by Whitman · Cluster: Identity · Free Verse · Eternal Return
Abstract
Skeptical lyric on the impossibility of biography truly knowing a life, including one’s own; identity, memory, the book and writing.
Connections
Motifs: Book Reading Themes & Concepts: Identity, Memory and Time, Appearance vs Reality Forms & Genres: Free Verse
Testo integrale / Full text
Cluster: INSCRIPTIONS
When I read the book, the biography famous,
And is this then (said I) what the author calls a man’s life?
And so will some one when I am dead and gone write my life?
(As if any man really knew aught of my life,
Why even I myself I often think know little or nothing of my real life,
Only a few hints, a few diffused faint clews and indirections
I seek for my own use to trace out here.)