I Hear America Singing

“I Hear America Singing” could have been America’s great “song” of work. Given Whitman’s fascination with the cooperative weave of sounds rather than his adherence to the strict rules of expected rhythm and anticipated rhymes, he could have selected really any of dozens of words to suggest the choral play of uncountable millions of Americans singing their way through the work day: melody, for instance, or symphony, aria, ballad, song, hymn, canticle, all come to mind.

The word the poet uses, however, is carol, a word that comes to the poem freighted with more than musical symbolism. The word “carol” actually comes from the Greek, meaning “circle,” and refers to ancient joyous songs to which working-class folks without the benefits of education or social status and with no dancing instruction would spontaneously dance in great animated and boisterous circles, a celebration as much of community as the raucous music that would play, stirring them to spontaneous movement. Through the rise of the Christian Church, however, in the Middle Ages, the word carol came to be associated more with strictly religious songs, usually attached to one of the emerging Church’s holy days, most often Christmas.