A Historical Guide to Walt Whitman

edited by David S. Reynolds (click on the image to go to the Amazon.com shop)

This book is part of a series “Historical Guides to American Authors” and starts with an introduction by the editor David S. Reynolds. He also contributes with a short biography of the poet.

This is followed by scholarly essays by well knows Whitmaniacs including Ed Folsom, which an average Whitman lover definitely did come across. In his essay he deals with Whitman’s stance on racism. Moreover, he specifically pinpoints places in Whitman’s poetry where he mentions or uses a metaphor to refer to black people. He focuses on poems “The Sleepers” and “Ethiopia Saluting the Colors” in his essay.

In the next essay, Jerome Loving writes about the Leaves as political poems which is definitely interesting to read because people not so often discuss these poems as political. Whitman was a great democrat and a patriot, and for someone who wants to deal with these topics, this is a must read. I would advise this part to be read together with the last essay “Whitman the Democrat” because both deal with similar but in many ways different notions. Politics and human rights are closely linked. One of the basic human rights is a right to express love. Killingsworth’s essay “Whitman and the Gay American Ethos” , as the title says looks at Whitman as a gay poet. The author finds examples of this in I Sing the Body Electric, Calamus clusters.

Roberta Tarbell speaks of links between the visual arts and Whitman. A large portion of the essay deals with architecture and technological advances in architecture which I did not find very interesting. On the other side of the medallion, the parts of the essays describing Whitman and love of photography and painting were really insightful. Worth a look. Tarbell finishes with Whitman’s influence on the coming artists.

One of the most useful thins I found in this book is definitely the illustrated chronology of Whitman’s life and career.

As I watched this truly amazing documentary presenting Whitman’s life and poetry in a new and memorable way, I became aware of an interesting but somewhat frightening fact. A man who has come to be considered the father of the American poetry, a person who strove to point to the universal experience of the whole mankind, had a rather difficult personal life and for the greater part of it was alone in his struggle. The documentary, written and directed by Mark Zwonitzer,  shows Whitman not as a 19th century poet but as a man of flesh and blood, brave and self-willed but also quite vulnerable. Whitman is brought to life through inspired and inspiring presentation by a number of Whitman scholars, biographers, poets, as well as through electrifying readings of his poetry, all of this showing how relevant to our everyday life his poems still are. This connection to the 21st century life and circumstances is further emphasized by the disturbing images of wounded soldiers with amputated limbs, reminding us that the horrors are our reality too.  On the other hand, we are also presented with the images of people in the streets, people on the ferry, sharing and being united in the experience of the great poet.

In a rather dynamic manner the documentary shows Whitman within his historical context. Living in the age of national divisions and cynicism, he believed that a book of poetry can unite his fellow Americans, all of them, regardless of the race, gender or social status. Whitman found beauty where others saw dirt and ugliness. In a city which was overcrowded and had really big sanitation problems, he focused on the people, what they did and what they felt. A special attention in the documentary is given to Leaves of Grass, which is presented as some kind of a melting pot blending different religions, sciences and pseudoscience, nationalities and races. However, what gives the documentary a special flavor is a wonderful choice of music and the beautiful orchestration by Joel Goodman.

Apart from the useful facts about Whitman’s life and work, the documentary provides the students exploring his poetry with an opportunity to listen to eminent critics and scholars enthusiastically talking about the poet. This is far better than reading the books and critiques, since some of them impart personal experiences related to reading Whitman. Whitman’s poetry is not to be studied isolated. It has to be considered in relation to the outside world, just as it is supposed to be read aloud and, with the help of photos, videos, and actors reciting verses, the documentary offers both.