The field trip to DC, as I’m sure everyone would agree, was a fantastic experience for all of us. One of the things that I found the most interesting was going to places I’d already been, but wearing my Whitman goggles. A week or two before the field trip I had been in the National Equality March (something I think Whitman would have supported) which started in almost the same place as the tour and took a similar path. It was very interesting to wander those same streets and imagine Whitman wandering the streets while pigs wandered through the mud.

During this class I’ve found myself more and more able to imagine the people of the past as I stand in places with a lot of history. The field trip definitely was one of the reasons that this happened for me. Listening to Kim list to us in detail various differences between Whitman’s time and ours, like the view he had from his office of the Washington monument, transported me back to that time, I felt as if I could see the mud streets and wandering soldiers.

I had  similar reaction to Ford’s Theater. Listening to the presenter speak about the details of Lincoln’s death made me feel as if I had been there. If Peter Doyle was able to describe that night in as much detail as the presenter I can see why Whitman felt like he had been there that night.

I’m trying to upload the video of the Ford’s Theater presentation since some of you mysteriously don’t remember it even though we were all paying attention, but for some reason youtube hates me and won’t upload it. I’ll keep trying and see if I can get it up there.

A collection of annotated poems from Walt Whitman’s Drum-Taps.

With an introduction by Brendon Bottle.

Table of Contents

Introduction by Brendon Bottle

1861

Long, Too Long, O Land

I Saw Old General At Bay

As Toilsome I Wander’d Virginia’s Woods

Come Up From the Fields Father

A Sight in Camp in the Day-Break Grey and Dim

The Dresser

Hymn of Dead Soldiers

Over the Carnage Rose Prophetic a Voice

Pensive on Her Dead Gazing, I Heard the Mother of All

Works Cited

1) Did anyone else notice that “Fat Kids” was on the Bill of Fare for the dinner party in the movie? A quick google search failed to enlighten me as to what this could be other than actual chubby children. which leads me to my second observation.

2) The description of Chatham “looming over Fredericksburg for years” has me convinced that Chatham Manor is in fact the Shrieking Shack. Discuss.

Now, onto the actual post. As far as actual Whitman stuff is concerned, I was rather disappointed that this was the only (non publicity video) reference I could find  to my favorite Wound Dresser (besides Megan of course). Regardless though, I was determined to find the connection on my own. My Whitmania led me around the grounds looking for someway to feel as if I was walking the same ground as Whitman. I certainly didn’t find it here, although realizing that what looked like metal swizzle straws were actually catheters made me cringe. And I didn’t find it here, but seeing the ammunition up close made me realize how terrifying it must have been to be on the battle field. I can’t imagine how it would feel to see one of those immense shells flying towards me. I didn’t even find it here (and here), although maybe if I had been able to stay longer without getting the heebie jeebies thinking about the pile of amputated limbs I would have.

It wasn’t until after all of this that I realized where Whitman was. He was infused with the entire building. He had been there, he had talked to, loved, and comforted wounded soldiers there. Then I saw where he was, he was right in front of me. He had stood on this lawn and seen the same sights I was seeing. At that moment I found my connection to Whitman. As I drove down the rode on which Presidents, generals, soldiers and Whitman himself had walked I had to stop. I could feel the presence of all the people that had walked that road, I could feel their pain, their determination, their joy, and their loss. I left with an inkling of how Whitman must have felt as he watched hundreds of soldiers pass through the doors of the hospitals he worked in. I left understanding that Whitman truly was The Better Angel

Location: Dupont Metro – North Exit

Poem: Whoever You Are Now Holding Me in Hand

These words struck a chord in me that I had been waiting to hear since we started this class. I have become enamored, some might say obsessed, with Whitman over the course of this semester. He has become to me, a man beyond others, he is the voice of America, the voice of the city, the voice of the people, the voice of war, and pain, and suffering, and love. The voice of Life and the voice of Death. As I’ve studied his works I’ve come to believe that I knew him, that he spoke to me, but this whole time I knew, Whitman did not know me, we had never met, and we never will. Once we began the deathbed edition I had to face this realization in a way which I had been avoiding. Whitman is dead, his body, that rugged, tan-faced, bearded body, is gone.

This realization came with a sense of loss. How can the world survive without this Great American Poet. How will we persevere in the face of destruction without this man sitting by our bedside, writing letters and serving us ice cream? All I could think was that Whitman was gone and all we had left was his voice, that powerful, gentle voice, echoing through the corridors of time, entreating us to listen.

Then I read Langston Hughes poem, and I realized, the man was more than the man, he was an idea, he was a belief, his voice was more than just the interplay of vocal chords and air, it was a way of speaking, a type of oration which had been unspoken until Whitman appeared. And this idea, this style, has not been lost. Poems, paintings, dances, novels; Whitman can be found in all of these.

Hughes writes that he can sing America, because the song continues, it only needs a conduit through which to be voiced. Whitman was the first to hear this song and he sang it all his life. From his 1855 “Song of Myself” to “So Long!” Whitman sang the song of America in a way which it had not been sung before. All of the poets we read for this week heard that same song. It could be argued that they would have heard this song without Whitman. Perhaps another poet would have taken up the call, but none of them would have done this the way in which Whitman did. I won’t argue that Whitman’s way was the only and best, there’s no way to know how another would have sung that first song, the song of someone else’s self, but I will argue that Whitman sang the song powerfully, that he sang it eloquently, and that his voice can still be heard.

The prompt for this week asks whether Whitman would have been happy with being seen as a canonical poet, or if he would be disappointed by how he was viewed. I don’t think it matters very much, and I don’t know that he would have cared. Higgins talks about how every person discussing Whitman talks about a different Whitman. You can talk about the “O Captain! My Captain!” Whitman or the “When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom’d” Whitman. No matter what Whitman one talks about though, it is still Whitman, calling from the past towards a brighter future. Whitman will speak to everyone differently, but the important part is that he speaks at all, that his message is not lost.

Those influenced by Whitman will take what they need and use it to sing their own song. Hughes uses the voice of Whitman to address race in a way that Whitman never did. Hughes uses the melody of Whitman’s song to create an previously unheard harmony. And that is, after all, what Whitman was searching for. The perfect harmony for the nation, the song, he loved. The voices to sing in unity, to sing the song of his ideal America.

I will never meet Whitman, the closest I can get is to hold onto small remnants of his life: a lock of hair, a mystery hand print, a diary which he held to his chest. It breaks my heart to know that this great man is beyond my reach forever, but I can take solace in the fact that his song echoes. The song of his self, the song of America, the song of life, death, and everything in between. And as I listen, I can create my own harmony, and in this way I will find my way to the Good Gray Poet, to the Wound Dresser. To Walt Whitman.

I, too, sing America.

Roaming in Thought (After reading HEGEL)

Roaming in thought over the Universe, I saw the little that is Good steadily hastening towards immortality
And the vast all that is call’d Evil I saw hastening to merge itself and become lost and dead.

When I first read this poem I was very confused. I couldn’t figure out what the point of it was or why he had added it. My solution to this was to go back and read the entire section. “Roaming” was placed almost directly in the middle of the section entitled By the Roadside in the 1891 version.

This section begins rather morbidly with a poem about the dead from the Civil War rising from their graves and wandering through town (which would be an excellent opening scene for our Whitman Zombie movie). As the section goes on the poems are filled with scenes of death, depression, and longing for something else. Then we arrive at “The Dalliance of the Eagles,” which is a poem about some mid-air eagle loving, to be scholarly about it. The next poem is “Roaming,” and from then on the poems begin to become more uplifting and hopeful. There also becomes a theme of moving on, moving forward, continuing on to other things.This made me think of “Roaming” as the pivot point of the Roadside section. in order to put in context I’ll talk a little bit about Hegel’s philosophy.

Hegel was, like most Philosophers, kind of crazy and full of himself, but I can see how his ideas would be enticing to Whitman. Hegel was a strong believer in predestination but not in the religious sense we usually think of. He did believe that there was a higher power guiding things, but it was not individuals that were guided but society. Hegel claimed that society was in constant state of growth. He argued that every time a great empire rose, Greece, Rome, etc. it was the pinnacle of society and culture for its time. However, each of these great empires were flawed in some way. They failed to meet the criteria to be The Society. This lead to their downfall, guided by the Spirit which lead societal growth. Hegel also argued that each time a new society rose to the top it fixed one of the flaws from the previous great society. Therefore, Hegel argued, eventually we would reach the perfect society which would stand until the end of time. It would fix all the flaws of the previous great societies and all would be peace, love, and prosperity. Now, according to Hegel this society was the German monarchy of the 1800′s. Woops. However, modern scholars of Hegel have claimed that his ideas are not wrong he just got too excited about his own society. Now we get to why Whitman would love him. Many scholars claim that the perfect society will still come, but it will be in America.

Now, during Whitman’s time no one had made this philosophical claim yet, but we can see how Whitman would read Hegel and make this leap himself. So rereading “Roaming” with this in mind gives it a new meaning. Whitman is seeing America as the place where Evil will be eradicated in place of The Great Society which Hegel predicted. Now looking at the larger context of Roadside one can see how “Roaming” could be a pivot point. The entire section seems to be a discussion of how to get over the horrors of the Civil War (which is a little odd since the section was placed before Drum Taps). The beginning of the poem dwells on the pain, death, and sense of desperation that America must have felt after the war. Whitman seems to be recommending that America moves on by saying things like “To your graves – back – back to the hills old limpers!/I do not think you belong here anyhow.” However, Whitman seems to be dwelling on the war as well, particularly in “A Hand-Mirror” in which he sees himself (or possibly the country) speeding towards a rather gruesome end (seriously, it’s gross, and we thought “Compost” was bad).

Then we get to the poems I mentioned, “Dalliance” and “Roaming.” “Dalliance” seems rather out of place in the section. He’s been talking about people, the country, himself, his thoughts, etc. and has not mentioned nature in the way he once did. Then all of the sudden we get a rather flowery description of two copulating eagles, I’m guessing this is not meant to be literal. “Dalliance” is a poem about renewal, specifically the renewal of America. I mean, they’re eagles, the national bird of America, not exactly subtle Walt. Then we get “Roaming” which is a poem written after reading about the movement towards a great society. Here is where Whitman seems to be letting go.

After this Whitman seems to take us through a sort of rebirth. We begin looking out a barn door onto the peaceful countryside (Womb? Christ imagery? You decide). Then we move on to a poem about a child. Then we hear about runner running towards some unknown destination. However, even with the hopeful tone of the second half of Roadside Whitman acknowledges that there is still work to be done. He ends the whole section with a poem “To the States” in which his last lines read:

Then I will sleep for a while yet, for I see that these States sleep, for reasons;
(With gathering murk, with muttering thunder and lambent shoots we all duly awake,
South, North, East, West, inland and seaboard, we will surely awake.)

I’m currently writing a paper for another class on “Paul’s Case” by Willa Cather. If you haven’t read it (look at me explaining things to English majors) the very brief summary is that it’s about a gay kid, like I said, brief. So in my research obviously a lot of the articles are discussing things about gay culture in the 1800′s and whether Cather was attempting to gloss over her own sexuality by writing about men.

One of the articles, in discussing the ways in which homosexuality was broached in writing, mentioned Whitman as being “sufficiently frank” about his sexuality. It then went on to say that “homosexuals saw exciting possibilities in Whitman’s pioneering effort.” The article accredited Whitman with being the father of  catamite poetry, the poetry of man on man love. The mention of it was short, and merely used to contrast Cather’s secretiveness about her own sexuality but it struck a chord with me.

Several times Whitman has been mentioned as a gay icon, a champion of the homosexual community, for example in the article I posted earlier about the statue in Russia, there was mention of Whitman representing the homosexual community. I wonder, if Whitman was alive today if he would appreciate being used as a representative for the community.

I spend a fair amount of time talking to my friends about how Whitman was gay and then reading them bits of Calamus or Children of Adam while giggling profusely, but I tend to garner amusement from it on a personal level, like Walt and I are sharing a private in-joke. I’ve never used him as an example to cite famous gay artists or to name well known gay people, it just hasn’t occurred to me to think of him in that way.

However, I had to start wondering why. There are plenty of other actors, artists, etc. who I consider gay icons even though they don’t necessarily consider themselves that way, so why is Whitman, the man who wrote some of the most homoerotic poetry of the 1800′s, not a gay icon in my mind.

Part of the reason, I think, is because Whitman never really thought of male/male love as different from male/female love. In all his thoughts about love it was always as a bonding force, it was never something which seperated people out as couples, or singled them out as those with love and those without, it was always a matter of the glue which held the nation together. He loved the nation just as much as he loved Peter Doyle. He loved the soldiers, not only because they were in need of his care, but because they were members of the brotherhood of his country.

Whitman obviously had personal feelings for men, just reading his letter to Peter Doyle and looking at their “wedding photo” was enough to cement that in my mind (not that I doubted), but his poetry seems to make it clear that love, for him, transcended anything as mundane as gender and became a concept, the concept that would unite a nation.

In this way I think Whitman could never be a gay icon, because he didn’t ever consider his relations as a matter of two men, but as a union between body and spirit. This past may be a little bit speculative fiction but that’s never stopped me talking about Walt before.

To begin with I feel that it’s important to review what Whitman was attempting to do for the world. In Leaves of Grass, 1855 and beyond, Whitman is always trying to speak to America, and beyond that, speak for America. He spends the majority of his writing trying to document the lives and experiences of all those who can claim to be part of America. From the farmer, to the baker, to the candlestick maker (rub-a-dub-dub), Whitman attempts to speak to and for everyone in the country. Even in Drum Taps Whitman is attempting to speak for the silent soldiers, for the destruction, for the hope, for the war itself.

Different people feel he accomplishes this with differing degrees of success but I can’t imagine there would be anyone who would argue he is not trying to accomplish this (if you don’t agree that’s what comments are for). However, I think if one were to critique his accomplishment (and I’m not saying I’m doing this, Walt) it would be best to critique his ability to talk for America. Not that his words are not moving, or that he does not speak with the voice of a prophet, but no matter how he writes, how he speaks, he is still missing the authority to speak for America.

I feel that he managed to build his authority in quite a strong way, but his words, in the mind of the reader, will always be representative of a man and his ideas, a great man with great ideas, but only a man none-the-less. This is Whitman’s love of Lincoln comes in.

I hadn’t realized that Whitman had (potentially) influenced Lincoln as much as he did, but after reading the excerpts from Epstein I felt an idea I’d been toying with become more concrete. I think that the reason that Whitman loved Lincoln with such an almost creepy passion is because he felt that Lincoln was accomplishing what he could not. Lincoln, although a statesman, was also a poet. Not only was he a poet, but he was a masterful speaker, maybe in part due to Whitman. The most important aspect of Lincoln’s however was his authority. He had been granted the authority to speak for America by America. Even those who did not vote for him or disagreed with him understood that he was the physical representation of the United States of America.

I don’t know if Whitman knew his supposed influence on Lincoln but I think that seeing a man stand up in front of the masses speaking in the style of a true Whitmaniac, praising unity and connection, demanding brotherhood, made Whitman weak in the knees. Lincoln was what Whitman wanted to be. A physical embodiment of America speaking out against the destruction of the bond of Americans to Americans.

I believe Whitman was in love with Lincoln not so much for Lincoln himself, but more for the fact that he saw Lincoln as the embodiment of the ideals he had been supporting for so long.

The yellow and green hospital flag

During the Civil War there were many advances made in medical treatment. Often through trial and error surgeons discovered new methods to treat patients and more effective methods of care. Treatment was not the only area of medicine that advanced however, the use of military hospitals was drastically changed during the Civil War and set a precedent for military hospitals through World War II.

the original solid red hospital flag

There were several ways in which a hospital could be arranged during the civil war. They generally fell into two categories, field hospitals and fixed general hospitals. At the beginning of the war armies would find abandoned buildings near the edge of the battlefield and convert them into field hospitals. These, however, were often poorly ventilated and unsanitary. As the war progressed, and particularly after the Battle of Shiloh in 1862, the buildings were often left in favor of tents which could be easily arranged and moved at will. The standard hospital tent could comfortably fit eight beds and could be joined to other tents in order to make larger hospitals. These tents were well-ventilated which aided in dispersing the stench of pus and gangrene. Heating methods were also invented to keep the tents at a workable temperature. Separate tents were also set up in order to isolate patients with highly contagious diseases such as gangrene and smallpox. This helped to curb the spread of these deadly diseases and saved many lives. The tents were originally marked with solid red flags but these were abandoned in favor of yellow flags with a green H (Dammann 113).

Field hospitals changed drastically over the course of the war, not only from tents to buildings but also in size, staff, and many other respects. Originally field hospitals were broken down into regimental tents. These tents usually had one surgeon and one assistant surgeon who would only treat soldiers from their assigned regiment so that one tent was not overwhelmed with casualties. This meant that a soldier could be turned away from a tent and be forced to search for the proper tent while losing precious time (54).

In 1862, Jonathan Letterman was assigned the post of Medical Director of the Army of the Potomac and undertook to fix the flaws in the current medical system. By late 1862 he had completely abolished regimental hospitals and replaced them with divisional hospitals. These hospitals were larger and situated farther back on the battlefield in order to move them out of firing range. The staff generally consisted of a surgeon-in-chief, three operating surgeons, nine assistant surgeons, a medical officer, and a variety of soldiers to perform the various duties of nurses and stewards (54).

Each divisional hospital was paired with mobile field units which were set up on the battlefield to retrieve wounded soldiers. These mobile units were easily broken down and set up wherever they were needed making it much easier to administer emergency care. The mobile units made decisions from administering opiates to determining whether a soldier was beyond saving or should be transferred to the divisional hospital.

These field hospitals were not the only advances made though. Permanent hospitals were also put in place in the cities for longer term patients. Designed by Dr. John Shaw Billings, these hospitals were made of wood and built like pavilions and were generally 150 feet long, 25 feet wide, and 12 to 14 feet high. They fit about sixty beds and fitted with a large amount of windows in order to help with ventilation, a design suggestion by Florence Nightingale.  The units were arranged in rows or columns and surrounded the central facility in either an arc or a grid. Records indicate that 431 of these hospitals were built, although there were probably no more than 204 in operation at one time (114).

A group of wounded soldiers

Over two million soldiers, confederate and union, were treated in the hospitals during the civil war. Records show that of the one million union soldiers treated less than ten percent died. The confederate numbers are similar but their method of tracking makes them unreliable (112). This was due in part to the advances made in facilities and treatments, but it was also due to the men and women who served in the hospitals.

Women played a very important role in the war, although they were often overlooked. Having been barred from the medical profession due to a perceived lack of strength, both physical and mental, women took on the role of nurse in the hospitals. Nurses were generally attached to either a hospital, where they performed medical duties, or a regiment where they performed both medical and field duties. These could include taking care of livestock, cooking and serving, cleaning weaponry, and any other tasks needed (Schultz 371).

Women were often looked down upon in the hospitals, and the selection process required that nurses be “over thirty, plain looking, and devoid of curls, bows, and hoopskirts” (Schultz 366). Women were often considered to be a distraction and incapable of performing as well as men. One man however fought for women to b placed in hospitals. His name was Surgeon General William Hammond and he maintained that women were more docile and efficient than men and were able to better lift morale. However, given his, at the time, unorthodox practice of gentle healing he was considered to be not credible and therefore women’s strongest ally in the field was unable to aid them in a way that would have benefited them (372).

Although women were at the bottom of the hierarchy the male surgeons were also faced with a complicated hierarchy. Originally, surgeons were only able to rise to the rank of major surgeons were often outranked in their own hospitals, and therefore required to obey orders against the best interest of the patient. This hierarchy was the cause for many problems in the hospitals. Often the chain of command was unclear, leaving nurses unable to receive the aid, instruction, and supplies they needed. This hierarchy also manifested itself in a sense of corruption among those higher up in the chain, particularly the men. Schultz tells of how Phoebe Pember was forced to sit silently by as she watched surgeons and male nurses leave the hospital to get drunk and then doctor each other’s report to cover up the absences (374).

However, although there were many problems with both the staff set up and the hospital arrangement the numbers of people saved still stand. Although one of the bloodiest wars in history, the Civil War was a time of great advancement for the medical community; standards set in this war would stand for many years to come, influencing the ways in which military patients were cared for long into the future.

Works Cited

Schultz, Jane. 1992. “The Inhospitable Hospital: Gender and Professionalism in Civil War Medicine.” Journals of Women in Culture and Society. Vol. 17. No. 2. Pgs. 364-392.University of Chicago. Chicago, IL.

Dammann, Gordon and Alfred J. Bollet. 2008. Images of Civil War Medicine: A Photographic History. Demos Medical Publishing. New York, NY.

First photograph. visit-gettysburg.com. <http://www.visit-gettysburg.com/images/civil-war-hospital-flag.jpg>

Second photograph. Jen G’s Blog. <http://jlgarrott.blogs.wm.edu/files/2009/07/flag-4.JPG>

Third Photograph. historyforkids.org. <http://www.historyforkids.org/learn/northamerica/after1500/history/pictures/civilwarwounded.jpg>

This is where Whitman’s belief in his own power of observation causes a difficulty with his message. As is clear from his poetry, particularly pieces such as “Song of Myself,” Whitman has a belief that observation of the world leads to pure understanding of the world. This idea is rather flawed considering the fact that several people can view the same thign in a variety of different ways. Just look at Rorschach ink blots.

What surprises me is that Whitman did not have this epiphany on his own considering his rapid and rather drastic change in views from 1855 to 1867, and even within Drum Taps. the man goes from describing death as a beautiful stage in the cycle of life to a disease which fills the earth with compost. Clearly he realized one could change one’s opinion about things, but I guess this doesn’t necessarily mean he understood that one could have differing opinions.

The problem however, is that I do not think that he could have produced much of the work he did without this belief. He couldn’t have spoken in such grandiose terms without being confident in his right to speak them. Nor do I think that he was incorrect in believing in his right to speak this way. The problem, I think, is that there were no other poets that could match him. Whitman speaks of the Great American Poet, and seems to imply that he is that poet, but he doesn’t recognize that he alone cannot manage to speak for the country.

America, needed, and still needs really, someone with Whitman’s confidence and talent who is able to fill in other views in society. There needs to be a female Whitman, Waltina if you will, and and African-American Whitman, and a Latin-American Whitman, and on and on. One man cannot speak for all, as much as Whitman wanted this to be the case.

I think Whitman recognized this in his own life while caring for the soldiers, with all the good he did he still realized that he could not address all the soldiers, or befriend them all before they died. What he failed to realize was that this was more than just an issue of time constraint, but a issue of world view and understanding. I think if Whitman lived in today’s world he would have understood that, although he might not have been able to develop teh grandiose attitude which shapes his poetry.

I think the best thing to do is to recognize Whitman’s limitations in his writing but understand that his message still stands.

Clinton and Whitman

Whitman was very much a Unionist, he wouldn’t, and couldn’t, abide a country that was not unified. Not because he thought the south deserved to subjugated to northern law or anything so dramatic, rather he simply felt that America could never reach its potential unless it was brought together as one country. Reynolds speaks of Whitman as one of many who was glorifying the war, writing about it as chance for great change. From my readings though I have trouble finding this Whitman, the Whitman whose eyes glittered whenever a bomb dropped or another soldier marched out to battle. Recognizing Whitman as a patriot though, I realize this must have been, to an extent, how he felt. The war was a chance for glory, for honor, a chance to defend the country. Because of this Whitman would have felt it was something glorious, but his writings suggest a different tone.

It was difficult to find a way to reconcile these two understandings of Whitman in my mind, the Whitman that I read, the tender, caring, empathetic Whitman, with the war-loving, battle frenzied Whitman Reynolds speaks of. The only way I’ve been able to do this was to go back and consider Whitman’s original goals, all the way back in 1855 Song of Myself.

Back then, Whitman was an idealist. He wanted everyone to hold hands, sing kumbaya, and revel in some nature. As the war approached though, the country was strained. It had been at odds with itself for a long time before the actual fighting started and everyone knew. Whitman, I’m sure, saw the country falling apart and knew he had to readdress his understanding of how America would reach this state of utopia he so wanted. This is where, I think, the war-loving Whitman came in. Whitman saw the war as a chance to break the tension that had been building. At this point he still saw death as part of the renewal cycle of life, not as something venomous so he wasn’t as concerned with dying soldiers as he might have been. As the war went on however Whitman got much closer to death and saw the toll the war was taking on the men of the country he loved so well (Not in a gay way though, just in a completely normal, culturally acceptable, homoerotic way). This is where the tender, empathetic Whitman I’ve been reading comes in.

Although he still saw the war as a chance to reunite the nation, now it seems to be more of a obligation than an honor. It seems to me that Whitman, at this point, no longer thought of war as the best answer, but rather as the current answer. Rather than seeing the soldiers as the men who would change the world through battle, he saw them as the men who were changing the world through sacrifice, a sacrifice that would have been unnecessary had  peopl eonly heeded his words back in 1855.

So to an extent I believe Whitman was glorifying war, but only at first. As he progressed he lost the battle-fever that has swept the country and was left only with a need to care for those who fought so bravely for the land he loved.

Some of the names I could remember:

Whitman-as-poet, Whitman-as-man, Whitman-as-prophet, Whitman-as-creeper, Whitman-as-lover, womanly Whitman, gay Whitman

Looking back on my previous post I feel ashamed that I accused Whitman of abandoning his personal style of poetry for one of a more universal style, after reading his diaries I can see he did nothing of the sort. Every time a soldier died Whitman felt it, every time a cannonball tore through a line of troops and left craters in the blood-soaked battle field Whitman died a little inside. To him the Civil War was personal, that his fellow country men could inflict such pain and horror upon each other appears to have hurt Whitman in ways I can hardly grasp.

I’ve been struggling with the dichotomy between Whitman-the-Poet and Whitman-the-Man, hence the poem I posted earlier this week, but I feel like now that I’ve had  a glimpse of Whitman-the-Man I understand his poetry all the better for it.

In 1855 Whitman wrote poetry with the optimistic, carefree wonder of a child. He saw good and beauty in everything: the body, the soul, nature, speech, song, even death. His entire being was founded on his faith that if everyone could learn to experience the world with the same love and admiration that he did then the world would truly be perfect. He believed that if any group of people were capable of such a transformative world view it was the American people. To have these same people that he glorified in his poetry be the cause of something so horrendous as the Civil War must have been like being shot by a beloved friend. The fact that Whitman was able to maintain any sort of adherence to his prior optimism is amazing, to face the bowels of Hell and still maintain belief in Heaven is a skill reserved for only the strongest of people (I’m wandering into the field of flowery prose here, I apologize).

This post has become rather emotional and presumptuous, in that I seem to be claiming that I know Whitman in an emotionally intimate way, but I think that this may be the response Whitman was seeking all along. To stir the emotions of his reader, to have their hearts break every time one of the soldiers he loved was found laying on a stretcher covered by a gray cloth, to have them sing for joy when the soldiers returned from battle celebrating the chance to live another day.

I still need to sort out my feelings on the changes he made from 1855 to 1867, and I think reading the deathbed edition will help with that, but for right now I am content to sit by the bedside of Whitman and listen to his tales.

Just a note, I tried to maintain the formatting of the poem since I think he was trying to invoke Whitman in his style but I can’t figure out how to indent. So when you’re reading the place where the line breaks should be indented.

Whitman on the F

Crowded, morning F train from Brooklyn, a woman with mud-colored eyes
rises: cuneiform wrinkles appear

between her brows, as if her brain is squished up against the aquarium glass
of her forehead. Her lips move,

a voice so soft, we can only catch every third syllable…air…hel…ho…
hung…anks.

The three-hours-of-sleep me yearns to whisper: louder next time lady,
as she limps past,

bare-palmed, but I’m too tired to crank down the mouth’s finicky drawbridge,
too drained to fiddle with

the combination lock attached to my wallet, so I sift through the mud
in her eyes, looking for a clue

of the life she left behind, before she started singing arias on the subway.
Over her right shoulder, I see

Walt Whitman wobble to his feet like an overflowing barrel of flesh
and beard and smile. “Here,

darling,” he wraps a white haired paw around the dandelion stem
of her spine. “Brothers and sisters,”

He bellows, “our little amaranth here needs some loving of the green
variety.” He stuffs a clump

of grass into the open mouth of her cup. Soon everyone in the car
has foliage out. he slides

a red wheelbarrow, glistening with raindrops, from under his seat, “here,”
he gleams, his teeth

ripe and white, like plums covered in snow. the poet in me hisses,
“good job, bonehead,

letting old graybeard beat you to the punch.” the big guy wedged beside me
grumbles under the mustard

canopy of his breath. “You ok?” I ask. “I hate when he does this,” he says,
thumbing at Old Walt,

“playing the jolly big shot, the vegetarian skyscraper, doing belly flops
into the spotlight,

Like his words are the organic cement, making us all one.” “Why’s
that bother you?” I ask.

“Me?” he scoffs, “I’m Walter Whitman, the human being. Can you imagine
sharing a soul

with that beast?” A smile ricochets between us. I exit the train at 42nd,
duck into a public restroom,

try, in vain, to wash Walt’s inky shadow off my fingers.

-Jeffrey McDaniel

All the sudden the poem was completely different than how I had first read it. This was due mostly to his breaking up of the poem. For instance, in the 1855 version Whitman writes “I am mad for it to be in contact with me/The smoke of my own breath” (27). When I first read this passage I could imagine Whitman roaming though the woods, drunk on the sight of nature, his breath fogging against the leaves and vines. In the 1867 version however, Whitman puts a section break between these two lines. Now when I read it, I see the ecstatic Whitman in section one, followed by a much calmer, categorizing Whitman in section two.

I’m not saying that he didn’t intend for this to be the case, or that he even had an intention one way or the other, all I’m saying is, by putting the section breaks in it Whitman manages to lead the reader in a way that he didn’t accomplish in the 1855 version. I still haven’t decided whether I really do prefer the 1855 version, or if it’s just a matter of me not liking a change in Whitman’s style when I feel like I’ve just gotten the hang of it.

Whether I like it or not though, I have some speculation as to why this kind of change takes place. Mancuso talks about the fact that Whitman changed many of his poems to move from the personal to the national and that the 1867 Leaves of Grass was intended to show the way in which a unified nation was the only hope of rebuilding the America that Whitman had praised so often before. Mancuso gives a sense that Whitman was trying to reach out more than ever. I think that after the civil war Whitman developed a sense of urgency and desperation to make people see what he had been trying to argue since 1855. He did not feel that he could wait for everyone to discover the truth for themselves, he felt a stronger hand was needed.

This could explain why Whitman’s 1867 version was so much more structured than his 1855 version. He was worried he was losing the America he loved and felt the need to lead readers more strongly towards the ideals which he had been presenting. I say that I prefer the 1855 version, but I also don’t have a civil war to contend with, which probably makes me a little more relaxed than Whitman was at the time. I think it will be interesting to see how Whitman continues to change as the America he knows recovers from the turmoil of the Civil War.

I found myself reading through Whitman’s poetry, particularly “A Woman Waits for Me,” with a feeling similar to, although I’m sure greatly muted, the feelings most likely felt when the book first came out. In short, I felt rather scandalized. Now I’m not particularly uncomfortable when it comes to talk of sex, although perhaps more so than some, but I hadn’t really expected such graphic detail and was a bit surprised, especially after I realized what he was referring to when he talked about “the sensitive, orbic, underlapped brothers” (I’d started the next line before I got it).

Now this post probably makes me sound a bit prudish but I think it was more the fact that I wasn’t expecting it from a book published in 1891 (shows how much I know about Whitman), then the actual poem. However, after my original “Whitman, do you kiss your mother with that mouth?” I took a step back to look at the poetry in context.

After a conversation with Sam P. I spent some time thinking about the time period Whitman was writing in and how that may have affected his work. I think it’s expressive of the fact that Whitman was trying to wake people up that he used such graphic language and colorful descriptions (I mean, he compares his ejaculation to a river, clearly he’s trying to make people notice). Had he used softer language, more veiled descriptions, his writing would never have had the effect that it did. If he had merely referred to his gentle caresses and loving release, or something equally as mundane and boring, people could have simply written off his work as something for schoolboys to giggle over behind the schoolhouse. Instead, people were forced to categorize his work as something scandalous and unfit for public viewing, particularly women with their weak constitutions.

Now, it seems like this would do the opposite of what Whitman wanted, which was to lead people to recognize the value of being alive, but what his scandalous work did was make people confront their values (and even as I write this I wonder why I was so scandalized by his words). In order to categorize Whitman’s work as scandalous, the readers had to address what about it was scandalous, in doing so they had to examine why such things went against their moral code. I’m sure most people simply picked up a bible and ran, but I’m betting there were a select few who were able to look at Whitman’s words and wonder “Why don’t we celebrate our sexuality?” I’m not saying these people then ran over to Whitman’s house and ravished him, although maybe some did, but at least the thought was there. Now that they were thinking it, Whitman’s plan was in motion. If they could question that belief for even a moment, couldn’t they question the value of slavery? Of suppression of women? Of the mistreatment of laborers?

So yes, Whitman managed to scandalize and shock, but he also managed to plant a seed of awareness, which after all, is the beginning of his utopia. So Whitman, I may be a little uncomfortable hearing you talk about “the limpid liquid in a young man” or your “slow rude muscle” but bravo to your bravery, bravo to your scandal.

Andiron: Either of a pair of metal supports for firewood used on a hearth and made of a horizontal bar mounted on short legs with usually a vertical shaft surmounting the front end. (Merriam-Webster)

Often cast in the form of a statue or with elaborate decorations. Also referred to as a fire-dog for its dog like appearance. (Encyclopedia-Britannica)

The andiron imagery in Whitman’s “Song of Myself” is one of the many ways in which he invokes the spirit of the common person. The andiron was a tool used by everyone but, as can be seen in the two pictures above, they can range over varying degrees of ornateness. This is yet another way for Whitman to show how every individual is connected to one another even through things as simple as fire-dogs.

This reference to the body-as-self seems unremarkable at first but considering the time frame it is a rather remarkable thought. Until Husserl published his work in the 1900’s, although much of his work was influenced by Kant who wrote much earlier, the standard understanding of the self was that of a mind or soul which simply used the material body until it could free itself and become pure. For example, Descartes with is famous cogito, ergo sum, I think, therefore I am, is the most well-known representative of the mind-body dualism argument. Descartes argued that the senses, since they could relay false information, must be false and therefore the mind (thought/idea/soul) was the only thing which could be considered real. He went on to show that the rest of the world was also real due to God not being a deceiver (a very boring and flawed argument that I won’t spell out here), but in the end what he accomplished was setting the mind as the highest and purest part of human experience.

Granted, he wrote all this in the 1600’s but it became the pervading thought throughout the world until many years later. This is why Whitman’s body-as-self imagery is interesting, it’s somewhat out of place, particularly with the religious feelings of the time. The body was generally considered as a prison of flesh for the soul/mind. I think that the reason for Whitman’s difference of opinion with this pervading theory was his love of the individual.

Whitman spends much of his time detailing a variety of actions by a variety of people, we talked some in class about how this was due to a wish to give everyone a possibility to relate, which I think was a result of it, but I think it was more about showing the expansive range of people, each one an individual and separate identity. In the mind-as-self view, each person’s individual traits are really only accidents, or added characteristics, of the basic form. At every one’s essence there is only mind, and all mind is the same. Whitman on the other hand puts the body as equally important to the mind.When that is done, individual characteristics cease to be mere accidents and become important and defining features of the person.

Sartre, a later philosopher who based much of his study on Husserl, extolled the importance of the body in one’s experience of the world. He spoke of how a paraplegic experiences the world in a very different way than an athlete, or even an average non-disabled person. I think it is this kind of idea that led Whitman to speak so highly of the body and to describe it so thoroughly (although that was probably not done simply as an innocent philosophical study). Whitman has an undertone throughout his work that pleads with the reader to see him or herself as truly individual and important because of that. Whitman claims “I am the poet of the body,/And I am the poet of the soul” (46), but I think that Whitman is truly the poet of the person.

Having spent most of my college career in philosophy classes, a discipline which will not tolerate deviation from the organized path of logical argument, I found Whitman’s writing style a little jarring. He has a tendency to jump from one thought to the next without a clear bridge between the two. This is often the case in literature, particularly poetry, but it has never bothered me quite so much as it does with Whitman. It took me some time to decide why exactly this was the case, then it occurred to me, Whitman is not writing as just a poet, he is writing as the poet philosopher.

Whitman is using his poetry to make an argument, he seeks to show the reader what he should aspire too. In philosophical writings this is done through a series of premises and conclusions in an attempt to make the reader see that there can be no other reasonable action other than what the author suggests. Whitman does not do anything quite so direct, he leads us along a road he has constructed through his imagery and description. He even sates in his poem that this is how he intends to make his point. Whitman writes “you shall no longer take things at second or third hand,” he seeks to do away with the lecture style of teaching life’s important lessons. Whitman desires to give the reader the tools to learn the lesson on his own.

The way in which Whitman does this is rather meandering, albeit with a destination in mind. He takes the reader through an examination of, basically, everything. Whitman seeks to describe, in a first hand sense, all the experiences of those in America. He ranges from the farmer loading hay to the trapper marrying a Native American bride while her family watches on in silence to the recently diagnosed mental patient on his way tot he asylum. He even describes the more simplistic life of various animals as a contrast to the hurried nature of humanity. In showing the reader such a variety of life Whitman is attempting to lead the reader towards an understanding of how the true Poet embraces everything equally. His goal is to make the reader feel connected to everything around him.

This approach, as with all approaches, is both detrimental and beneficial. Whitman claims that he does not have anymore answers than anyone else. In part of the poem where the speaker is addressing a child Whitman writes “How could i answer the child?…I do not know what it is anymore than he.” However, Whitman also seems to consider himself one of the great Poets he considers to be, in a sense, enlightened. It begins to feel like one is being led by a guide who doesn’t know the road any better than one’s self but knows the destination like his own hand.

However, although I make these complaints, I still left the poem feeling as though I had been on a journey beyond where I could have gone myself. Perhaps that is the point, it’s not about knowing the road it’s about being willing to learn the road as you go. It could be said that a philosophical argument is like being shown the milestones as you drive down the road but not being allowed out of the car. I think that Whitman’s style for his argument was perhaps the only choice for the type of argument he was making. No matter how many logical proofs you show a person, if your goal is to convince them to experience you won’t accomplish that until you allow them to actually experience. So perhaps Whitman is not the most knowledgeable guide one could find, but he is certainly the most enjoyable.

You shall possess the good of the earth and sun…there are millions of suns left,

You shall no longer take things at second or third hand…nor look through the eyes of the dead…nor feed on the spectres of books

You shall not look through my eyes either, nor take things from me,

you shall listen to all sides and filter them for yourself

Whitman is using his poetry to make an argument, he seeks to show the reader what he should aspire too. In philosophical writings this is done through a series of premises and conclusions in an attempt to make the reader see that there can be no other reasonable action other than what the author suggests. Whitman does not do anything quite so direct, he leads us along a road he has constructed through his imagery and description. He even sates in his poem that this is how he intends to make his point. Whitman writes “you shall no longer take things at second or third hand,” he seeks to do away with the lecture style of teaching life’s important lessons. Whitman desires to give the reader the tools to learn the lesson on his own.

The way in which Whitman does this is rather meandering, albeit with a destination in mind. He takes the reader through an examination of, basically, everything. Whitman seeks to describe, in a first hand sense, all the experiences of those in America. He ranges from the farmer loading hay to the trapper marrying a Native American bride while her family watches on in silence to the recently diagnosed mental patient on his way tot he asylum. He even describes the more simplistic life of various animals as a contrast to the hurried nature of humanity. In showing the reader such a variety of life Whitman is attempting to lead the reader towards an understanding of how the true Poet embraces everything equally. His goal is to make the reader feel connected to everything around him.

This approach, as with all approaches, is both detrimental and beneficial. Whitman claims that he does not have anymore answers than anyone else. In part of the poem where the speaker is addressing a child Whitman writes “How could i answer the child?…I do not know what it is anymore than he.” However, Whitman also seems to consider himself one of the great Poets he considers to be, in a sense, enlightened. It begins to feel like one is being led by a guide who doesn’t know the road any better than one’s self but knows the destination like his own hand.

However, although I make these complaints, I still left the poem feeling as though I had been on a journey beyond where I could have gone myself. Perhaps that is the point, it’s not about knowing the road it’s about being willing to learn the road as you go. It could be said that a philosophical argument is like being shown the milestones as you drive down the road but not being allowed out of the car. I think that Whitman’s style for his argument was perhaps the only choice for the type of argument he was making. No matter how many logical proofs you show a person, if your goal is to convince them to experience you won’t accomplish that until you allow them to actually experience. So perhaps Whitman is not the most knowledgeable guide one could find, but he is certainly the most enjoyable.