Walt Whitman’s Sensual Language in Leaves of Grass

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Recommended: Poetry of Walt Whitman

Walt Whitman’s Leaves of Grass covers many facets of human love, including love of the physical body. Whitman’s book contains many poems that try to embrace the beauty of the human body instead of covering it up. Whitman describes the human form in close detail throughout Leaves of Grass, but one of his poems in particular is especially vivid in detail. In “Children of Adam”, the fourth book of Leaves of Grass, Whitman gives readers a celebratory look at the human form. “I Sing the Body Electric” is one poem in particular that demonstrates how Whitman celebrates the human body through descriptive language of love and the human form and by elevating the human form to something more than a simple vessel for a soul. Whitman uses these techniques to emphasize the idea that mortal human forms are no less magnificent than spiritual bodies.
The first section of “I Sing the Body Electric” emphasizes the notion that the body is something to be celebrated (Whitman lines 1-8). This initial section sets the stage for Whitman’s many images of the human body in action and of the body itself. In...

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