By saying that the Leaves of Grass functions as American epic, the employment of “One Self” in the first stanza highlights American identity very clearly;
“One’s Self I sing, a simple separate person
Yet utter the word Democratic, the word En-Masse.”
Whitman started the opening line celebrating “One Self” who is a “simple separate person.”
In this way he had mentioned the primary and most important identity of American nation which is individuality.
Simultaneously, the second line of the stanza distinguishes the most valuable properties of those individuals, it is Democracy and Unity.
The citation of Democracy and Unity traces us to cultural context during the time.
Whitman valued Democracy the most significance because he was a man of the Civil War which was the process to get Democracy, and from which thousands live had paid.
Yet at the same time, as believed to be the epic of American, the second stanza of One’s Self I sing emphasizes that the poem, perhaps Whitman himself, speaks in the name of all Americans;
Of physiology from top to toe I sing,
Not physiognomy alone nor brain alone is worthy for the Muse, I say
The Form complete is worthier far,
The Female equally with the Male I sing.
The first line--Of physiology from top to toe I sing—which can be paraphrased into I sing from the whole body refers to everybody in America, from highest to lowest classes, and also reemphasizes the property they have valued, Unity.
Concurrently, the second and the third line expresses some ideas that quite absorbing. Let us focus on figurative language involved in the lines. From “Not physiognomy alone nor brain alone…” we can single out the word physiognomy, which means face, and the word brain and both are the synecdoche of a person or an individual.
Combining with the third line--The Form complete is worthier far—readers may figure out the idea of transcendentalism hidden within. Let us consider the phrase “The Form complete” closely; it may be defined as the reunion of individual beings to the Oversoul or the great being that real exists, according to transcendentalism philosophy.
There is the cultural context mentioned again in the last line of the stanza. Due to the fact that the victory of American people in the Civil War brought about the rise of women role in society, Whitman had celebrated this through the line, “The Female equally with the Male I sing.”
Not only social equality, as claimed by transcendentalism, men and women are also equal spiritually. Indeed, every being, including men, women, trees, animals, is all equal.
Whitman performed the second stanza as a perfect guideline of “individual to mass” that apparently is the theme of his poem. Spontaneously, he brought readers back to the significance of Democracy again in the last stanza;
Of Life immense in passion, pulse, and power,
Cheerful, for freest form’d under the laws divine,
The Modern Man I sing.
As he indicated the laws divine and The Modern Man I sing he underlined the remarkable value of Democracy. However, if we examine the stanza thoroughly, we may discover that
once more Whitman had raised the idea of transcendentalism. Focusing on alliteration employed in the first line-- passion, pulse, and power—it insists the importance of self-absorbing, which mainly concerned in transcendentalism, that how immense a life will be if a man can act freely from his soul.
In conclusion, the poem One’s Self I sing is worthy to read not only because it is regarded as “American epic”, but also in the way Whitman raised a question that is essential to the world today that how can one be an individual person and yet be a citizen, a part of society, which also has an identity.