WALT WHITMAN
(1819-92)
· “Walt Whitman revolutionaize American poetry.”
· “AMERICAN” bard-
o answered EMERSON’s call for an “American” poet
o Emerson’s “The Poet”
· HUMAN BODY:
o entire body
§ sex
· no shame
§ nutriment
§ gestation
§ birth
· REVOLUTIONARY:
o challenged conventions
o entire human body –
§ even SEX
o rejected poetic traditions
§ poetic scansion/metrical structure
§ elevated diction
o à free verse
§ improvied form
§ no rhyme scheme
§ no set metrical pattern
o à simple language
§ words of COMMON man
o the INDIVIDUAL
o the City
§ urban
§ Big City
------
· 2nd of 8 surviving children
· QUAKER
o parents = Long Island Quakers
o Louisa Van Velsor
o Walter Whitman
§ farmer turned carpenter
· 4: father moved family to Brooklyn
o building boom
· 11: left school
o printing office for newspaper
· 14: family moved to Long Island
o WW remained in Brooklyn
· teens:
o contributed pieces to The Mirror, Manhattan paper
· 1835: rejoined family when 2 major fires disrupted publishing
· 1835-40: teacher in small towns
· 20: stopped teaching, back to Manhattan
· DEMOCRAT:
o speaker
o writer
o Democratic Review
· city life:
o EXTREMES
§ gang violence
§ Emerson lectures, opera
· OPERA:
o emotion impacts his POETRY
o opera’s “emotions, raptures, uplifts”
· “miscellaneous journalism”
o (Norton’s term)
· fired from jobs –
o laziness
o Free-Spoiler
· 26: literary reviews
o Democrat à FREE-SOILER:
§ opposed to slavery in new territories & states
§ speaker
§ newspaper
· 1853+ = serious poetry
o 1855 LEAVES of GRASS
§ initially ignored
§ any attention = negative
· obscene: sex, bodily functions
§ 12 poems
§ preface –
· like Wordsworth Preface to Lyrical Ballads
· (Literary Theory – “American” bard)
§ picture:
· rejects conventions
o no suit jacket, buttoned up shirt, high collar (of studio portrait)
o arm akimbo, hand in pocket
o head cocked
o shirt unbuttoned
o looking directly at reader*
o working man’s hat*
§ à average guy
o STYLE:
§ rejects conventions
§ no standard verse
§ no stanza patterns
§ (free verse)
§ rhythm =
· repitition
· variations
§ “catalogs”
· listings
· thesaurus - journalistic, encyclopedic
o 1856:
§ 2nd edition
§ + 33 poems
o 1860:
§ 3rd edition
§ grouped by theme
§ “Children of Adam”
§ “Calamus”
· 2 different types of love
· (1) amative: man & woman
· (2) adhesive: men w/men
o 1892-92:
§ 4th edition
§ revised & regrouped
· CIVIL WAR:
o worked as NURSE
o helping wounded soldiers
o à POETRY = the “real war”
§ from heroic celebration
§ to despair a horror of carnage
§ “Drum Taps”
§ “O Captain O Captain”
§ “When Lilacs Last…”
· propaganda:
o used friends to push his
· 1873: stroke #1
o paralyzed
o moved back home
o mother died
o lost whatever political appointments that were waiting
· lectured:
o though frail
o @ Lincoln
· growing popularity
o popular in ENGLAND
· 1881-82:
o 6th Edition
o obscenity charges
· 1884: stroke #2
o began prepariing for death - mausoleum
PREFACE to LEAVES of GRASS
· (1855)
· USA = natural resources
o EMERSON
· “COMMON PEOPLE”
o dress, speech, freshness, candor, fierceness, curiosity
o novelty, self-esteem, sympathy, susceptibility to slights, music
o “native elegance of soul,” good temper, openhandedness
o “these too are unrhymed poetry” ***
§ POETRY = PEOPLE
· SELF-RELIANCE:
o INDIVIDUAL
o SOUL
§ = highest “best & cheapest authority”
· “as if”
o no need for PAST
o no need for TRADITIONS
· American Bard:
o generosity
o affection for competitors
o “kosmos”
o not monopoly or secrecy
o glad to pass on anything, to anyway
o hungry for equals
o make no distinctions – no classes of people or anything
· POETRY:
o “The proof of a poet is that his country absorbs him as affectionately as he has absorbed it.”
§ national poetry
§ reflect your country
o “The art of art, the glory of expression & the sunshine of the light of letters is simplicity.” (1320)
§ simplicity
§ common language
§ simple style
§ no Renaissance flowery verse or prose
o for everyone
§ universality
§ equality
§ “A great poem is for ages & ages in common & for all degrees & complexions & all departments & sects & for a woman as much as a man & a man as much as a woman.”
§ “It rejects none, it permits all.”
o incomplete:
§ Reader-Response
§ finished by reader
§ ACTIVE READING
§ “A great poem is no finish […] but rather a beginning.”
· English language:
o “befriends the grand American expression”
o brawny, limber
o language of resitance
o dialect of common sense
o self-esteem, freedom, justice, courage
o express the unexpressible
· “The poems distilled from other poems will probably pass away. The coward will surely pass away.”
o originality
o S.O.M. poem #2
§ EMERSON
· STYLE in preface:
o little punctuation (commas)
o rambling
o ellipses
o series of questions
·
SONG of MYSELF
1865
· 52 poems
· episodic, vinettes
· 6, 11, 25
STYLE:
o sensual:
§ sense details -- all 5
§ evocative
o rthym =
§ not rhyme scheme
§ not meter
§ but repititions
§ but internal rhymes
o free verse:
§ no set rhyme schemes, unrhymed
§ no fixed metrical pattern
o common
§ language
§ diction
§ of & for common man
THEMES:
· The INDIVIDUAL:
o self-reliance
o 1:1 relationships (nature, God, life, people,…)
o 1st-hand experience
§ see #1
§ the SELF
o no traditions
o originality
o The PRESENT, now
o divine
§ #24
§ (EMERSON)
o “self-contained”
§ (self-sufficient) #32, like animals
· The POET:
o observer
§ “watching” motif
§ “I witness & wait” #4
§ PARADOX:
· in it BUT not affect it & not affected by it
· “to truly experience the world one must be fully in it and of it, YET distinct enough from it to have some perspective, and invisible so as not to interfere with it unduly”
o recorder
o objective
o not a critic, evaluator
o non-judgmental
o Poet = “impassive stones that receive & return so many echoes” (#8)
§ echoing humanity, society
§ recorder, observer
§ more like a social scientist, anthropologist
§ non-judgmental, objective –
· “indifferent” #22, 44
· w/o classification, criticism, evaluation
· is what it is
· WARTS & ALL
§ open-ended:
· “I come & I depart”
· POETRY:
o like NATURE
o wild
o unrestrained
o its own thing
o “Day in the Life”
o open-ended:
§ to be completed by the READER
§ “I come & I depart”
§ no set meaning
· READER:
o active
o involved in the production of meaning
o if Nature = mystery requiring ‘translation,” so too = Poem
§ POEM = NATURE
§ left open-ended
§ to be solved
o R/R – Reader-Response
o (EMERSON)
· NATURE:
o riddle, mystery #17
o parable
o to be solved
o to be “translated”
§ see #6
o for message @ life, living, universe, our position in things
o for “the peace & knowledge that pass all the argument of the earth”
§ see #5
· ONENESS:
o all things are united
o are people are equal
o “brothers & sisters”
§ see #1, 5
§ no doors #24
· immortality:
o circle of life
o cycle of life
§ NATURE constantly renewing itself
§ à conquers DEATH
o live – die – recycled back to Nature
o not through Christ,
o not religious (Judeo-Christian concepts of Heaven, Hell)
o but “afterlife” = Nature
§ #52: dieing, become part of Nature
· DEISM:
o GOD in everything, everyone
o unknowable – so just accept Him & focus on Humans, here & now
o #48
· EQUALITY:
o all = EQUAL
§ solidarity, singularity, harmony, cameraderie, unity, community
o men, women, blacks, whites, reds, …
o what’s in me = what’s in you à so we’re equal
§ see #1: “for every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you”
o “brothers & sisters”
o LOVE unites all
§ “a kelson of the creation is love” #5
o separate BUT equal
o different BUT the same
o since MAN = MULTITUDE
§ MICROCOSM – MACROCOSM
§ Man = multiplcity, multiculturalism
· #16, 51
· 51: OK w/ contradictions b/c “I contain multitudes”
§ SO à EQUALITY
· as multifarious man = 1 person, so too multiplicitous society = 1 body
· GRASS:
o in nature, of nature
o simple à simple language
§ ** WORDS = LEAVES of GRASS **
o everywhere à symbol of EQUALITY
o #17, 31,
o 6 (‘What is grass”)
§ symbol of God (Deism)
§ child itself
§ equality
§ graves
§ cycle of life – immortality
·
· IDENTITY
o WW = presents himself
§ as an American working man
§ as a mystical figure at one with the universe
§ at once an individual as well as universal representative
· ordinary BUT so ordianry = comprehensive of ALL Americans
o we are the world
§ if we = EQUAL
§ then, what does that do with Identity
· we are all part of the same
· WE = at one w/the universe
· TRANSCENDENTALISM
§ separate but equal
§ different but same
o I = PLURAL
§ individuals = multitudes
§ microcosm – macrocosm
§ we are multiple
o we are who we are
§ warts & all
§ +/-
§ good & bad, nice & ugly
§ we = sexual
§ it is what it is
· non-judgmental
· no criticism
· no SHAME
· http://www.sparknotes.com/poetry/whitman/section2.rhtml
· SONGS:
· Beatles’
o “A Day in the Life”
o “I Am the Walrus”
· American Tail (Linda Ronstadt and James Ingram): “Somewhere Out There”
o http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RkI-B2JWSZI&feature=related
· Lion King (Elton John): “Circle of Life”
o http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xQ_Zq_b4sBc
· USA 4 Africa: “We Are the World”
o http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qcwblvqir-s&feature=related
· TEXT:
o http://poetry.about.com/od/poems/l/blwhitmansong.htm
· REPETITION:
o anaphora: repitition of words/phrases at the beginning of lines, clauses, or sesntences
o end rhyme: repetition of sound at end of line (NONE in WW)
o internal rhyme
o rime riche: repetition of similar endings of words or even of identical syllables
o refrain: recurring phrase or verse, at intervals
o alliteration: front rhyme, repetition of initial sounds of accented syllables
o assonance: similar vowel sounds w/ identical consonant clusters
o consonance: repetition of end consonant
§ FUNCTIONS:
· distinguish poetry from prose
· create or express comfort
· create order
· incantatory effect
· emphasize development
· emphasize change
· add special meaning – emphasis
· conclusion, closing
· EXTENDED JOURNAL:
o Who are You?
§ adjectives
§ roles play during given day
§ moods
§ groups of friends
o Connect IDENTITY in American Literature;
§ Pilgrims, Puritans
§ Revolutionaries
§ Romantics