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Introduction
If it is possible to summarize
the impact of a complex and legendary American poet in one paragraph,
David Reynolds has done so in the first paragraph of his introduction
to A Historical Guide to Walt Whitman (Oxford University
Press, 2000):
"One of America's most
beloved and influential writers, Walt Whitman (1819-1892)
brought a radical democratic inclusiveness to literature,
trans forming the diverse, sometimes pedestrian images of
his culture into soaring, fresh poetry through his exuberant
personality. He opened the way for modern writers by experimenting
with innovative social and sexual themes and by replacing
rhyme and meter with a free-flowing prose-like poetic form
that followed the natural rhythms of voice and feeling"
(3).
In the notes that follow, I hope to break
Reynold's dense summary down a bit.
Poet
of Democracy
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Whitman self-consciously styled himself America's
bard. Troubled by the divisions emerging within American culture
because of tensions over slavery, women's rights, finance and
the economy, territorial expansion and more, Whitman sought to
characterize himself (and his poetry) as a unifying force, a representative
man who could within his own poetic vision encapsulate the spectacular
diversity of the nation. Like many later day advocates for America's
diversity, Whitman valued diversity in an attempt to pre-empt
inevitable social conflict.
Consider these quotes from Whitman's introduction
to the 1855 Leaves of Grass:
"The United States themselves are essentially
the greatest poem...Here is not merely a nation but a teeming
nation of nations...Here are the roughs and beards and space
and ruggedness and nonchalance that the soul loves"
"...but the genius of the United States
is...most in the common people..."
"The American poets are to enclose old
and new for America is the race of races. Of them a bard is
to be commensurate with a people...he incarnates its geography
and natural life and rivers and lakes...When the long Atlantic
coast stretches longer and the Pacific coast stretches longer
he easily stretches with them north or south. He spans between
them also from east to west and reflects what is between them...
To him enter the essences of the real things...the haughty
defiance of '76...the perpetu al coming of immigrants...the
noble character of the young mechanics and of all free American
workmen and workwomen...the perfect equality of the female
with the male...slavery and the tremulous spreading of hands
to protect it, and the stern opposition to it which shall
never cease till it ceases or the speaking of tongues and
the moving of lips cease."
"Of all nations the United States with
veins full of poetical stuff most need poets and will doubtless
have the greate st and use them the greatest. Their Presidents
shall not be their common referee so much as their poets shall.
Of all mankind the great poet is equable man. Not in him but
off from him things are grotesque or eccentric or fail of
their sanity. Nothing out of its place is good and nothing
in its place is bad. He bestows on every object or quality
its fit proportions neither more nor less. He is the arbiter
of the diverse and he is the key. He is the equalizer of his
age and land....he supplies what wants s upplying and checks
what wants checking."
"This is what you shall do: Love the earth
and sun and the animals, despise riches, give alms to everyone
that asks, stand up for the stupid and the crazy, devote your
income and labor to others, hate tyrants, argue not concerning
God, have patience and indulgence toward the people, take
off your hat to nothing known or unknown or to any man or
number of men, go freely with powerful uneducated persons
and with the young and with the mothers of families, read
these leaves in the open air every season of every year of
your life, re-examine all you have been told at school or
church or in any book, dismiss whatever insults your own soul,
and your very flesh shall be a great poem..."
"The American bard shall delineate no class
of persons nor one or two out of the strata of interests nor
love most nor truth most nor the soul most nor the body most...and
not be for the eastern states more than the western or the
northern states more than the southern."
"The poems distilled from other poems will probably pass
away. The coward will surely pass away. The expectation of
the vital and great can only be satisfied by the demeanor
of the vital and great...An individual is as superb as a nation
when he has the qualities which make a superb nation...The
proof of a poet is that his country absorbs him as affectionately
as he has absorbed it."
A revolution
in poetic language
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Whitman's form--free verse- -marked a deliberate effort to articulate
his vision of America. A new, great nation teeming with life and
meaning required a new, liberated form of poetry. Again, some
quotes from the intro to Leaves of Grass:
"...nothing is finer than
silent defiance advancing from new free forms..."
"The English language
befriends the grand American expression...it is brawny enough
and limber and full enough...It is the powerful language of
resist ance....it is the di alect of common sense. It is the
speech of the proud and melancholy races and of all who aspire.
It is the chosen tongue to express growth faith self-esteem
freedom justice equality friendliness amplitude prudence decision
and courage. it is the medium that shall well nigh express the
inexpressible"
What resulted--lines imitating
natural cadences with rhythms determined not by rhyme and meter
but the spoken (or perhaps bellowed) voice--revolutionized poetry
not only in America but in all of the English speaking world.
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Whitman found in Emerson the philosophic inspiration
behind his poetry--its interest in America, its grounding in the
language of life, its free uninhibited form and content--and freely
recognized his debt. He described Emerson's influence on him in
this way: "I was simmering, simmering, simmering; Emerson
brought me to boil'
Emerson found much to praise
in the 1855 Leaves of Grass. He wrote in a letter to Whitman,
"the most extraordinary piece of wit and wisdom that America
has yet contributed...I greet you at the beginning of a great
career, which yet must have a long foreground somewhere for such
a start" (Emerson quoted in Reynolds 31)
In his early days, Whitman promoted
his work shamelessly, publishing Emerson's praise in a later edition
and, when necessary, resorting to writing his own reviews. These
lines, from one such self-written "anonymous" review
offers a good exit point for these notes and entry point for our
discussion:
"An American bard at last!...He
does not separate the learned from the unlearned, the northerner
from the southerner, the white from the black, or the native from
the immigrant just landed at the wharf.." (Whitman quoted
by Reynolds, 31)
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