Early Journal Content on JSTOR, Free to Anyone in the World This article is one of nearly 500,000 scholarly works digitized and made freely available to everyone in the world by JSTOR. Known as the Early Journal Content, this set of works include research articles, news, letters, and other writings published in more than 200 of the oldest leading academic journals. The works date from the mid-‐seventeenth to the early twentieth centuries. We encourage people to read and share the Early Journal Content openly and to tell others that this resource exists. People may post this content online or redistribute in any way for non-‐commercial purposes. Read more about Early Journal Content at http://about.jstor.org/participate-‐jstor/individuals/early-‐ journal-‐content. JSTOR is a digital library of academic journals, books, and primary source objects. JSTOR helps people discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content through a powerful research and teaching platform, and preserves this content for future generations. JSTOR is part of ITHAKA, a not-‐for-‐profit organization that also includes Ithaka S+R and Portico. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.
WALT WHITMAN:
1855 when, according was a white-faced American was born
was
to the historian
the average Rhodes, there and black-coated dyspeptic,
of letters a volume
into the world
Its author
one Walt
Whitman, of this world from Long experience feet tall and two hundred pounds hair and beard,
white
IN BRIEF
Advent
I.?His
In
A STUDY
called Leaves
a man
of Grass.
of
thirty-six years' to New Orleans ; six in weight, with prematurely Island
the avowed herald of and majestic, the And and poet of democracy. thought to had read the book, he wrote Emerson uncut
nineteenth-century when Ralph Waldo utterances of these two old Thomas Carlyle (one of the Delphic on either side of the in of the their race, temples prophets :?
ocean)
a nonde "One book, last summer, came out in New York, which eyes and buffalo yet had terrible script monster, I thought and was indisputably American?which strength, to send to you; but the book throve so badly with the few so much, to whom I showed it and wanted good morals that It is called I never did. Yet I believe now again, I shall. and printed by a journeyman written Leaves of Grass?was New in ;and York, named Walter Whitman printer Brooklyn, after you have looked into it, if you think, as you may, that it is only an auctioneer's you can inventory of a warehouse, light your pipe with it." In his kee,
heir
patient,
was part Dutch and part pure Yan ancestry Whitman to generations of simple minds and powerful bodies,? of a neurotic slow-footed yet withal possessed people,
insanity. tendency which at times produced was nature manifest ofWhitman's physical
The
sensitiveness
from childhood,when little blades his against
he loved to lie in the grass to feel the under his skin, or swim in the bay to feel the cool water flowing arms. for which he was con of sexual passion, The expression demned result strained
the natural may be considered unre to sense supersensitiveness impressions, or for the social of fear sanp disapproval by respect by
by his of this
contemporaries,
Walt
Whitman:
His
tions.
philosophical and was grounded
A
creed
Study
in Brief
the proclaimed on the doctrine that sex
81 fitness
of all
is the founda things, as the source of perfect men and women of the tion of democracy un His disposition future. and his rearing as an unchurched, schooled boy naturally favored the most open revelation of whatever had been suppressed byothers. he wrote this?when And?chiefly in which appear the most characteristic utter the earlier poems, ances in regard to sex, he was in the heyday of his own physical the unfortunate and almost unknown passions, with experience "the tragedy of his life" in regard to which he Orleans, later so obstinately in his memory. silent, still burning with books and creeds, little need be said ; Of his acquaintance but they were part of his ideas may have come from reading, in New
was
With selected and shaped by the natural temper of the mind. and he revelled in clean, comfortable deified Rousseau, clothing, the natural man; with Emerson, he held to the transcendental " of each and all," and took counsel of his own soul. doctrine Scott, reading was largely in Shakespeare, the magazines ; for reading to him was merely one opportunity not an avenue to systematic random observation, knowledge
But his actual
and for or a
guide to spiritual truth. He read much as children look out from of the windows of a railway coach ? capacious keenly observant, to of the indifferent science but memory, geography. totally In his boyhood home in the western part of Long Island, he in Homer would often walk on the beach, declaiming (probably waves to the incoming At and the gulls. translation) Pope's he felt a some time during this period of youthful development, and an amateur of let desire to write, and became a journalist ters; but it was not until after he had reached early middle age to the call and discarded himself that he yielded unreservedly for all time the high hat and frock coat for the soft felt hat and forms of verse for the man workman's blouse, and conventional two of his of all except is characteristic ner of writing which later
poems.
Such
unconventional in youth?obtrusively ; boastful and strength sensuous, ; proud in his freedom; imagi a serene confidence of all above but vociferous, possessed he was
of health
native, in himself 6
and his mission.
82
The
Sewanee
Review
in Island Born on Long parents were working-people. a a to later in in at thirteen he school left 1819, help lawyer's, was to the he and afterwards doctor's, office; print apprenticed he supported himself er's trade, by which during intermittently a large part of his life. At seventeen in a country he taught His
in in journalism this, he engaged extensively and Brooklyn, and wandered west and south to New in 1848. The impressions which he then derived of the of the plains, and of the scope of the and the wildness
After
school. New
York
Orleans vastness
are intimately associated with his notions of democ Mississippi, In 1850 he was back in Brooklyn the Leaves in ; racy of Grass. was in the building of he and in the following engaged year houses. not his
Though life work
fairly successful, to make money.
he
soon
From
decided this
time
that
it was
on he de
to the laborious writing of poems himself almost entirely men the of modern to of and visible the and phenomena study on the wharves, life. Day after day he was to be seen about or streets of the crowded Manhattan. His walking ferry-boats,
voted
first volume, Leaves of Grass, was set up and printed with his own hands in 1855; and throughout the rest of his life he con tinued to issue new editions of the volume, with such corrections as he chose or additions to make. From 1862 to 1864 he ren hospital service as an army nurse, both in camp at Washington. While and in the Federal hospitals confining he became in to the pestilential air of the sick-room, himself
dered
volunteer
and, exhausted "hospital malaria" by the long ner was soon but he his strain, broken; splendid physique on of life until the tenacious until 1892, doggedly lived last, and in much of his best work was written during that time, though fected with
vous
quite
another
spirit
than his early exultation. II.?His
Doctrine
was
until his long self-supporting, of others ; and illness made him dependent upon the generosity in an unshaven beard, rough hands, and coarse he took a delight in the history of poets. In his writ is which unique clothing From
childhood
Whitman
ings is nothing of humor, little of what is commonly called senti His is the material world of sunlight and labor and bod ment.
Walt
A
Whitman:
Study
in Brief
83
art he sweeps glories of the Old World's aside as "the small theatre of the antique and the contemptuously of the middle aimless sleep-walking ages," which has served its ? has and been day long since, The
ily enjoyment.
Blazoned And
calls Americans
He
enough I wash
Long Now
must
You
To
to a new vision
of your
page, purple sweet sad rhyme.
:? dreams, the
light
and
of
every
life.
a plank by the shore, holding timidly waded you to be a bold swimmer, to me, of the sea, rise again, nod jump off in the midst dash with your hair. and laughingly have
you
I will
he differs
As
Shakespeare's
by Tennyson's
have you dreamed contemptible the gum from your eyes, to the dazzle of habit yourself
moment Long Now
with
dirged
jects their works America
shout,
from former poets in his view of life, so he as being unfit models for Americans:?
isolated
I say that works much poison
I sing made in these
re
: here
in the
spirit
of
other
lands
are
so
States.
In the prose preface of his Leaves of Grass he gives a of lead :? life the outline of poet democracy must
a detailed
you shall do: Love the earth, and sun, the alms to everyone that asks, riches, give animals, despise stand up for the stupid and crazy, devote your income and labor to others, hate tyrants, argue not concerning God, have toward the people, take off your hat patience and indulgence to nothing known or unknown or to any man or number of and with uneducated men, go freely with powerful persons of families, read these leaves the young and with the mothers in the open air every season of every year of your life, re all you have been told at school or in any book, examine insults your own soul." dismiss whatever "This
is what
was a rough synopsis of his own, of life, which would in time prepare a poet to chant the songs of democracy. from his The idea of taking off his hat to no one was a heritage a The story is told that he once thrashed ancestors. Quaker to remove the his when hat from head church official for trying This
course
The
84 he entered been
the house
Sewanee
of worship.
Review His
confirmed
in his own
faith and
soul had
it remained
the pole
by reading Emerson, star of his mystical in the peculiar His belief speculations. a powers of uneducated persons, perhaps legacy from Rousseau, but likely enough the result of association with half-illiterate from
people
is expressed
childhood,
elsewhere
in
the
same
:?
essay
"There is that indescribable ness about an illiterate person noblest expressive genius."
freshness and unconscious that humbles and mocks the
But more
than upon the illiterate, as well as the bookworm, he " that society depends upon the divine average." Just means nor not this is amid what he his rhapsodies does clear, by he stop to explain, unless it be to dilate on the freedom of his and women, and their physical He ideal men soundness. declares
pictures
as the typical
himself
Walt
a kosmos,
Whitman,
Turbulent, fleshly, No sentimentalist, from No
them, modest
more
in these words
democrat
of Manhattan
the son, and breeding,
sensual, eating, drinking no Stander men above than
:?
and
women
or
apart
immodest.
In the later years of his own life, when he had been through the in the hospitals and had become an invalid and period of service an old man before his time, he insisted less and less upon phys and increasingly more upon the spiritual qualities ical attributes :? of fortitude and devotion Women The
sit or move young
to and
are beautiful?but
fro,
some the old
old, some are more
young, beautiful
than
the
young.
It was strength
this earlier stage that caused Lanier
of complacent to write :?
admiration
of brute
the democrat whom I com template with "My democrat, who is to write or to read the poetry the democrat pleasure, of the future, may have a thread for his biceps, yet he shall be strong enough to handle hell ; he shall still be taller than his height shall be the -the great redwoods of California; and and of and beauty, resolution, love, faith, great height and subtle meditation and knowledge, ; his head shall be for ever
among
the
stars."
Walt Whitman: A Study in Brief it
Furthermore, His strong.
is
certain
large muscles
was not unusually of and his descriptions flabby, is the turgid applause from the
that Whitman were
do not
action
85
ring true; his and not the crisp conversation of the field. He glori bleachers, fies the body like a visionary poet, and not at all like an athlete. At
it is not gigantic that Whitman is speaking bottom, strength of but manhood the and and health of, independent enjoyment man life. He but the contented sings not ?rma virumque,
whom
neither
sickness
faith
in himself
of his
nor poverty can deprive of happiness or order of things. and in the universal
the body, he does not slight the of the soul, but rather seeks a more perfect adjust importance ment of the two:? that he exalts
the fact
Despite
I have
than the body, is not more than the soul, the body is not more not God, is greater to one than one's self is, a furlong without to his walks walks sympathy
said
that
the soul
And
I have
said
that
And
nothing, whoever
And
funeral
in his
drest
I or you pocketless an to glance with
And And
of all
the
learning there is no
And
become
it may And And
is no
there
universe, I say to composed
Here
we have faith
unbounded
trade
One's-Self
This
utter
is similar
times, or employment
a hero, so soft object
but
but
in
your
own
the pick of the earth, its pod confounds
the young
it makes
or woman, Let any man a million universes. before
man
a hub
for
soul
stand
following the wheel'd cool
and
of his democracy,?his expression of each individual. It is by in the possibilities of individuals that reforms are to come about, the central
the perfecting is made for society Yet
shroud, of a dime may purchase a bean eye or show
up of units:?
I sing, a simple person, separate the word En-Masse. the word Democratic,
to Emerson's
idea
that
the
are
individual to be
alone
is
not settled by and that social problems these indi one's self but However, right. keeping by agitation as Emerson and directed, viduals are not to be bound together a Destiny, but by the love of com thought, by a patiet Daemon, is the Calamus, An entire section of Whitman's rades. poems, :? his ideal to proclaiming devoted friendship significant,
The
86
Review
Sewanee
I will make the continent indissoluble, Come, I will make race the sun ever the most splendid I will make divine magnetic lands, With
the
love
With I will
plant
along I will make
the
of comrades, the manly love of comrades.
these
you,
for you
does not shrink
of society. he exclaims:? till the sun
Not
till the waters
In a similar
You
refuse
do my
words
not
have
learn'd
not
learn'd seen
not
have
that what these
of Nature?of
the
the great amplitude, that only such as they
is less
you, and
leaves
the
to rustle
for you.
rustle
and
to a President:?
vein he writes
have And
you do I exclude to glisten for you to glisten refuse
excludes
femme!
the in his democracy including that is dormant in the divinity
from
Recognizing
Not
for you,
you ma
to serve from me, O Democracy, I am trilling these songs.
you
For
Whitman
and
love
For
You
of comrades.
life-long
trees along all the rivers of America, thick companionship over of the great the prairies, and all the shores lakes, their arms about each other's cities with necks, inseparable By
them,
upon,
as
By
outcasts
of comrades, love
the
shone
or
sooner
they must
than
of Nature
policies rectitude, are fit for
you
impartiality, these States,
later
lift off
from
States.
a pantheism is one of optimistic religion expansiveness, a as William certain swagger, that is not without James observed. in observing He takes delight the brutes, with their utter freedom His
from restrictions more visions
of conscience. and
natural, of Swedenborg I think
I could
self-contain'd, I stand and look
live with
at them
They
do not
sweat
They
do not
lie awake
long
and whine
me do not make They one is dissatisfied, Not
and
prayers
animals,
to him
than
religious
or the tearful
turn and
a life seems
Such
in the end more
saner, the ecstatic
of Augustine so placid
are
they
:-? and
long.
about
their condition, for their sins, and weep to God, their duty sick discussing the mania with is demented not one in the dark
Not
owning things, to another, one kneels
Not
ago, years one is respectable
nor
to his
or unhappy
kind
over
that
lived
the whole
thousands
earth.
of of
Walt Whitman: A Study in Brief 87 III.?His Whitman
did not wish
examination.
However
Reception
to be judged by the methods of critical his adherents might upbraid the literary world for its failure to do him honor, he had little ground for for he appealed, from the first, to what he considered complaint; the highest tribunal. to his Leaves In the prose preface of he
Grass,
writes:?
proof of a poet is that his country as he has absorbed it." affectionately "The
What
does
the
What
effect
have
absorbs
him as
"divine
think of Whitman's work? average" the songs which he was so lusty in chanting " for had upon "powerful these States" illiterate persons"? Even at the present day, the reading of his work is largely con to esoteric circles ; upon the average rank in life he has had little direct influence, all likely that he ever will.
fined
John Burroughs American intellect,
attributes
this
to the
reader
of whatever
nor does
sluggishness
it seem at of
the
saying:?
"The absorption by a people like ours, so thoroughly under the illusion of the refined and conventional, of a poet likeWhitman '' if it ever thoroughly must be a slow process, takes place. He
considers
Whitman
truly democratic
in spirit:?
the poet identifies himself with this typical, "Everywhere democratic himself by the largest man, measuring composite, his spirit against the cosmic forces, and standards, matching to himself all the sins, sufferings, appropriating joys, heroism has touched no theme, named no man of mankind.He not related in some way to America. The thought of it pos as the thought of Israel possessed sessed him as thoroughly Indeed it is the same passion, and the old Hebrew prophets. flames up with the same vitality for race ; the same passion and science suffused with and nativity the enlightened by was Israel exclusive and modern humanitarian cruel. spirit. as exemplified is compassion Democracy, by Walt Whitman, ate
and My
inclusive." spirit has the earth
passed
in compassion
and
determination
; and lovers and found them in all I have for equals looked me with has equalized I think some divine them. rapport
around lands
;
88
The It
Review
Sewanee
is now
first volume ap years since Whitman's sixty-one name familiar in and have his and face become ; peared although that time, few people have actually been influenced directly by is determined his writings. It seems that democratic America to reject
the prophet
of her democracy.
And
why?
Work
IV.?His
was and early life, Whitman or be understood to understand unsuited by the constitutionally to do seemed American He contraries, people. everything by were from first to last. His and was a poseur contemporaries the accident
Despite
of his birth
; he must be a red-faced dyspeptics a buffalo," "eating, and blue-flanneled kosmos, "hairyas drinking " were prudes ; he proclaimed, His contemporaries and breeding. were familar with His "I remove the veil." contemporaries and black-coated
white-faced
the ballad centuries
stave, the standard of natural selection;
after poetry popular which he adopted a verse-form one No of perceptions rhythm. form
of
appeals only to men of delicate so as to can read Whitman man in a hundred among the masses a a one not in dozen and experiences bring out the rhythm, sensory Whatever
response critics
when
the
lines
conclude
are properly read by another. of their barren discussion
from
may the fact remains that the proper technical name for his writings, a savage's a or as in its re common child's to the ear, primitive of simple and sustained rhythmic patterns, Whitman's quirement lines are not poetry.
and particularly his undoubted passion for democracy Despite an was In American. not for this country, Whitman essentially a day when cleared and men had settled the forests were mostly of labor, he was unable to remain three years in society was His position life at any kind of hard work. a wrote his of he section of the most shadowy; poems to celebrate about the but not two pages act of fatherhood, the physical
down
to the routine
of his
of the future of the race he dreamed involved; and deserted his own children. the rising generations, through about him was but a part To him the solid world of commerce not did ties Political shows." of "these long hold him, in a day to enlist He could not bring himself of intense party loyalty. obligations
Walt Whitman: A Study in Brief 89 in the army, when to others. the call was irresistible Despite one of which was sufficient his frequent acts of love and mercy, to transform his later life, he was to the last unwilling to assume any abiding responsibility. affected pilots, deck-hands, the creatures
was
"he the life of the nomad; men, almost in mass transportation His
of movement."
He
youth up; a venerable-looking Haroun al Raschid in blue flannels, his
was
a genial street Arab
vagabond from in later life; a Manhattan by night
questing the doings of men. His brother George, the typical American, became a colonel a family by hard labor after in the Civil War and supported a home in which Walt for a time. boarded wards, maintaining to observe
that George and complained nothing of George, him. George could make nothing of the Leaves read it at all?didn't "I saw the book?didn't think
could make
Walt didn't
understand
of Grass-. it worth reading?fingered American public. Whitman At
the outset
be made
it a little."
began with a false conception he assumed that a radical
from the methods
of Old World
And
there you have
the
of poetical expression. change would have to writers.
As
they used so he wished to
and system, and rhyme, and meter, metaphors, He was unable to escape figurative discard all these. language, His most popular and his best poems are highly metaphorical. poem, though by no means his best, is one in which he returned
limitations took him His attempt to escape metrical to rhyme. It is the of Hebrews. back into the rhythmical rhapsody early difficult to see how the irregular rhythmus used centuries ago in as it and effective it the Levant, may be, though highly legitimate becomes expression
inWhitman's of American
is more suitable for the inspired moments, ideals than the verse forms of Western
a race of men who have sprung at the square d? once, "chanting upon the face of the earth who settled of Europeans ifie"; they are but the descendants on this continent, and, through separation from the Old Country and area and the novelty of of climate and through conditions
Europe.
Americans
are not
His civilization. different evolved a somewhat circumstance, success least is to diction conventional escape poetic attempt the phrase about ful of all ; for at least a quarter of a century,
go the "barbaric the
yawp"
The
Sewanee
Review
was
enough
to damn
the entire
volume
for
reader.
average
own writings
Indeed, Whitman's to art. he attributed
exhibit the very faults which he wrote, "is better than sim "Nothing," can excess or for lack of definite make for up plicity?nothing are Yet his poems interlarded with miscellaneous and ness." absurd nomenclature, phrases, enumerations. He declared, long-drawn to of the American is be transcendent poet
half-understood dious
pression It is to be nothing loftiest verse); Instead
foreign
and
indirect
and
transcendent
not
or descriptive."
direct
about Whitman's
and "The
te ex
and new. There
is
in his
expression (save to conventional when he approaches nearest flights, and, so far from being new, it is thousands of years old. indirect it plumps down every statement of being flat
so many are crowded in at times ; and as for descriptions, of the whole. the significance that we miss Notwithstanding a number of felicitous lines and a few superb pieces of sustained ; space to say anything song, he usually requires a considerable and it is difficult to take him in bulk, for the reader finds it hard footed
In his attempt to than fifty pages at a time. he has fallen into chaos. He does not frequently gain power, and ex know fully, though he hints at it in his later comments comes only as a it in his best poems, that strength emplifies to endure
result But
more
of order. from
another
dent about Whitman?the serene
content
point
of view
transcen is something exultation of his manhood, the there
splendid It is not strange that Abraham of his old age. for the first time he noticed Whitman passing on
when Lincoln, he looks the White the street before House, "Well, exclaimed, " And Whitman like a Man! speaks to the world in a new way, is than history. He older verse-form his wellnigh though " of cul raised a new voice at a time when the American poets were to old of and the music ture" songs dancing singing state in particular he is bluntly direct Though foreign pipers. He is ments, yet his poems are not so when taken as a whole. and discords, builds up his the musician who, out of chords it is easy to select of human experience. Though symphony there is in all his work a for condemnation, isolated passages
A
Whitman:
Walt
in Brief
Study
91
that should make us slow to interdependence At his best, he can express pass judgment against single lines. in striking his central doctrine fashion:? subtle
and
unity
you are ! claim of the East shows
Whoever These These
immense mense
These
and
furies,
your own and West
hopples
Old
ciency, or young,
elements,
ever
you
birth, Through is scanted, Through picks
But we the fact
fall
interminable
as they, motions storms,
you dissolution, parent over them, or mistress in your Master dissolution. passion, The
these
meadows, interminable
! at any hazard are tame compared
from
own
right
ankles,
or female, male are promulgates
rude,
losses, angers, its way.
should miss of Whitman's
im
of ap of Nature, throes or mistress is master
are he or she who
your
life, death,
to you, are
you
rivers,
over
Nature,
you
find
low,
rejected
itself, the means burial,
ambitions,
an
pain,
unfailing
suffi
the rest, what
by
are provided,
ignorance,
what
ennui,
if we
the crux of the matter There
elements,
can
be
mysticism. at some that he experienced revelation, mystic whole future life was his which 1850 and 1855, by
nothing you
are
overlooked
no question time between
and directed, and supplemented that this experience was sustained by others. one the cosmos was self-sufficient; To him all things were well; not worry about God ; all doubts were eased by the mystic of men. love and the fraternity of universal revelation as in his mysticism, To those who are able to follow him
need
and the rest, he Edward Tr?ubel, Bucke, Symonds, Carpenter, or of benevolent the oracle of democracy is a prophet, pantheism names of sacred history. To only with the greatest comparable some as Emerson he remains and Tennyson, the half-mystics, a "nondescript a problem, which monster, yet had or "a buffalo and great big something." strength" eyes of a for the declaration who looks to America To the European or Feminist or the Socialist who reads new faith, as Swinburne, doctrine. literature with a partisan eye, he offers a comfortable what
of
terrible
the lover of poetry, as certain of his biographers, best, ? real poet, a maker of subtle rhythm and glowing
To
he
is, at
language,
The
92
Sewanee
Review
a singer of eternal verities and a new and vital force in literature. To the simple souls who knew him and loved him only as a friend and brother, the Pete Doyles of the cabs and ferry-boats, and the Marcus
Smalls
and his personality to be told a little
of the hospitals,
is unknown, his poetry a into fixed tradition, crystallized To and feeble old men. garrulous by who bought three thousand copies of
has become
longer the people the idle public, his poetical works in a single day on the report that they were to see him as one of the people who came occasionally salacious, the sights
or of Camden, of Brooklyn will long offer some
man
ordinary from time revived spasmodically As arisen that knows him not. criticism ever mean bling-block,
it is likely of degree
that this extra interest,
until
and the great mass of people, it is unlikely to to the much them critics he will ; very and to the people,
of Wisconsin.
that he will be a stum
foolishness. John Robert
University
to be
a generation has extreme the of formalists for
to time
Moore.