October 4th, 2009:

Reading Reynolds made me consider a side of Whitman I had not really looked at before, Whitman the Patriot. I knew he was a patriot, and I realized that he thought America was the greatest place on earth (he hadn’t had a chance to go to Disney World yet) but i hadn’t really considered the implications of that.

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.

In class last Tuesday we mentioned a certain part of Memorandum where Whitman sort of casually mentioned that the war was over and then went about accounting on the patients he was seeing and his daily duties and activities.   We talked about how, for Whitman, the war was not yet over.  He was not concerned with the battleground statistics that we learn about in history books.  Whitman’s experience of the war was unique in that he never saw actual battle, but knew perhaps better than anyone what the outcome of it was.  His wartime experiences changed him dramatically as a writer and as a person.  Just as he was less concerned with the fact that the war had officially been deemed “over,” his ideas about his writing and their influence were also shifting.

The fact that Whitman would even ask a question like, “Must I change my triumphant songs?” speaks volumes about his changing perspective.  Where we had once seen a Whitman that was so sure of himself (almost to a point of fault), we begin to see an uneasiness brought on by the terrible experiences of war and the changes that such trauma will bring.  When the smoke cleared and the battle cries finally died out, I get the feeling that Whitman was left wondering if anyone really cared about the majesty in a blade of grass anymore.

Whitman did change his “triumphant songs.”  The diaries that he kept were concise and accurate in a way that deviates from his traditional style in a very obvious way.  These notes and observations went on to become detailed accounts of his experiences.  In much of the post-war poetry, the ambiguity is cut out and replaced with jarring details of war carnage that are almost the exact opposite of his previous ramblings.

I remember reading Song of the Open Road at the beginning of class.  An avid adventurer, I was really inspired by lines like-

I think heroic deed were all conceiv’d in the open air and all free poems also,                                                                                            I think I could stop here myself and do miracles,                                                                                                                                                  I think whoever I shall meet I shall like, and whoever beholds me shall like me,                                                                                       I think whoever I see must be happy.

Later, in Drum Taps, his attitude has changed-

LONG, too long America,                                                                                                                                                                                            Traveling roads all even and peaceful you learn’d from joys and prosperity only,                                                                                   But now, ah now, to learn from the crisis of anguish, advancing, grappling with                                                                                  Direst fate and recoiling not,                                                                                                                                                                                      And now to conceive and show to the world what your children en-masse really are,                                                                           (For who except myself has yet conciev’d what you children en-masse really  are?)

Perhaps Whitman, like America, had grown too complacent on an easy path.  It took the crisis of the Civil War for America to rebuild a stronger and freer union.  Likewise, although Whitman’s poetry was changed after the terrors he experienced, it only became stronger and more balanced.

Ideas welcome here.

     I am going to focus my blog on the Song of the Banner at Daybreak, and its dialogic style. The poem has five distinct speakers (the poet, the pennant, the banner, the child, and the father), which differs from Whitman’s previously-favored format of one single speaker that occasionally speaks for others. Through the interaction between this multitude of voices, Whitman most notably shows the power of the poet to rouse people from their habits, although he notably slams those that stand against the principles he holds.

     The poet here, a very thinly disguised picture of Whitman himself (an anti-academic, the poet is at one point referred to as a “bard out of Manhattan”), is the torch-bearer for change (423). He has both the first and the last word in the poem and is able to fully articulate what is hinted at by the child and rejected by the father. The child is able to glimpse what the poet knows, and expresses a desire to follow the anti-materialist, country-spanning path of the poet, but the father’s final word overshadows his. Here, the father is the voice of people content with the establishment, those that want nothing to upset what has been built thus far. However, the father is paralyzed by that love of the establishment, so that he will not even rise up to defend it. He is paralyzed by what he sees directly in front of him, so that he is unable to see future threats that must be defended against.

     The pennant and the banner occupy similar roles, although the banner’s small size probably explains why it is the one to speak to the child and the banner speaks to the poet. The banner serves as the connection between the world of the child, which wonders “what is that in the sky beckoning to me with long finger?” and the banner that of “Demons and death then I sing” (421, 425). The banner is the recipient of the poet’s focus and seems to be dependent on the poet for direction: “Point this day [O bard out of Manhattan], leaving all the rest, to us over all—and yet we know not why, / For what are we, mere strips of cloth profiting nothing, / Only flapping in the wind?” (423). It shows Whitman’s high view of the national poet, who is able to infuse objects with meaning, including the meaning that inspires people to war. The poet does not create democracy here, but he is the force that spurs people to enjoy and defend it. He gives direction to those that dare look up from the pavement and money exchanges in front of them.

     In previous centuries, the dialogue poem had been an oft-used format that generally facilitated a discussion between the soul and the body. Generally, things came down in favor of the soul, reflecting the strong Christian influence of the time. While it’s reasonable to assume that Whitman would be on the side of the body, the answer is much grayer than that. While the poet obviously comes down on the side of the physical, with his call to arms, he also is outside of the world. He calls for a rejection of what the world deems worthwhile, such as money, while extolling the abstract idea of democracy. The poet is connected enough to sense the currents of the world, but separated enough to be in touch with the world of ideas and souls. In other words, the poet is a kosmos.