Lawless, Whitman Spotter Extraordinare

In which I read Whitman’s poem “To You” at Chatham house (formerly Lacy House).

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***These are just notes at the moment. They will be clarified later. For questions, jgroom@umw.edu or arush@umw.edu. Thanks to Andy Rush for the very helpful tutorial!

Vista or 7, you can use the newest version of movie maker – gives the ability to upload directly to youtube.
Secure it from windows live movie maker.

Can use Adobe premier elements, but it isn’t installed in combs 3rd floor lab.

Save files as WMV (windows media video file)

1. Plan video
2. Capture video (or import video from somewhere) – if we have 7 and new version, can import mp4, but otherwise have to convert to another format.
3. Edit it
4. Finish

Import lots of files at once, so that we can deal with them all together.
Might want to view (along the bottom) in Timeline instead of Storyboard)
Transition from clips: don’t use many of the transitions, because they are not what real people use. The only transition which is used is the dissolve (which in moviemaker is called fade). To use, drag effect to its place on the storyboard/timeline.

Video effects: use with discretion, drag to place.

For audio effects: can mute the audio track that went with it. Can then record some voiceovers using “narrate timeline” which comes down from the tab. Or import another audio file, a song or suchlike using the import (mpeg-4 doesn’t seem to work, but others should)

Titles: Titles and Credits: use as desired, some variety in choices.

Save/ publish to computer: want to keep the amount to under 1GB and 10 minutes
PS menus are different in the newer version of moviemaker, so for us vista and 7 users, saving as “Windows Media DVD Quality (3.0 Mbps)” is fine.

There are issues with frame accuracy in the older version of movie maker.

**Conversion from useless video file formats. Use Squared 5. Open file. Export as AVI. Compression: use Apple DV/DVCPRO – NTSC

So many things struck me about the 1855 to 1891-92 Song of Myself that it is hard to know where to start. I guess at the beginning is always good. Whitman makes a point of saying in the 1891-92 version that he is “now thirty-seven years old in perfect health”. Really, Whitman? If “deathbed edition” means anything, you are neither 37 nor in perfect health. And this line does not appear until the 1881 edition, along with the stanza that it appears in, as well as the following stanza. It is interesting that Whitman is trying to insist upon his youth in his old age. Why such emphasis on him being “now” 37? Does he think that he knows his thirty-seven-year-old self better now than he did then? This strikes me as an extra odd revision, when compared to the others. While they show how his purposes in writing and publishing “Song of Myself” have changed, this one shows how he wishes to make us believe that the poem has stayed the same. (or perhaps that at least he has not aged)

In the end of section three, the 1855 version identifies the “hugging and loving bed-fellow” as God, but he remains unidentified in the deathbed edition. This seems to have two possible explanations: either Whitman’s feelings about God have changed to make the bed-fellow a fellow human being or a secretive God (per his sneaking out of the house at the break of dawn – God’s walk of shame?) or else Whitman simply felt that he need not outright identify the bed-fellow as God, and that he felt the meaning unchanged by the revision. I feel that dropping “God” from this section is important, inasmuch as I would not have considered the bed-fellow as God without it.

On a related note, Whitman shifts his perspective on God at the end of the fifth section. Previously, God was identified as “elder” – the “elderhand of my own”, “the spirit of God is the eldest brother of my own” – in the 1891 edition, God and Whitman are equals, or at least neither is directly placed above the other. Instead, Whitman seems to be embracing more fully his comfortable lack of concern over God. The section about God’s remembrances is still much as it was. This section seems to explain his stance on God that he has adjusted in these other sections. Basically, he says “God is there, He will always be there, and we needn’t worry about Him leaving us.”

To look at the poems fairly, I think that I am actually surprised by how little is changed from the 1855 version to his 1891 version. There probably are not many poets/authors who could constantly revise their works and yet keep so close to the original vision. My artist sister has ruined a few works by revising them over and over again until they don’t resemble anything, much less the pictures that they were originally. It is impressive that Whitman manages to avoid this, even with his numerous reinventions of “Song of Myself”.