The Inclusive Subjectivity of Miracles

From the first lines of “Miracles,” Whitman is clear about how, rather than approaching the topic of miracles theologically, he is interested in his personal experience of miracles. This interest in the subjective experience is evident from Whitman’s use of a first-person perspective marked by first-person pronouns early on in the second line of the first stanza (“As to me I know of nothing else"). This persistent use of a first-person perspective throughout “Miracles” already places Whitman’s poem in contrast to the test of organized religion, which describes miracles from an omniscient third-person perspective while looking back on them after they have occurred. “Miracles,” on the other hand, is interested in selfhood. To the actions of Whitman’s “I,” he applies active verbs in the present tense. For example, he writes about how to “talk by day with any one...