I was reading in yesterday’s Washington Post in a piece called “Beyond ‘Great,’ to Exemplary” that Whitman’s “O Captain!” is one of about five works identified by the National Standards Initiative as it tries to give guidance to high school teachers about what students should know– with Austen, Morrison, and a few others, it was given as an exemplar of something requiring complex interpretive skills, and the article implied that the choice was probably not controversial. This got me thinking about a conversation I had with Professor Nina Mikhalevsky, whose Banned and Dangerous Art course I linked to some weeks ago. She was remarking to me that she can’t believe that Whitman, whom she characterized as a radical thinker, had become such a national icon. At the time, I was focused on Whitman’s desire to be recognized as a poet for/of his nation, which makes iconic status more sensible, but lately I’ve been musing more about. . .
Whitman, American Rebel Idol.
A few examples:
Walt Whitman High, Bethesda, MD
Walt Whitman High School, Huntington Station, NY
The Walt Whitman Bridge (PA-NJ)
The Walt Whitman Mall (Huntington Station, NY)
Walt Wit Beer (Philly)
LOC image, Whitman cigar box from 1898
Whitman-Walker AIDS clinic, Washington DC
Walt Whitman Hotel, Camden , NJ
Walt Whitman T from LOLA (one of many)
Walt Whitman Fence Company (NY)
Mad Magazine, 1967
Campers at Camp Walt Whitman, Piermont, NH
Jesse Merandy (CUNY) with WW impersonator (Camden)
Walt Whitman Service Area
What?
Historical marker (NY)
Walt Whitman Golf (Bethesda)
WW Park (Brooklyn)
Obvious College Football connection
very cool post mary. thanks for sharing the images. I am doing my digital museum assignment on the cigar box. Would you mind sharing your link to that picture?
I don’t know if I agree with the article that O Captain is a poem that requires critical interpretation, Walt has stronger works that I think require more discussion, but there’s no denying he’s an icon.
This is a fantastic post. Thank you for sharing so many great photos. Amazing how places are named are Walt Whitman. He was an icon for so many reasons. So I guess it should not surprise me all of the placces that took on his name. Again Factastic post. And thank you for taking the time to find all the pictures.
Love this photo album! Couldn’t help thinking of Mary Rigsby’s story about the student who was gratified to learn that Whitman was “a poet before he was a bridge.”
Placing Whitman the ways we’ve been doing does complicate general perceptions of Whitman the icon. That Mad Mag impression was pretty great, but, perhaps not surprisingly, I’m finding it a little reductive. I think it would have been funnier and more “true” to Whitman if the spoof hadn’t been modeled off “O Captain!,” but off something that allowed more rambling meter and some parenthetical asides. (Maybe that’s part of the joke, but come on, I bet any Looking for Whitman participant could one-up that.) But, as Dr. Scanlon and Erin commented, “O Captain!,” for various reasons, is what people turn to as the classic Whitman poem. I first heard about that poem in an episode of Full House in which Uncle Jesse goes back to finish his high school degree and has to recite that poem, and then is embarrassed by the teacher who proves Uncle Jesse knows nothing about the poem’s content. How’s that for Whitman, American Idol?
Brady, I was thinking about the same thing when I posted the bridge. That is a great story.
But it may take me several months (years?) to process Natalie’s anecdote about Full House. WHAT?!
Even in Whitman’s lifetime, “O Captain!” was very popular and Whitman was asked to recite it frequently, but it was not a poem he liked or that he himself saw as his best work. No doubt it’s very regular form made it palatable to people who could be made uncomfortable by Whitman’s typical sprawl.
This is an awesome post, very interesting.
Now this is blogging, the images say it all, a list even Whitman would be proud of!
This guy is really lucky !
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