I Sing The Body Electric

This poem is also the title to a Ray Bradbury story that has a collection of his short stories. That is one of the reasons I picked this poem, because I do judge anything by its title or cover. However, Walt Whitman's poem was lengthy, and did have to do with a Biblical story, which would make sense because it is in the Children of Adam section. What I was able to interpret was that Whitman is talking about Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden and how they were created in the beginning of time by God. It is actually quite a thought provoking poem, and makes me think, which would make sense since I have to analyze the poem for this class. But, this series of poems goes on to analyze the story of Adam and Eve, telling of how pure they were to begin with. That is the main idea of this poem, however, in a much later poem, I think Whitman will go on to say that they are seduced by the devil and thus creating the world we live in today.

The man was of wonderful vigor, calmness, beauty of person;
The shape of his head, the pale yellow and white of his hair and beard, and the immeasurable meaning of his black eyes-the richness and breadth of his manners,
These I used to go and visit him to see-he was wise also;
He was six feet tall, he was over eighty years old-his sons were massive, clean, bearded, tan-faced, handsome;
They and his daughters loved him-all who saw him loved him;
They did not love him by allowance-they loved him with personal love;
He drank water only-the blood show'd like scarlet through the clear-brown skin of his face;
He was a frequent gunner and fisher-he sail'd his boat himself-he had a fine one presented to him by a ship-joiner-he had fowling-pieces, presented to him by men that loved him;
When he went with his five sons and many grandsons to hunt or fish, you would pick him out as the most beautiful and vigorous of the gang.

That stanza shows quite a lot about Christianity because it is talking about Jesus in symbolism. I think that Whitman is trying to symbolize that through this particular stanza. The blood is the wine throughout the biblical times, and Jesus himself was a fisherman, like the guy in this story. Although Jesus was not necessarily a gunner, I believe Whitman threw that into the poem to make it more interesting, despite the fact that he is talking about Jesus metaphorically. The sons could be symbolic to the apostles, who followed Jesus around throughout his life, and they all greeted Jesus like he was the most beautiful and holy person in the world, as stated in the poem. Overall, this was an easier poem to figure out because it related to a biblical story and concept that I could actually understand, as opposed to just a four line poem, that did not make barely any sense to me. This poem was longer and I was able to figure out more of the meanings of the symbols and how they relate to Christianity.