Comments on: Whitman Leaving

By: gunsmithing schools

gunsmithing schools — Tue, 30 Jul 2013 11:25:29 +0000

May I simply say what a relief to find someone that really knows what they’re talking about on the internet. You actually realize how to bring a problem to light and make it important. More and more people have to read this and understand this side of your story. I was surprised that you aren’t more popular because you definitely possess the gift.

By: erinm

erinm — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 23:36:21 +0000

Well said Brady! and I agree with Chelsea reading the Deathbed edition and chronicling his deteroriation was like watching a friend or some other loved one die. it was a hard read.

By: chelseanewnam

chelseanewnam — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 22:08:32 +0000

This very contrast struck a nerve with me as well. Reading about Whitman’s self-recorded deterioration was just like watching someone I love die. What did lighten my heart a little however, was Longaker’s insistence that Whitman existed until the very end with a “cheerful attitude” and that he died peacefully. There was no “rage, rage against the dying of the light” to borrow a bit from Dylan Thomas, despite Whitman’s life as a stirrer and shaker. Instead, he resigned himself to his end and maintained the optimism that marked and made him the revolutionary he was in a world where peace seemed almost impossible.

By: mscanlon

mscanlon — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 19:27:09 +0000

Brady, so perfectly said. I too thought constantly, with both grief and astonishment, of Whitman’s body while reading the Longaker. After all the amusement we’ve gotten from “firm masculine coulter” or the “fibre of manly wheat,” we can’t find any relieving metaphor here for the body– that “old wooden log” feels too real.