Having completed my explication previous to reading Betsy Erkkila’s excerpts from Whitman the Political Poet, I was surprised to find that my findings in the poem, that the speaker of the poem begins the last section of the poem believing in the natural and ends this section with a prayer to a specific god, mimicked Whitman’s own religious transformation. While it isn’t necessarily a safe theoretical move to connect Whitman with the speaker of the poem, there is a definitive correlation. Whitman’s all inclusive, “every man,” attitude in the universalistic-nature of religion faded towards the end of his life and he focused instead on a more conservative religious view:
Physically paralysed and politically disillusioned, Whitman moves in “Prayer of Columbus.” as in “Passage to India.” toward a more traditional religious faith. Whereas the early Whitman had consistently railed against those religion systems that postulated a divine authority outside the self, in “Prayer of Columbus,” he utters his own prayer, yielding the authority of self and the command of the democratic ship to the divine “Steersman” in the sky. The gesture measures the distances between the early and late Whitman and the extent of his disillusionment with America’s experiment in democracy. (Erkkila 283-4)
Keeping this in mind, here is an excerpt from my extensive (11 pages extensive) explication. Note: the poem is 65 lines long, a 4-5 page explication could not have been done.
The speakers generalized inclusivity is short-lived, however, because in the next stanza America is separated from the rest of the world:
The measur’d faiths of other lands, the grandeurs of the past,
Are not for thee, but grandeurs of thine own,
Deific faiths and amplitudes, absorbing, comprehending all,
All eligible to all. (ll. 48–51)
Related undoubtedly to the apparent lack of religion in the poem thus far, the speaker clearly delineates between American’s “religion” and the organized religions of the rest of the world in this stanza. The line “Are not for thee, but grandeurs of thine own” (l. 49) lends itself to the believe in the power of nature, like the imagery of the third section creates an impression of. The “religion” of nature excludes no one—“All eligible to all” (l. 51)—once again introducing inclusivity.
However, the last part of the poem completely deviates from this pattern of being all encompassing and singles out the poet in a relationship with a particular deity:
The fifth stanza of the poem, rather than leaving the reader with the previous imagery of fecundity, turns into a prayer between the speaker and an unidentified god-figure. I say unidentified because, as can be seen earlier in section four, the speaker has by-and-large rejected traditional formalized religion. Rather than the “scheme” being the sole controlling factor in the journey towards the idea, the speaker of the poem seems to have a change of heart:
Give me O God to sing that thought
Give me, give him or her I love this quenchless faith,
In Thy ensemble, whatever else withheld withhold not from us,
Believe in plan of Thee enclosed in Time and Space,
Heath, peace, salvation universal. (ll. 57–61)
This change from the language of the traditional “Muse” to a formalized “God” shows a change in the speaker of the poem that isn’t fully explained in the four sections of the poem. Is this “God” that the speaker addresses a means of speaking to the force of nature that is atypical? Or is this one of the many incongrueties of the poem as a whole?
It is because of these incongruities (this contradictory stance on religion only being one) that the poem generally fails to impart the reader with any sense of meaning.
While this may not be a radical revelation, I find it to be reassuring. I have never worked closely with any Whitman texts before, so seeing that my reading is not completely off-target is fortifying, to say the least.
Though I generally have a difficult time connecting myself to the criticism of Whitman’s works, Erkkila’s article seemed to be more accessible than a majority of the research we’ve read in the class. Perhaps it’s the connection with the historical that I find to be the key to making Whitman make sense, but that’s neither here nor there.
Erkkila, Betsy. Whitman the Political Poet. New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 1989. Print.
Whitman, Walt. “The Song of the Universal.” Walt Whitman: Poetry and Prose. Ed. Justin Kaplan. New York, NY: The Library of America, 1996. Print.
September 30th, 2009
The 1855 Portrait of Walt Whitman (Daguerrotype Reproduced by Lithography) by Mathew B. Brady
Lithographing Kronos, Zeus his son, and Hercules his grandson,
Buying drafts of Osiris, Isis, Belus, Brahma, Buddha,
In my portfolio placing Manito loose, Allah on a leaf, the crucifix
engraved,
With Odin and the hideous-faced Mexitli and every idol and image,
Taking them all for what they are worth and not a cent more,
Admitting they were alive and did the work of their days,
(They bore mites as for unfledg’d birds who have now to rise and fly
and sing for themselves,)
Accepting the rough deific sketches to fill out better in myself,
bestowing them freely on each man and woman I see,
(“Song of Myself” 41.9–19, p 73–4 in the Library of America edition of Walt Whitman: Poetry and Prose, 1996)
As is illustrated throughout the David S. Reynolds cultural biography of Walt Whitman, printing and the publishing business was a significant factor in Whitman’s life, and in the lives of many people. He states, “Printing and distribution techniques improved immensely over the early decades of the nineteenth century” (Reynolds 45). For this reason, my image gloss is focusing on the word “lithographing” or, more specifically, lithography. From the Greek, lithography literally means to write on stone, which is quite descriptive of the process itself. Lithography is a form of printing that originally utilized stone in order to make prints, but later moved to metal plates, which were more economical. Invented by Alois Senefelder in 1798 in Austria (Jung para 2), lithography works through a method of ink-repulsion. Using an oil/ink resistant medium, such as gum arabic, wax, or other pliable substances, the image is drawn onto the stone or plate by the artist. Once the medium to repel the ink has set, the artist uses a large roller to spread ink onto the stone. The ink will only remain where there is a clear surface, free from the repelling medium. From here, the stone or plate is pressed to the paper and a print is created. Often the print was created in several stages in order to add depth to the image. While this process may seem primitive, “by1848 the process had been refined to the point that it was possible to print 10,000 sheers per hour” (Jung para 2). Lithography was/is considered an art in itself since it is not merely a matter of taking an image and Xeroxing it, but the image had to be recreated by hand. For this reason, mainly graphic images were printed using the lithographic process. Reynolds explains to the reader that “This [lithography] was how the famous 1855 portrait of Whitman would be produced” (Reynolds 282).
The fact that lithography was used to recreate images lends an interesting interpretation to this particular passage from “Song of Myself.” In creating lithographic images of these old gods and goddesses and gods of current religions, the speaker—the “I” as it is referred to in most articles—is making these images of intangible, ethereal beings, tangible and reproducible. In doing this, the speaker brings them down to the level of humanity and makes them available to everyone, “bestowing them freely on each man and woman [they] see” (Whitman 41.19). Essentially, the speaker of the poem takes the awe and fear out of faith and makes it something to be dealt with on a human level.
Lithographic Printing Press
Works Cited
Brady, Mathew B. “Portrait of Walt Whitman.” 1855. 15 Sep 2009. < http://www.usc.edu/schools/annenberg/asc/projects/comm544/library/images/477bg.jpg>
Jung, Marshall. “History of Lithography.” 19 Dec 2003. cartage.org, Web. 15 Sep 2009. <http://www.cartage.org.lb/en/themes/arts/graphicartists/Printmakingmethods/Planographicmethods/HistoryLithography/history.htm>.
Reynolds, David S. Walt Whitman’s America: A Cultural Biography. New York, NY: Vintage Books, 1996. Print.
Siǵl, G. “Lithoġraphische Schnellpresse.” Web. 15 Sep 2009. <http://www.jaapkruijff.net/uk/litho/machine.gif>
Whitman, Walt. “Song of Myself.” Walt Whitman: Poetry and Prose. Ed. Justin Kaplan. New York, NY: The Library of America, 1996. Print.
September 16th, 2009
All page citations are from The Library of America publication of Whitman: Poetry and Prose (1982).
I am satisfied….I see, dance, laugh, sing;
As God comes a loving bedfellow and sleeps at my side all
night and close on the peep of the day, (p. 29)
I am the poet of the body,
And I am the poet of the soul.
The pleasures of heaven are with me, and the pains of hell
are with me. (p. 46)
I’m slightly unusual in the fact that I could not find six consecutive lines within “Song of Myself” by Walt Whitman. Many things I find myself agreeing with and finding resonances with are quickly followed with sentiments that appear, at least to me, very different from the previous lines. Whitman, at least in “Song of Myself,” is the poet of contradictions. He is everywhere and nowhere at once. The lines I selected are very resonant with me because napping is a time when I feel connected to my body, but also to the world of dreams, which is all soul. The lines “As God comes a loving bedfellow and sleeps at my side all/ night and close on the peep of the day” (29), connect to my picture because I believe the presence of God can be seen no clearer than in the faces of animals. Pictured is my kitten, Heathcliff (named after the Byronic Hero of Wuthering Heights), who sleeps with me everytime I lay down to nap or sleep for the night and is fiercely protective. I feel like he is my guardian angel of sorts.
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September 7th, 2009