Walt Whitman

Whitmans poetry is democratic in both its subject matter and its language. As the great lists that make up a large part of Whitmans poetry show, anythingand anyoneis fair game for a poem. Whitman is concerned with cataloguing the new America he sees growing around him. Just as America is far different politically and practically from its European counterparts, so too must American poetry distinguish itself from pre ious models. !hus we see Whitman breaking new ground in both subject matter and diction. "n a way, though, Whitman is not so uni#ue. $is preference for the #uotidian links him with both %ante, who was the first to write poetry in a ernacular language, and with Wordsworth, who famously stated that poetry should aim to speak in the &language of ordinary men.' (nlike Wordsworth, howe er, Whitman does not romantici)e the proletariat or the peasant. "nstead he takes as his model himself. !he stated mission of his poetry was, in his words, to make &*a+n attempt to put a Person, a human being ,myself, in the latter half of the -.th century, in America/ freely, fully, and truly on record.' A truly democratic poetry, for Whitman, is one that, using a common language, is able to cross the gap between the self and another indi idual, to effect a sympathetic e0change of e0periences. !his leads to a distinct blurring of the boundaries between the self and the world and between public and pri ate. Whitman prefers spaces and situationslike journeys, the out1 of1doors, citiesthat allow for ambiguity in these respects. !hus we see poems like &2ong of the 3pen 4oad' and &5rossing 6rooklyn 7erry,' where the poet claims to be able to enter into the heads of others. E0ploration becomes not just a trope but a mode of e0istence. 7or Whitman, spiritual communion depends on physical contact, or at least pro0imity. !he body is the essel that enables the soul to e0perience the world. !herefore the body is something to be worshipped and gi en a certain primacy. Eroticism, particularly homoeroticism, figures significantly in Whitmans poetry. !his is something that got him in no small amount of trouble during his lifetime. !he erotic interchange of his poetry, though, is meant to symboli)e the intense but always incomplete connection between indi iduals. $a ing se0 is the closest two people can come to being one merged indi idual, but the boundaries of the body always pre ent a complete union. !he affection Whitman shows for the bodies of others, both men and women, comes out of his appreciation for the linkage between the body and the soul and the communion that can come through physical contact.

$e also has great respect for the reproducti e and generati e powers of the body, which mirror the intellects generation of poetry. !he 5i il War diminished Whitmans faith in democratic sympathy. While the cause of the war nominally furthered brotherhood and e#uality, the war itself was a #uagmire of killing. 4econstruction, which began to fail almost immediately after it was begun, further disappointed Whitman. $is later poetry, which displays a marked insecurity about the place of poetry and the place of emotion in general ,see in particular &When 8ilacs 8ast in the %ooryard 6loomd'/, is darker and more isolated. Whitmans style remains consistent throughout, howe er. !he poetic structures he employs are uncon entional but reflect his democratic ideals. 8ists are a way for him to bring together a wide ariety of items without imposing a hierarchy on them. 9erception, rather than analysis, is the basis for this kind of poetry, which uses few metaphors or other kinds of symbolic language. Anecdotes are another fa ored de ice. 6y transmitting a story, often one he has gotten from another indi idual, Whitman hopes to gi e his readers a sympathetic e0perience, which will allow them to incorporate the anecdote into their own history. !he kind of language Whitman uses sometimes supports and sometimes seems to contradict his philosophy. $e often uses obscure, foreign, or in ented words. !his, howe er, is not meant to be intellectually elitist but is instead meant to signify Whitmans status as a uni#ue indi idual. %emocracy does not necessarily mean sameness. !he difficulty of some of his language also mirrors the necessary imperfection of connections between indi iduals: no matter how hard we try, we can ne er completely understand each other. Whitman largely a oids rhyme schemes and other traditional poetic de ices. $e does, howe er, use meter in masterful and inno ati e ways, often to mimic natural speech. "n these ways, he is able to demonstrate that he has mastered traditional poetry but is no longer subser ient to it, just as democracy has ended the subser ience of the indi idual.

!hemes
Democracy As a Way of Life
Whitman en isioned democracy not just as a political system but as a way of e0periencing the world. "n the early nineteenth century, people still harbored many doubts about whether the (nited 2tates could sur i e as a country and about whether democracy could thri e as a political system. !o allay those fears and to praise democracy, Whitman tried to be democratic in both life and poetry. $e imagined democracy as a way of interpersonal interaction and as a way for indi iduals to integrate their beliefs into their e eryday li es. &2ong of ;yself' notes that democracy must include all indi iduals e#ually, or else it will fail. "n his poetry, Whitman widened the possibilities of poeticdiction by including slang, collo#uialisms, and regional dialects, rather than employing the stiff, erudite language so often found in nineteenth1century erse. 2imilarly, he broadened the possibilities of subject matter by describing myriad people and places. 8ike William Wordsworth, Whitman belie ed that e eryday life and e eryday people were fit subjects for poetry. Although much of Whitmans work does not e0plicitly discuss politics, most of it implicitly deals with democracy: it describes communities of people coming together, and it imagines many oices pouring into a unified whole. 7or Whitman, democracy was an idea that could and should permeate the world beyond politics, making itself felt in the ways we think, speak, work, fight, and e en make art.

The Cycle of Growth and Death

Whitmans poetry reflects the itality and growth of the early (nited 2tates. %uring the nineteenth century, America e0panded at a tremendous rate, and its growth and potential seemed limitless. 6ut sectionalism and the iolence of the 5i il War threatened to break apart and destroy the boundless possibilities of the (nited 2tates. As a way of dealing with both the population growth and the massi e deaths during the 5i il War, Whitman focused on the life cycles of indi iduals: people are born, they age and reproduce, and they die. 2uch poems as &When 8ilacs 8ast in the %ooryard 6loomd' imagine death as an integral part of life. !he speaker of &When 8ilacs 8ast in the %ooryard 6loomd' reali)es that flowers die in the winter, but they rebloom in the springtime, and he ows to mourn his fallen friends e ery year just as new buds are appearing. %escribing the life cycle of nature helped Whitman

conte0tuali)e the se ere injuries and trauma he witnessed during the 5i il Warlinking death to life helped gi e the deaths of so many soldiers meaning.

The Beauty of the Individual

!hroughout his poetry, Whitman praised the indi idual. $e imagined a democratic nation as a unified whole composed of uni#ue but e#ual indi iduals. &2ong of ;yself' opens in a triumphant paean to the indi idual: &" celebrate myself, and sing myself' , - /. Elsewhere the speaker of that e0uberant poem identifies himself as Walt Whitman and claims that, through him, the oices of many will speak. "n this way, many indi iduals make up the indi idual democracy, a single entity composed of myriad parts. E ery oice and e ery part will carry the same weight within the single democracyand thus e ery oice and e ery indi idual is e#ually beautiful. %espite this pluralist iew, Whitman still singled out specific indi iduals for praise in his poetry, particularly Abraham 8incoln. "n - < = > , 8incoln was assassinated, and Whitman began composing se eral elegies, including &3 5aptain? ;y 5aptain?' Although all indi iduals were beautiful and worthy of praise, some indi iduals merited their own poems because of their contributions to society and democracy.

;otifs
Lists
Whitman filled his poetry with long lists. 3ften a sentence will be broken into many clauses, separated by commas, and each clause will describe some scene, person, or object. !hese lists create a sense of e0pansi eness in the poem, as they mirror the growth of the (nited 2tates. Also, these lists layer images atop one another to reflect the di ersity of American landscapes and people. "n &2ong of ;yself,' for e0ample, the speaker lists se eral adjecti es to describe Walt Whitman in section @ A . !he speaker uses multiple adjecti es to demonstrate the comple0ity of the indi idual: true indi iduals cannot be described using just one or two words. 8ater in this section, the speaker also lists the different types of oices who speak through Whitman. 8ists are another way of demonstrating democracy in action: in lists, all items possess e#ual weight, and no item is more important than another item in the list. "n a democracy, all indi iduals possess e#ual weight, and no indi idual is more important than another.

The

uman Body
Whitmans poetry re els in its depictions of the human body and the bodys capacity

for physical contact. !he speaker of &2ong of ;yself' claims that &copulation is no more rank to me than death is' ,> @ - / to demonstrate the naturalness of taking pleasure in the bodys physical possibilities. With physical contact comes spiritual communion: two touching bodies form one indi idual unit of togetherness. 2e eral poems praise the bodies of both women and men, describing them at work, at play, and interacting. !he speaker of &" 2ing the 6ody Electric' ,- < > > / boldly praises the perfection of the human form and worships the body because the body houses the soul. !his free e0pression of se0uality horrified some of Whitmans early readers, and Whitman was fired from his job at the "ndian 6ureau in - < = > because the secretary of the interior found Leaves of Grassoffensi e. Whitmans unabashed praise of the male form has led many critics to argue that he was homose0ual or bise0ual, but the repressi e culture of the nineteenth century pre ented him from truly e0pressing those feelings in his work.

!hythm and Incantation

;any of Whitmans poems rely on rhythm and repetition to create a capti ating, spellbinding #uality of incantation. 3ften, Whitman begins se eral lines in a row with the same word or phrase, a literary de ice called anaphora. 7or e0ample, the first four lines of &When " $eard the 8earnd Astronomer' ,- < = > / each begin with the word when. !he long lines of such poems as &2ong of ;yself' and &When 8ilacs 8ast in the %ooryard 6loomd' force readers to inhale se eral bits of te0t without pausing for breath, and this breathlessness contributes to the incantatory #uality of the poems. Benerally, the anaphora and the rhythm transform the poems into celebratory chants, and the joyous form and structure reflect the joyousness of the poetic content. Elsewhere, howe er, the repetition and rhythm contribute to an elegiac tone, as in &3 5aptain? ;y 5aptain?' !his poem uses short lines and words, such as heart and father, to mournfully incant an elegy for the assassinated Abraham 8incoln.

2ymbols
"lants
!hroughout Whitmans poetry, plant life symboli)es both growth and multiplicity. 4apid, regular plant growth also stands in for the rapid, regular e0pansion of the population of the (nited 2tates. "n &When 8ilacs 8ast in the %ooryard 6loomd,' Whitman uses flowers, bushes, wheat, trees, and other plant life to signify the possibilities of regeneration and re1

growth after death. As the speaker mourns the loss of 8incoln, he drops a lilac spray onto the coffinC the act of laying a flower on the coffin not only honors the person who has died but lends death a measure of dignity and respect. !he title Leaves of Grass highlights another of Whitmans themes: the beauty of the indi idual. Each leaf or blade of grass possesses its own distinct beauty, and together the blades form a beautiful unified whole, an idea Whitman e0plores in the si0th section of &2ong of ;yself.' ;ultiple lea es of grass thus symboli)e democracy, another instance of a beautiful whole composed of indi idual parts. "n - < = D , Whitman published an edition of Leaves of Grass that included a number of poems celebrating lo e between men. $e titled this section &!he 5alamus 9oems,' after the phallic calamus plant.

The #elf
Whitmans interest in the self ties into his praise of the indi idual. Whitman links the self to the conception of poetry throughout his work, en isioning the self as the birthplace of poetry. ;ost of his poems are spoken from the first person, using the pronoun I. !he speaker of Whitmans most famous poem, &2ong of ;yself,' e en assumes the name Walt Whitman, but ne ertheless the speaker remains a fictional creation employed by the poet Whitman. Although Whitman borrows from his own autobiography for some of the speakers e0periences, he also borrows many e0periences from popular works of art, music, and literature. 4epeatedly the speaker of this poem e0claims that he contains e erything and e eryone, which is a way for Whitman to reimagine the boundary between the self and the world. 6y imaging a person capable of carrying the entire world within him, Whitman can create an elaborate analogy about the ideal democracy, which would, like the self, be capable of containing the whole world.

&3ut of the 5radle Endlessly 4ocking'

#ummary and $orm
!his poem was written in -<>. and incorporated into the -<=D edition of Leaves of Grass. "t describes a young boys awakening as a poet, mentored by nature and his own maturing consciousness. !he poem is loose in its form, e0cept for the sections that purport to be a transcript of the birds call, which are musical in their repetition of words and phrases. !he opening of the poem is marked by an abundance of repeated prepositions describing mo ementout, o er, down, up, fromwhich appear regularly later in the poem and which con ey the sense of a struggle, in this case the poets struggle to come to consciousness. (nlike most of Whitmans poems, &3ut of the 5radle' has a fairly distinct plot line. A young boy watches a pair of birds nesting on the beach near his home, and mar els at their relationship to one another. 3ne day the female bird fails to return. !he male stays near the nest, calling for his lost mate. !he males cries touch something in the boy, and he seems to be able to translate what the bird is saying. 6rought to tears by the birds pathos, he asks nature to gi e him the one word &superior to all.' "n the rustle of the ocean at his feet, he discerns the word &death,' which continues, along with the birds song, to ha e a presence in his poetry.

Commentary
!his is another poem that links Whitman to the 4omantics. !he &birth of the poet' genre was of particular importance to Wordsworth, whose massi e Preludedetails his artistic coming1of1age in detail. 8ike Wordsworth, Whitman claims to take his inspiration from nature. Where Wordsworth is inspired by a wordless feeling of awe, though, Whitman finds an opportunity to anthropomorphi)e, and nature gi es him ery specific answers to his #uestions about o erarching concepts. Eature is a tabula rasa onto which the poet can project himself. $e con#uers it, inscribes it. While it may become a part of him that is always present, the fact that it does so seems to be by his permission. !he epiphany surrounding the word &death' seems appropriate, for in other poems of Whitmans we ha e seen death described as the ultimate tool for democracy and sympathy. $ere death is shown to be the one lesson a child must learn, whether from nature or from an elder. 3nly the reali)ation of death can lead to emotional and artistic maturity. %eath, for one as interested as Whitman in the place of the indi idual in the uni erse, is a means for achie ing perspecti e: while your thoughts may seem profound and uni#ue in the moment,

you are a mere speck in e0istence. !hus the contemplation of death allows for one to mo e beyond oneself, to consider the whole. 9erhaps this is why the old crone disrupts the end of the poem: she symboli)es an alternati e possibility, the means by which someone else may ha e come to the same reali)ation as Whitman. "n the end the bird, although functionally important in Whitmans de elopment, is insignificant in the face of the abstract sea: death, which is the concept he introduces, remains as the important factor. !hus although &3ut of the 5radle' can be described as a poem about the birth of the poet, it can also be read as a poem about the death of the self. "n the end, on the larger scale, these two phenomena are one and the same.

&2ong of ;yself'
#ummary and $orm
!his most famous of Whitmans works was one of the original twel e pieces in the -<>> first edition of Leaves of Grass. 8ike most of the other poems, it too was re ised e0tensi ely, reaching its final permutation in -<<-. &2ong of ;yself' is a sprawling combination of biography, sermon, and poetic meditation. "t is not nearly as hea y1handed in its pronouncements as &2tarting at 9aumanok'C rather, Whitman uses symbols and sly commentary to get at important issues. &2ong of ;yself' is composed more of ignettes than lists: Whitman uses small, precisely drawn scenes to do his work here. !his poem did not take on the title &2ong of ;yself' until the -<<- edition. 9re ious to that it had been titled &9oem of Walt Whitman, an American' and, in the -<=D, -<=F, and -<F- editions, simply &Walt Whitman.' !he poems shifting title suggests something of what Whitman was about in this piece. As Walt Whitman, the specific indi idual, melts away into the abstract &;yself,' the poem e0plores the possibilities for communion between indi iduals. 2tarting from the premise that &what " assume you shall assume' Whitman tries to pro e that he both encompasses and is indistinguishable from the uni erse.

Commentary
Whitmans grand poem is, in its way, an American epic. 6eginning in medias resin the middle of the poets lifeit loosely follows a #uest pattern. &;issing me one place search another,' he tells his reader, &" stop somewhere waiting for you.' "n its catalogues of American life and its constant search for the boundaries of the self &2ong of ;yself' has much in common with classical epic. !his epic sense of purpose, though, is coupled with an

almost Geatsian alori)ation of repose and passi e perception. 2ince for Whitman the birthplace of poetry is in the self, the best way to learn about poetry is to rela0 and watch the workings of ones own mind. While &2ong of ;yself' is crammed with significant detail, there are three key episodes that must be e0amined. !he first of these is found in the si0th section of the poem. A child asks the narrator &What is the grass?' and the narrator is forced to e0plore his own use of symbolism and his inability to break things down to essential principles. !he bunches of grass in the childs hands become a symbol of the regeneration in nature. 6ut they also signify a common material that links disparate people all o er the (nited 2tates together: grass, the ultimate symbol of democracy, grows e erywhere. "n the wake of the 5i il War the grass reminds Whitman of gra es: grass feeds on the bodies of the dead. E eryone must die e entually, and so the natural roots of democracy are therefore in mortality, whether due to natural causes or to the bloodshed of internecine warfare. While Whitman normally re els in this kind of symbolic indeterminacy, here it troubles him a bit. &" wish " could translate the hints,' he says, suggesting that the boundary between encompassing e erything and saying nothing is easily crossed. !he second episode is more optimistic. !he famous &twenty1ninth bather' can be found in the ele enth section of the poem. "n this section a woman watches twenty1eight young men bathing in the ocean. 2he fantasi)es about joining them unseen, and describes their semi1nude bodies in some detail. !he in isible twenty1ninth bather offers a model of being much like that of Emersons &transparent eyeball': to truly e0perience the world one must be fully in it and of it, yet distinct enough from it to ha e some perspecti e, and in isible so as not to interfere with it unduly. !his parado0ical set of conditions describes perfectly the poetic stance Whitman tries to assume. !he la ish eroticism of this section reinforces this idea: se0ual contact allows two people to become one yet not oneit offers a moment of transcendence. As the female spectator introduced in the beginning of the section fades away, and Whitmans oice takes o er, the eroticism becomes homoeroticism. Again this is not so much the e0pression of a se0ual preference as it is the longing for communion with e ery li ing being and a connection that makes use of both the body and the soul ,although Whitman is certainly using the homoerotic sincerely, and in other ways too, particularly for shock alue/. $a ing worked through some of the conditions of perception and creation, Whitman arri es, in the third key episode, at a moment where speech becomes necessary. "n the twenty1fifth section he notes that &2peech is the twin of my ision, it is une#ual to measure itself, H "t pro okes me fore er, it says sarcastically, H Walt you contain enough, why dont you

let it out then?' $a ing already established that he can ha e a sympathetic e0perience when he encounters others ,&" do not ask the wounded person how he feels, " myself become the wounded person'/, he must find a way to re1transmit that e0perience without falsifying or diminishing it. 4esisting easy answers, he later ows he &will ne er translate *him+self at all.' "nstead he takes a philosophically more rigorous stance: &What is known " strip away.' Again Whitmans position is similar to that of Emerson, who says of himself, &" am the unsettler.' Whitman, howe er, is a poet, and he must reassemble after unsettling: he must &let it out then.' $a ing catalogued a continent and encompassed its multitudes, he finally decides: &" too am not a bit tamed, " too am untranslatable, H " sound my barbaric yawp o er the roofs of the world.' &2ong of ;yself' thus ends with a sounda yawpthat could be described as either pre1 or post1linguistic. 8acking any of the normal communicati e properties of language, Whitmans yawp is the release of the &kosmos' within him, a sound at the borderline between saying e erything and saying nothing. ;ore than anything, the yawp is an in itation to the ne0t Walt Whitman, to read into the yawp, to ha e a sympathetic e0perience, to absorb it as part of a new multitude.