"Behold I do not give lectures or a little charity, When I give I give myself"
About this Quote
Whitman isn’t pitching generosity as a polite social gesture; he’s rejecting the entire economy of condescension that often tags along with “help.” “Lectures” and “a little charity” are barbed choices: lectures imply moral superiority, charity implies a controlled drip of goodness that keeps giver and receiver in their assigned classes. Whitman’s line detonates that hierarchy. He’s not interested in performing virtue. He wants contact.
“When I give I give myself” is classic Whitman bravado, but it’s also strategy. He collapses the distance between speaker and audience, turning the poem into a kind of handshake that refuses gloves. The verb “behold” matters, too. It’s not a humble confession; it’s a command to witness a new ethic in real time. That theatricality is the point: he’s building a public self large enough to include strangers, laborers, lovers, and readers who will never meet him. Giving becomes an act of presence, not a transaction.
Context sharpens the edge. Writing in the mid-19th century, as America was hardening around industrial power, abolitionist conflict, and moral crusades, Whitman offers a counter-politics rooted in the body and the ordinary citizen. His “gift” is democratic intimacy: an insistence that dignity isn’t dispensed from above, it’s shared sideways. The subtext is almost a dare: if you want my compassion, you also get my equality, my attention, my full unruly humanity.
“When I give I give myself” is classic Whitman bravado, but it’s also strategy. He collapses the distance between speaker and audience, turning the poem into a kind of handshake that refuses gloves. The verb “behold” matters, too. It’s not a humble confession; it’s a command to witness a new ethic in real time. That theatricality is the point: he’s building a public self large enough to include strangers, laborers, lovers, and readers who will never meet him. Giving becomes an act of presence, not a transaction.
Context sharpens the edge. Writing in the mid-19th century, as America was hardening around industrial power, abolitionist conflict, and moral crusades, Whitman offers a counter-politics rooted in the body and the ordinary citizen. His “gift” is democratic intimacy: an insistence that dignity isn’t dispensed from above, it’s shared sideways. The subtext is almost a dare: if you want my compassion, you also get my equality, my attention, my full unruly humanity.
Quote Details
| Topic | Love |
|---|---|
| Source | Walt Whitman — "Song of Myself" (in Leaves of Grass). Line commonly rendered: "I do not give lectures or a little charity; When I give, I give myself." Leaves of Grass (first ed. 1855; included in later editions). |
More Quotes by Walt
Add to List
