Editing Song of Myself (section)

==Publication history==
The poem was first published without sections<ref>Loving, Jerome. ''Walt Whitman: The Song of Himself''. California: University of California Press, 1999. Print.</ref> as the first of twelve untitled poems in the first (1855) edition of ''[[Leaves of Grass]]''. The first edition was published by Whitman at his own expense.

In the second (1856) edition, Whitman used the title "Poem of Walt Whitman, an American," which was shortened to "Walt Whitman" for the third (1860) edition.<ref name="Greenspan" />

The poem was divided into fifty-two numbered sections for the fourth (1867) edition and finally took on the title "Song of Myself" in the last edition (1891–2).<ref name="Greenspan" /> The number of sections is generally thought to mirror the number of weeks in the year.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://englishwithmrsgraves.weebly.com/uploads/1/3/2/6/13265201/whitmans_song_of_myself.pdf |title=Whitman's "Song of Myself" |last1=Graves |first1=P. |website=Englishwithmrsgraves.weebly.com |access-date=27 April 2015}}</ref>