I Sing the Body Electric

The title “I Sing the Body Electric” suggests that the poem functions as a song. Songs are made up of multiple parts, differing notes, and frequently, differing instruments that rely on the interplay of one another to create a harmonious whole. The “song” that Walt Whitman sings in the poem demonstrates the way different parts of the body work together and shows that the different kinds of people in America, the differing bodies, function together to make something greater. The form and substance of the poem demonstrate that the soul, through the body, is part of a greater pattern of existence in which parts work together to create a song—a more ordered, powerful whole.

In the first stanza, the speaker notes, “The armies of those I love engirth me and I engirth them, / They will not let me off till I go with them, respond to them, / And discorrupt them, and charge them full with the charge of the soul” (Lines 2-4). He introduces the topic of communality, stating he is surrounded by other bodies and his body surrounds the bodies of those he loves. It is a reciprocal condition, and the speaker declares he must “charge them full with the charge of the soul” (Line 4).