Sun 20 Sep 2009
Walt Whitman is confusing me. His song of himself “Walt Whitman” seems very differetn from the first version that I found so novel and problematic. This poem seems very refined in comparison, and controlled too, which I consider the effect of the poem’s divisions. His voice is stronger in this poem, I feel, although less wildly energetic. Many of the listing extravaganzas that he let himself talk on endlessly are gone or shortened or at least broken up. Or could it be that I have just become accustomed to his style? Certainly, I was surprised to read his more formal poems, ones like “Pioneers! O Pioneers!” that have a conscious creation in format as well as wording. (Wait, that makes it sound like his others are not considered… I mean that he is trying to restrict his poem to a format that is immediately recognizable as a restricted and poetic format, whether it is a traditional one or not.)
Anticipating Whitman’s war poems as I was, his poem “Pensive on Her Dead Gazing…” still surprised me. It resonated with me, and yet sounded completely Whitmanic. (He even slips a list into this fairly short poem.) His idea of life as cyclic is becoming more and more interesting to me, that somehow people are reborn thousands of years later, in bodies not quite their own but just as alive. I may have to go back with the intention of looking for this idea, especially how it relates to his sense of death.
A final note: this Saturday, I marched the grounds of Antietam battlefield, the single bloodiest day in American history (and I believe also the first of the war to be photographed before the removal of bodies…). I’ll be posting a… well, a post on this trip soon, complete with a few pictures.
September 21st, 2009 at 10:18 pm
I’m REALLY looking forward to your Antietam post, Sarah.
By the way, can we agree that the most surprising thing about “Pioneers!” is not that it is formal but that it is such a piece of crap?
September 22nd, 2009 at 9:00 am
Okay, to be fair, let me add that I really like “Pensive.” This model of life-death that you mention appears in that 1855 Song also– to die is different than anyone supposed, and luckier + the grass growing from the bodies of young men and babies. It’s a great theme to begin thinking about in WW as we head strongly now into the war years.
September 22nd, 2009 at 12:08 pm
@mscanlon I’m glad I’m not alone in kind of hating that poem…
Sarah, I definitely agree that it seems like Whitman is trying to “refine” some of the things in his poetry in the later versions. It’s almost as if he looked at the original versions and thought they looked to cluttered and disorganized and tried to make more sense out of them. The problem with that for me is that I love how random he can be, as well as how he can go on about something forever. I think trying to refine that is somewhat taking away from the very nature of the poem.
September 22nd, 2009 at 3:49 pm
Sarah,
This idea of eternal recurrence s fascinating when linked with mara’s post about Marconi’s vision of eternal recurring frequencies of sound—I’m seeing some interesting relationships:
September 25th, 2009 at 7:00 pm
As you can see, I found your Whitman blog after all, and I’m going to pick on pioneers:
“Raise the mighty mother mistress,
Waving high the delicate mistress, over all the starry mistress,
(bend your heads all,)
Raise the fang’d and warlike mistress, stern, impassive, weapon’d
mistress, ”
“O you daughters of the West!
O you young and elder daughters! O you mothers and you wives!
Never must you be divided, in our ranks you move united,”
I’m not sure what I think about the woman-pioneer here who for the most part is mother/wife… I kind of like the fangs but I’m not sure about the delicate mistress, probably because I’m still smarting over the whole manly friendship and pride bit.
(I remember you talking about Whitman and equality gender-wise when you were down here visiting, but do you think this falls into kind of forcing it. And on another note I got into a debate with Dave the other day about our favorite “manly” terms.)
September 25th, 2009 at 11:09 pm
Manda, are you hijacking our blog? Good luck connecting Whitman and your cats.
September 26th, 2009 at 7:48 pm
Maybe a little bit of hijacking. Sarah has been reading Whitman to me these days- probably because the only English class I’m enrolled in is Shakespeare.
I’d like to point out that most of the cats live with her now, making her the hoarder currently. My cat, however, has learned to play fetch. Getting him to find Whitman should be no problem.