I met a seer…

The next track: Pat Benatar’s “Love is a battlefield” – or at least life is in Whitman’s poem “Life.” EVER the undiscouraged, resolute, struggling soul of man; (Have former armies fail’d then we send fresh armies—and fresh again;) Ever the grappled mystery of all earth’s ages old or new; Ever the eager eyes, hurrahs, the […]

Tags: ipod, ww20

I love “Life”: Ever the undiscouraged, resolute, struggling soul of man; (Have former armies fail’d? then we should send fresh armies — and fresh again;) Ever the grappled mystery of all earth’s ages old or new; Ever the eager eyes, hurrahs, the welcome-claping hands, the loud applause; Ever the soul dissatisfied, curious, unconvinced at last; […]

When I was doing some research on Drum-Taps, I stumbled upon a few authors who claimed that Drum-Taps was the pivot on which Whitman’s work turned.  One critic claimed that it was the pivot that took Whitman from the physical to the spiritual. There is a good deal of Whitman’s spirituality in these later poems.  […]

Tags: Continuities, eidolons, First Annex, Hoffman, spiritualism, Swedenborg

Thesis: Structured yet free, the form of “Eidólons” mimics, supports, and reinforces its content. Context – “I MET a seer…” Emmanuel Swedenborg: – The Seer Swedish scientist turned philosopher Doctrine of Correspondences: Every material thing has a spiritual counterpart, or “ultimate” Post-Swedenborgian The Unseen Universe Post-Swedenborgian book – Balfour Stewart & P.G. Tait Everything on […]

Tags: eidolons, explication, singley

“What is happiness, anyhow?  Is this one of its hours, or the like of it?—so impalpable—a mere breath, an evanescent tinge?” (817). This week I have been totally absorbed with Whitman in New Jersey because of my Cultural Museum Project.  I have traveled to the Whitman-Stafford house in Laurel Springs, NJ ( 305 Maple Ave), […]

“…commenc’d going for weeks at a time, even for months, down in the country, to a charmingly recluse and rural spot along Timber creek, twelve or thirteen miles from where it enters the Delaware river. Domicil’d at the farm house of my friends, the Staffords, near by, I lived half the time along this creek […]

Tags: digitalmuseum, Hoffman, laurel springs, specimen days, Timber Creek, ww20

I’ve heard the complaint that Whitman’s prose from the war period is a bit dry.  While it may not be the most exciting and dynamic prose I’ve ever read, the historical presence of his work seems irreplaceable.  I’m especially interested in this period of Whitman’s poetry and prose since I spend I significant amount of […]

Tags: Hoffman

Bob Dylan’s “Blowin’ in the Wind” As I was reading “Song of the Banner at Daybreak”, I was reminded of this song when the banner asks, “For what are we, mere strips of cloth profiting nothing,/Only flapping in the wind?”.  The poet, does not hear and see strips alone, but much more.  So other than […]

Tags: ipod

Ethiopia Saluting the Colors Who are you dusky woman, so ancient hardly human, With your woolly-whit and turban’d head, and bare bony feet? Why rising by the roadside here, do you the colors greet?   (‘Tis while our army lines Carolina’s sands and pines, Forth from thy hovel door thou Ethiopia com’st to me, As […]

It’s really remarkable that Whitman has eased his way into modern society through Levi’s and US!  Good timing!