent thing not a dull sublunary earthy lust one sees a vast difference herein does one not? He mentions holding his arms around his friends and walking along- When two or more are gathered- HE is in the middle. Why don't people get the essence of what he tried to do. He tried to make the Gita palatable, understandable, He rwead it in the 1800's and too few read it today. Prabhu

Whether Walt Whitman was homosexual or not really shouldn't matter. He wrote great poetry. Who cares about who he loved? There are some who find "Song of Myself" to be homoerotic, but that has more to do with the reader than the writer.

Great art can be enjoyed on many levels.