Scarlet's Letter

Whitman, especially in his Memoranda during the War, sounds like a poster child for the United Daughters of the Confederacy. However, and obviously, he isn’t rallying for people to “nevah fahgit tha gret wahr”, but simply to never forget the men and boys who gave their life. He seems to be terrified that if he doesn’t record what happened during the war, that people will start to look at it, like a simple tiff between brothers. When in fact, Whitman saw first hand the blood, guts, the gutteral cries from dead, dying, and recovering men. He saw the “real war”.

I grew up in the center of the Civil War. Yes, I know that’s a pretty gutsy claim to make, especially if there are fellow southerners reading along. I grew up in Appomattox. Right where Lee, in a bittersweet moment, surrendered to Grant. When I was little, every family vacation had some sort of educational sidenote. In Maryland, we visited Antietam, in Nova (Northern Virginia) I walked where soldiers ran at Bull Run, after riding horses in Kentucky, my momma dragged me to Perryville. My entire life has danced around the Civil War, and I like it that way. Yet, it is another thing to truly see photographs from the era (thank you, Mathew Brady) and read the hair-raising, gag-inducing scenes from Whitman, Barton, and other “insiders” from the war.

Whitman comments in his memorandum, “in the mushy influences of current times the fervid atmosphere and typical events of those years are in danger of being totally forgotten.” I think Whitman realized that people were shocked at the horrible detriments of the war when it became public, like the way standards for becoming a surgeon in the war was so little. In the same light, he also realized the almost desired ignorance of the public. They wanted to hear “Our boys are fighting as hard as they could. Your knitted mittens and socks are coming in handy. The food isn’t delectable, but it’s healthy.” Whitman saw first hand, and heard reliable accounts from the boys he helped nurse, that the described situation was a farce and simply wishful thinking.

After helping those boys to health (or at least a little more comfortable death), I think Whitman felt he owed it to them that they would know they didn’t fight in vain just to have all the dirty secrets swept under the table. Whitman also knew the public would want to just sweep it under the table, no one wants to hear about “their boys” dying of diarrhea or some other “undignified” disease. Even though war is ugly, and Whitman certainly painted that picture stealthily and effectively, he does it beautifully as well. The Better Angel mentions both “Sights–The Army Corps, Encamped on the War Field” and “A Sight in Camp in the Daybreak Gray and Dim”. Both poems are great examples of what one critic was quoted in The Better Angel as saying “gentle but lethal”.

So, I’ve worked retail for two years now. Those years have honed my skill for picking up items that are easy to sell, harder to sell, create selling points for the customer, etc. After finishing most of the readings between the 1855 and 1867 editions, I was looking back and comparing the table of contents. OH MY WORD–comparing just the table of contents was a little overwhelming. The 12, short and sweet, lines in the 1855 table of contents make the book seem so much more marketable, so much more less intimidating to read. Wikipedia reports, “Early advertisements for the first edition appealed to “lovers of literary curiosities” as an oddity. Sales on the book were few but Whitman was not discouraged.” In fact, Whitman seems to have written L of  G for the reader, he was being selfless in a sense. Wikipedia also recounts that “Whitman once said he intended the book to be small enough to be carried in a pocket. ‘That would tend to induce people to take me along with them and read me in the open air: I am nearly always successful with the reader in the open air.'” Whitman wants to be seen as a poet of the people, which we have already established. The 1855 edition is his rise, his ambition to become America’s Bard to the Citizens.

I’m thinking that Emerson’s letter somewhat reviewing L of G prompted Whitman to, like you said last week Scanlon, “micromanage”. Almost like when you tell someone you like their hair or a certain sweater and they ONLY wear their hair like that or they wear the damned sweater a million times a season. Wikipedia quotes Whitman saying that the 1867 edition was “‘a new & much better edition of Leaves of Grass complete — that unkillable work!'” Also, the 1867 edition, with it’s almost 80 poems, instead of the original 13, lacked the legendary frontispiece.

Whitman’s Civil War experiences definitely  influenced the 1867 version. You can tell because he filled the 1867 edition with SO much more, not to mention this is the first time Drum Taps is published. Obviously, he felt compelled to show the reader, instead of what a wonderful world we live in (and being able to reach the reader “by being in their pocket”) he wanted to show the gruesome, live-or-die side of life. Which, can also be the most alive side of life. The fight for life or death, especially in the scenes Walt observed, he wanted the general public to realize the fight their sons, husbands, and lovers were putting up and mostly losing to disease and lack of proper healthcare. From just the shear amount of new poems, a lot can be inferred from his experiences as a “nurse”, of sorts, in the “Great Effort”.

After learning about this Whitman course last spring, I made myself familiar with Whitman’s background by reading a biography. Thus, I can’t really think of a specific question–only that I wish I could have seen what Whitman saw when he was in NYC. I loooove NYC, my brother moved from our podunk town to the great cit-ay more than ten years ago. I really want to know the route that he took to get to Pfaff’s. If someone would tell me the address that Pfaff’s was at, and how he usually went, I’d Google-earth that mess in a heartbeat. Maybe I’ll put that research on my to-do list? Or someone can make it easy for me and let me know…

As I was reading for this posting, I had something on my mind. In one of my other English classes, someone insinuated Whitman as just a gay old man. He said some more unsavory things towards my Whitman, and I immediately shot up my hand and said that I was in love with Whitman and did not take kindly to what he’d said.

Funny enough, in From Pent-up Aching Rivers (248), one of the first poems in the readings, I feel like there are so many allusions to bisexuality. Or maybe, not even bisexuality, just embracing all things sensual, intimate, and physical. Just on the fifth line, he mentions a phallus. Not to be “fifth grade” or anything, but hey! Phallic suggestion! Then he goes into the songs of “procreation, Singing the need of superb children and therein superb grown people” which reminded me of the physically obsessed Romans. It was a city-state obsessed with being the best physically, mentally, and seemingly always prepared for battle. Ironically enough, I’m sure Whitman’s rumored homosexuality was a battle for him, if he had ever been blatant about it.

The next line is “Singing the muscular urge and the blending”, which when I first read it, it seemed to be very cut and dry. The “muscular urge” is obvious phallic imagery and the blending is heterosexual intercourse. However, the more I thought about it, the more it seemed interchangeable. The muscular urge could be for both types of sex, because everyone (mostly…) orgasms which is a muscular urge/twitch/whatever. And the blending is describing the bodies creating that “superb child”. Even if the line is describing homosexual sex, blending could also describe the “two becoming one”-ness about sex.

Later on, after the swimmer lines, he lists “the mystic derliria, the madness amorous, and the utter abandonment”. I started thinking, is that the cycle for sex or relationships? I’m thinking it’s both–there is the initial attraction, the infatuation and “lust/love at first sight” ordeal. If we were to look at this from a relationship point of view, then there’s the content, “I love you, you love me, we can make this work forever” stage. Lastly, cue the jaws music…there’s the “utter abandonment”, the breakup. In sex, there’s the initial arousal that is called mystic deliria (catchy), then the main course…the madness amorous…and then the climax/refractory period where the feelings of abandonment can come in to play.

Whitman was pretty much exalting and proclaiming love. Love in armies (i.e. I Sing the Body Electric), love for women (i.e. A Woman Waits for Me), love in friendships with the same sex (i.e. Out of the Rolling Ocean the Crowd). In the words of Whitman himself, “Have you ever loved the body of a woman? Have you ever loved the body of a man? Do you not see that these are exactly the same to all in all nations and times all over the earth?” I think Whitman wanted people to be able to look past the body, to look within the person.

“The Yankee clipper is under her three skysails. . . .she cuts the sparkle and scud, My eyes settle the land . . . . I bend at her prow or shout joyously from the deck.” p. 35, Song of Myself

one definition: SCUD: loose vapory clouds driven swiftly by the wind

SCUD: As a noun:

Whitman proves himself a definite advocate for nature. Not to mention, he seems to be vying for the position of bard to the United States. In almost every poem except for Song of the Open Road, he is painting such a gorgeous, descriptive picture and reminding us of the beauty we are surrounded with each day. He also mixes whether the beauty is from something earthly or human. Song of the Open Road gives us little vignettes on what the earth/God/passerby see. “The black with his woolly head, the felon, the diseas’d…the early market man, the hearse,” that gives us an idea of the “ordinary man” or the typical, blue collar American Whitman saw traveling in D.C. or walking home from his favorite bar in Manhattan. He begins to describe the scenery, “…You rows of houses! you window-pierc’d facades…” He continues in expanding his view, instead of mainly appreciating the beauty of what can be seen when traveling he remarks on himself, on human acts. “I think I could stop here myself and do miracles,” Whitman speaks. The juxtaposition of miracle-making in such a ho-hum, ordinary place is beautiful. Whitman feels connected to the road, “I say back I am not afraid to leave you, yet I love you, You express me better than I can express myself.”

However, Whitmans usual happy tone is exchanged for a more forewarning manner. “The earth is rude, silent, incomprehensible at first, Nature is rude and incomprehensible at first.” Yet, Whitman still keeps a optimistic outlook with  the phrase “at first” in those stanzas. He knows that there is a way to get past the rudeness or silence. He says later, “Listen! I will be honest with you, I do not offer the old smooth prizes, but offer rough new prizes.” He evens alludes to rites of passage in saying, “these are the days that must happen to you,” almost like once you get past it, you are a citizen, a part of the group.

Thus, Whitman realizes that the social constructs of the culture America had did not facilitate an easy assimilation. The Irish, Asians, and African-Americans were the rookies he was talking to when he said, “Out of the dark confinement! Out from behind the screen! It is useless to protest, I know all and expose it.” Whitman is reminding the oppressed, in any state (social, racial, gender), that the treatement they get is not fair. He then encourages people, “The President is there in the White House for you, it is not you who are here for him.” Whitman attempts to create a knowledgeable, less naive outlook. He refuses to turn a blind eye to any American who is being targeted by discrimination. He is the epitome of what Americans think other Americans should be like, tolerable, natural, and passionate.

Whitman seems to strive to create a very patriotic, and almost familial, relationship with the reader in his preface from 1885. It makes the reader feel like Whitman is trying to encompass all that is American, natural, earthy, and true to the culture of 1885-America. He mentions the “blue breadth over the inland sea of Virginia and Maryland and the sea off Massachusetts and Maine and over Manhattan bay and over Champlain and Erie and over Ontario and Huron…” He continues for about 9 more lines describing the geography, atmosphere, plants, etc. He rants and raves, furiously in love with America and desperately wanting the reader to grasp onto this love and be carried away as well. One of the ending lines is, “The soul of the largest and wealthiest and proudest nation may well go halfway to meet that of its poets…The proof of a poet is that his country absorbs him as affectionately as he has absorbed it.” Obviously, Whitman is vying for the title of Poet Laureate of the United States of America.

In his patriotic, maybe cheesy, stance, it is a good marketing strategy. Leaves of Grass was not a huge seller right off the bat, but I’m sure the readers who did flip through it felt connected, almost like they were doing a civic duty. In his last lines describing how a poet becomes the country and such, it’s empowering to a reader to read something that loyal. It creates an affirmation of the bond between citizen and country, but that citizen then becomes loyal to the writer as well. Loyalty is based upon relationship; when a poet/writer interjects a nationalistic relationship like Whitman seems to have done, he creates a fan base.

Song of Myself also does this, but not to the same exaggerated degree in mentioning all the HOME lakes on the Canadian border. Song of Myself is much more intimate, it describes complete scenes, like “In vain the buzzard houses herself with the sky, in vain the snake slides through the creepers and logs, in vain the elk takes to inner passes of the woods, in vain the razorbilled auk sails far north to Labrador…” In each of these lines a scene is played out, it is not so outstretched that it becomes kitschy or cheesy.

Overall, both were powerful, uplifting pieces. Song of Myself is obviously more self-absorbed, both for the reader and Whitman. It’s narcissistic because throughout the poem, I is a constant. The ending line is “I stop some where waiting for you”. And there is no period. There is no finality. To end on a narcissistic note, I think it is because in a relationship there is very rarely a complete end.

word count: 454