PAPER – II AMERICAN LITERATURE – II

TERM PAPER

WALT WHITMAN
THE AMERICAN REBEL

“As to the general question of Mr Walt Whitman’s poetical achievement, you will think that it
savours of our decrepit old Europe when l add that while you think it is his highest merit that he
is so unlike anyone else, to me this seems to be his demerit; no one can afford in literature to
trade merely on his own bottom and to take no account of what the other ages and nations
have acquired: a great original literature America will never get in this way, and her intellect
must inevitably consent to come, in a considerable measure, into the European movement.”
—Matthew Arnold

Matthew Arnold, the English poet and critic, in the above-mentioned excerpt, denounces Walt
Whitman’s originality and claims that the only way American poetry can achieve a “a great
original literature” is by paying obeyance to the European poetic traditions. However, I would
like to politely disagree with Mr Arnold’s views: Whitman understood the importance of the
past poetic traditions, but he dared to reject the traditional rules to create an authentic
American poetry that reflected the conditions of his America, the American people, and their
living conditions.
Several epithets adorn Whitman’s legacy – “a powerful voice for democracy, a bold innovator in
free verse, the controversial “poet of the body”, and the consummate individualist”. Whitman
was a fierce non-conformist from his childhood, a reason behind this was his father who was an
avid reader and passed on the legacy of free thinking and democratic politics to his son. One of
the most innovative and influential American poets of the nineteenth century, Whitman is to
America what Shakespeare is to Britain. Harold Bloom proclaims Whitman as “a wild spirit that
moves everywhere, destroyer of old worlds and creator of new ones.”
His philosophy was firmly anti-establishment and he advocated individualism and free will. A
major influence on him was the Concord sage, Ralph Waldo Emerson, who argued for the need
of a distinctly American literature. He also imbibed the tenets of the American
Transcendentalism and nearly all of his poetic themes correspond to the Transcendental system
of thought.
Elements that markedly separated his poetry from his contemporaries included novelties both
in his thematic concerns and more importantly, formal innovations. The radical aspects of his
poetry included formal elements like his invention of free verse, use of catalogue, use of
elements from music (especially opera), and his belief in self-reliance, his advocacy of
democratic thought, his view of God, celebration of both life and death, his formula for a
mystical experience that did not negate the role of the physical.
The self-proclaimed “bard of Democracy” took it upon himself to create an original, democratic
American poetry that celebrated American culture and identity. He believed poets must
represent their time and their world in their poetry and that the most common elements of life
were just as deserving of poetry as the most elite. Leaves of Grass fulfilled his dream of a poetic
revolution. Folsom and Price note that:
“Whitman now turned to an unprecedented form, a kind of experimental verse cast in
unrhymed long lines with no identifiable meter, the voice an uncanny combination of oratory,
journalism, and the Bible --haranguing, mundane, and prophetic -- all in the service of
identifying a new American democratic attitude, an absorptive and accepting voice that would
catalog the diversity of the country and manage to hold it all in a vast, single, unified identity”

The innovations in Leaves of Grass led Emerson to congratulate Whitman through a personal
letter. Emerson praised Whitman’s volume for its authentic American nature and for his original
use of free verse. The use of free verse marked Whitman’s break with traditional poetic form.
His poetry was written with no specific metre or rhyme and the length of his lines varied. He
seemed solely motivated by his content, without paying much attention to the style. Whitman
says of his poetic creation:
“The secret of it all, is to write in the gush, the throb, the flood, of the moment – to put things
down without deliberation – without worrying about their style – without waiting for a fit time
or place. I always worked that way. I took the first scrap of paper, the first doorstep, the first
desk, and wrote – wrote, wrote…By writing at the instant the very heartbeat of life is caught.”

His chef-d’œuvre “Song of Myself” is written in his signature free verse and features rolling
stanzas that give the impression of a flowing river. The opening lines of the poem beautifully
express his style as well as the theme of celebration of the self:

“I celebrate myself
And what I shall assume you shall assume
For every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you.

I loafe and invite my soul

However, in his poem “Crossing Brooklyn Ferry”, we witness that even though Whitman weaves
his poems in free verse, his art form is “formal, elegant, and carefully controlled”. His version of
the free verse takes form from ancient Hebrew patterns, especially from the poets of the Old
Testament.
The second major discontinuity with tradition that Whitman chose was employment of the
stylistic device of catalogue and his use of words from common American parlance and
vernacular in his poetry. He included slang to represent American English as he heard it spoken
around him. His use of American vernacular complements his use of catalogues to present the
thematic content of his poems. His catalogue was an inclusive device, representing the equality
of things, as no one position in the catalogue is more important than any other. Whitman’s
catalogues are recognizable by their length and because most of the lines of a specific
catalogue will begin with the same word. The cataloguing makes the reader aware of the
expansiveness of Whitman’s idea and also the rhythm of the catalogue enhances the melody as
well as meaning of the poem. It aids the reader in appreciating the confluence of form and
meaning. The Section 15 of “Song of Myself” is an example of Whitman presents the rhythm of
the working class of America through his list-making technique:
“The pure contralto sings in the organ loft,
The carpenter dresses his plank, the tongue of his foreplane whistles its wild ascending lisp,
The married and unmarried children ride home to their Thanksgiving dinner,
The pilot seizes the king-pin, he heaves down with a strong arm,
The mate stands braced in the whale-boat, lance and harpoon are ready,
....
The floor-men are laying the floor, the tinners are tinning the roof, the masons are calling for
mortar,”

The ideal as well as realistic representation of America by Whitman is another major radical
aspect of his poetry. In “Leaves of Grass”, he exhibits democracy as it was practised in America
as well as the notion of democracy as the highest human ideal. By choosing to write writing
about the quotidian elements of life, and about ordinary people and the problems they faced,
Whitman splintered from previous American poets. He openly cherished the equality of all
people and embraced everyone without any prejudice or preconceived notions:
“This is the meal equally set, this the meat for natural hunger,
It is for the wicked just the same as the righteous, I make appointments with all,
I will not have a single person slighted or left away,
The kept-woman, sponger, thief, are hereby invited,
The heavy-lipp’d slave is invited, the venerealee is invited;
There shall be no difference between them and the rest.”

Aside from these major innovations, Whitman was constantly engaged in rebellion on both
fronts – thematic concerns and stylistic devices. His poetic style was heavily influenced by
music. He considered his poetry to be musical, and wanted it to be read aloud and even sung.
He referred to his poems as “songs” and himself as a “singer of songs”. The effect of opera on
his work is immeasurable. His poem “Out of the Cradle Endlessly Rocking” finds its impetus
from the sea, but its style of presentation resembles that of opera.
Furthermore, his themes encompassed notions that were never dealt with before. He was
unafraid of shattering taboos as he was writing about the body and human sexuality, as he
wrote about the human body without guilt and with honesty and candour, for which was
condemned by many of his contemporary readers. His verses also contained hints of
homoeroticism and he rejoices the “sensual intensity of men thrown together in unfamiliar
urban settings”.
In the end, Whitman’s willingness to break with tradition was itself an act of democratic revolt.
He was a true rebellion who acknowledged no boundaries, rejected academic knowledge and
prized self-reliance and intuition over rote learning. His message of freedom, free will, and
equality motivated a generation of poets and continues to does so till date. He experienced a
cosmic connection with all living beings and did not limit his empathy only to human beings.
To summarise: “Walt Whitman, an American, a kosmos, one of the roughs”

Bibliography:
Greenspan, Ezra. The Cambridge Companion to Walt Whitman. Cambridge University Press,
1999.
Killingsworth, Jimmie M. The Cambridge Introduction to Walt Whitman. Cambridge University
Press, 2007.
LeMaster, J. R., and Donald D. Kummings, editors. The Routledge Encyclopedia of Walt
Whitman. Routledge, 2013.