Bathing the Self

Note: by bathing here, I mean "wash by immersing one's body in water" (New Oxford American Dictionary).

Bathing is one motif we come across in “Song of Myself.” Of course, it encompasses and overlaps with other motifs—nakedness, water, and swimming for instance—that should also be considered when discussing its meaning. But what does bathing specifically represent within the poem? Here are a handful of passages where the motif is presented, directly or indirectly:

Showing the best and dividing it from the worst age vexes

       age,

Knowing the perfect fitness and equanimity of things,

       while they discuss I am silent, and go bathe and

       admire myself.

Welcome is every organ and attribute of me, and of any

        man hearty and clean,

Not an inch nor a particle of any inch is vile, and none shall

        be less familiar than the rest.

The speaker wonders admiringly at his naked body in this passage, and admires the bodies of others as he does elsewhere in the poem, regarding each one as equally perfect and sublime as the rest. Indeed, the beauty of the human body and everything about it captivates our speaker. He celebrates its appetites for food, drink, and sex; its imperfections and blemishes (Undrape! You are not guilty to me, nor stale nor discarded). Few things are as diverse as the human body, and our speaker naturally appreciates this. (I'm thinking of Walt Whitman marveling at the bodies flowing through the streets of Manhattan, all different, all similar.) The act of bathing here, therefore, suggests that our speaker is doting on his physique. He’s paying homage to it, performing an act of love and gratitude. We can easily say, too, that this is cherishing life itself, celebrating and coddling existence. He’s absolutely gushing over this breathing, functioning, ubiquitous thing.


                                                  *                                         *                

The runaway slave came to my house and stopt outside, 


I heard his motions crackling the twigs of the woodpile, 


Through the swung half-door of the kitchen I saw him

       limpsy and 
weak,

And went where he sat on a log and led him in and

       assured him,


And brought water and fill'd a tub for his sweated body

       and bruis'd feet....

In the scene with the runaway slave—arguably one of the most crucial moments in the poem—we come across this remark about bathing. Here, our speaker fills a tub for the runaway slave, and we can presume that, in light of his bone-tired condition, our speaker bathes the slave himself. There is something deeply maternal and innocent about the scene. Much like a mother or father bathes their innocent new born or infant, so our speaker takes it upon himself to tend to the slave. He regards the slave as an innocent and treats him as an innocent. We can also think about what bathing meant in the context of the previous passage—a celebration of the body and existence—so that by bathing the slave, our speaker is essentially celebrating his existence as well.

Returning to this idea of innocence, it’s possible that Whitman was making connections between bathing and Baptisms, both of which indicate a “cleansing” of some kind. Traditionally, Baptisms were conducted by submerging converts naked into water, where they would then be “reborn.”  One would be cleansed of sin and saved, reverted back to innocence. Here are a few things about Baptisms from Wikipedia that are worth noting:

“...as Adam and Eve in scripture and tradition were naked, innocent and unashamed in the Garden of Eden, nakedness during baptism was seen as a renewal of that innocence and state of original sinlessness. Other parallels can also be drawn, such as between the exposed condition of Christ during His crucifixion...”

“...so the stripping of the body before for baptism represented taking off the trappings of sinful self, so that the "new man," which is given by Jesus, can be put on.”

“Baptism is considered to be a form of rebirth—"by water and the Spirit"—the nakedness of baptism (the second birth) paralleled the condition of one's original birth.”

What kind of cleansing is Whitman’s? Of course, it wouldn’t be sin (And nothing, not God, is greater to one than one’s self is). Rather, it seems, Whitman asks us to cleanse whatever denies or inhibits the self, including the belief in sin and the fear of God. To be cleansed in the Whitman sense is to be cleansed of  hate or discontent with life. To be cleansed is to, as has been mentioned before, to celebrate and coddle existence. It’s too live with voracious appetites, to love. In short, all the ideas that are put forward in the poem; so that, ultimately, the whole poem works as a Baptism. He is cleansing us as readers with his words, and all are innocent, all are saved, as long as they accept and cherish the self.


                                                         *                                    *    

Twenty-eight young men bathe by the shore, 


Twenty-eight young men and all so friendly;

Twenty-eight years of womanly life and all so lonesome.

She owns the fine house by the rise of the bank, 


She hides handsome and richly drest aft the blinds of the

       window.

Which of the young men does she like the best? 


Ah the homeliest of them is beautiful to her.

Where are you off to, lady? for I see you, 


You splash in the water there, yet stay stock still in your

        room.

Dancing and laughing along the beach came the twenty-

        ninth 
bather, 


The rest did not see her, but she saw them and loved

        them.

The beards of the young men glisten'd with wet, it ran

        from their long hair, 


Little streams pass'd all over their bodies.

An unseen hand also pass'd over their bodies, 


It descended tremblingly from their temples and ribs.

The young men float on their backs, their white bellies

        bulge to the 
sun, they do not ask who seizes fast to them, 


They do not know who puffs and declines with pendant

        and bending 
arch, 


They do not think whom they souse with spray.

This last passage is highly erotic and differs in many ways from the previous two. Here it might be safe to say that by bathe Whitman means “spend time in the ocean or a lake, river, or swimming pool for pleasure (New Oxford American Dictionary),” rather than suggesting washing or cleaning that the other two passages hinted at. However, we’re still dealing with the appetites, in this case sexual appetites, and therefore the self. Here a lonely woman gazes out from the confines of her home at the twenty-eight bathers (quite a ridiculously large amount of men, one might add) with intense desire. In her mind, she becomes the twenty-ninth bather, but remains stuck in her home. It says something about the metaphorical significance of bathing in that she becomes a twenty-ninth bather without actually entering the water. But what makes her a bather then? Is she a bather because she’s entertaining her sexual reveries, and is Whitman saying something about the woman’s right to sexual liberty and therefore the self? There is clearly a sense that she is trapped. Moreover its possible she’s an unhappily married woman, seeing that she is rich, handsome, and “owns the fine house by the rise of the bank.” What does that say about her sexual desires?

It’s difficult to say. If one does read it as an erotic moment, perhaps she is a bather because she is willing to entertain those sexual fantasies. We might even suppose that she is pleasuring herself (An unseen hand also pass'd over their bodies, / It descended tremblingly from their temples and ribs). However, it’s worth noting that “the homeliest of them is beautiful to her.” Perhaps we can read this as an insinuation that the woman's attraction and love for the men is not sexual, per se, but an attraction to the mens’ outright celebration of the human body, life, and the self.