Specimen Days - 3.29.3012

Fairies, Ferries and Flamboyance…

Taking in the “absorbing shows, accompaniments, [and] surroundings” is where we find Mr. Whitman in this installment of Specimen Days titled “My Passion for Ferries.” The loafing, leisure and loquaciousness of Walt is beginning to make sense, for me. How many non-ferry captaining individuals do you know who have a passion for ferries?  I’ll wait.  Leisure time is Uncle Walt’s time.  Why captain the ferry when you can sit back and observe, “the changing panorama of steamers, all sizes.” I wonder if that just flew over a couple of heads. I slay myself!

While reading this installment and working on this week’s Tweet of the Week, I couldn’t help but notice Whitman’s almost over-the-top attraction to the men who were employed as pilots and train conductors. After searching for a connection to fairies, I found the fifth entry in the Oxford English Dictionary useful as it defines fairy as an adjective that is “delicate, finely formed or woven” and references it being used by Alfred Tennyson in his 1864 poem Aylmer’s Field. After giving Tennyson’s poem a scanning this the following lines stood out to me as significant:

Here is a story which in rougher shape
/ Came from a grizzled cripple, whom I saw
Sunning himself in a waste field alone--
/Old, and a mine of memories--who had served,
/ Long since, a bygone Rector of the place,/ And been himself a part of what he told.

Who else could Tennyson have been describing except Walt Whitman? Ok, maybe not. However, in his critical piece titled Whitman and Tennyson, Herbert Bergman suggests that while Whitman felt that Tennyson had a “value for America,” that he also believed that Tennyson was not a “proper singer for American ears.” Of course not, that was strictly the domain of the ever-observant Whitman. Traveling on a ferry, flamboyantly dressed in a finely formed or woven suit (very fairly-like) and pushing into modernity is the picture of Whitman that is beginning to form in my inner mind’s eye.  

Tweet of the Week - Peter Doyle

In an account read by Dr. William Tindall before the Columbia Historical Society on February 17, 1917, the relationship between Walt Whitman and Peter Doyle is described as following:

a typical manifestation of the unconscious deference which mediocrity pays to genius, and of the restfulness which genius sometimes finds in the companionship of an opposite type of mentality. The youthful grace of the conductor and the mature personality of the poet with iron-gray beard, slouch hat and rolling shirt collar that exposed a sturdy throat and enough of a broad chest to move with envy the modest young women of this day who affect the low-necked exposure, completed an ideal study in individual physical contrast.

Aside from hinting at a homosexual relationship between Doyle and Whitman, this passage suggests that Whitman lived vicariously through Doyle. Furthermore, the passage also highlights the mixing of the “highs” and “lows” of society that we have previously discussed in class that Whitman seemed to be fascinated with.  Doyle’s occupation as a conductor of trains also stood out to me as significant.  It is my belief that trains and the idea of modernity are inextricably linked.  Just as Whitman’s Leaves of Grass is seemingly all encompassing, I believe the advent of railroads in the United States represents an attempt to expand the ideology of Americana further west. In this sense, Doyle may represent the common man leading the educated literary elite into modernity and inverts the supposed knowledge hierarchy: a reoccurring theme in the writings of Walt Whitman.  

Tweet of the Week - Tupper

While searching for a connection between Walt Whitman and Martin Tupper, I stumbled across the following lines from Tupper’s Proverbial Wisdom: “Regard now the universe of matter, the substance of visible creation, / Which of old, well observing truth, the Greek had surnamed: Order/ Where is there an atom out of place? or a particle that yieldeth not obedience” (36). For me, these lines read eerily similar to Whitman’s famous opening lines of Song of Myself when he states “I celebrate myself/And what I assume you shall assume/for every atom belonging to me as good/belongs to you” (1).  Surely Walt, the newspaperman, had to have stumbled across Tupper’s poetry, but is this an allusion to a fellow poet or merely a sentiment shared by two poets who experienced failure when they initially published their works?

Perhaps the most striking similarity I found between the two poets was the seemingly contradictory social stances that they took. Whitman, as we have discussed, supported the abolishing slavery but still felt that free African American should not participate in voting. WTF? Similarly, Tupper, while a member of the British aristocracy seemed to reject all of the characteristics attributed to his class. As a result, I believe the strongest connection between Whitman and Tupper is their duality: Whitman the anti-poet and Tupper the anti-gentleman. Where Walt asserts “every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you,” Tupper questions “where is there an atom out of place” insinuating that we are all connected via shared atoms and echoes the same sentiment as Whitman. Maybe Whitman and Tupper were atomically connected. 

Modernity: The Walt Whitman Project

After scrolling through some of my peers’ blog posts, I believe that I am the only person in the class who Walt Whitman follows on the social networking site twitter.

For me, this indicates that Whitman and his poem are relevant in the 21^st century. I am not surprised that someone thought highly enough to create a FB page for Whitman, but the twitter page did surprise me somewhat. While I admire Richard Wright more than any other writer, I don’t envision myself taking the time to make a twitter account to celebrate my favorite lines from his haiku’s or novels.  Ultimately, I appreciate the twitter account because I am a “twitterer”: as a result, the tweets of grass that are offered up serve as reminders to me to remain up-to-date on my readings and allows me see which lines resonated with the person who created the account.

As my search for presence of Walt Whitman in pop culture continued, I ran into this cartoon attached to an op-ed piece on the Bloomberg website:

Walt Whitman, First Artist of Finance

Written by Robert Schiller, the piece cites Whitman’s novel “Franklin Evans, or The Inebriate: A Tale of the Times” as one of the his attempts to earn money suggesting that “fiction” is “more marketable than poetry.”  Ultimately, Schiller’s commentary focuses on “the myths surrounding economic equality in our society.” As a result, He utilizes Whitman’s attempts to earn money as something other than a writer of poetry. I believe Whitman would sarcastically retort “Why not simply a writer?” While I believe that Schiller is justified in his use of Whitman as an example of a pioneering poet, thus far my reading of Whitman lead me to believe that he was anti-materialist and if he did seek to earn money that it was for the purpose of publishing his poetry for the masses.    

In the same vein, I believe Levi’s brand jeans utilized a poem that was meant for the masses to market their legendary denim in 2009. I was hesitant to utilize this advertisement out of fear of oversaturation, but the uneasiness that I felt watching the commercial outweighed my fear. The easiness I felt while watching the advertisement stems from the marketers choice of models more than the choice of using Whitman's poem.  I have mentioned previously that I believe that Whitman's Leaves of Grass speaks to modernity and that modernity and expansion are inextricably linked.  Levi's denim jeans were created as a response to the needs of gold miners who needed "durable" pants. In and of itself, the Goldrush of the late 1840's and early 1850's represents expansion and provides the missing link for me between Whitman and Levi's. The more I view the commercial, the more I can envision Walt wearing the jeans that are more commonly associated with hipsters presently than gold miners of the past.  

In Walt's words...

“Self-reliant, with haughty eyes, assuming to himself all the attributes of his country, steps Walt Whitman into literature” is the poetic description provided by Walt Whitman of himself and his role as a literary in 19^th century United States of America. For me, this statement suggests that Walt believes that his poem is the first great entry into the literary world by an American writer.

After browsing through the collection of reviews for Whitman’s 1855 version of Leaves of Grass, I decided to focus on the reviews written by Whitman in September and October of 1855. Who better to inform future readers what Leaves of Grass is about than the man himself? After my initial reading of the following reviews: “Walt Whitman and His Poems,” "Walt Whitman, a Brooklyn Boy," and "An English and American Poet" one of the noticeable features that stood out to me was the poetic prose feel of Whitman’s writing in his reviews.  Poetic prose, as I understand it, is the use of poetry without verse. After rereading the selections, I decided to transform the first paragraph of a couple of the reviews into traditional poetry in order to find out if my observation was valid. The following paragraph was excerpted from the review “Walt Whitman and His Poems:”

AN American bard at last!

One of the roughs,

large, proud, affectionate, eating, drinking, and breeding,

his costume manly and free, his face sunburnt and bearded,

his posture strong and erect,

his voice bringing hope and prophecy to the generous races of young and old.

We shall cease shamming and be what we really are.

We shall start an athletic and defiant literature.

We realize now how it is, and what was most lacking.

The interior American republic shall also be declared free and independent.

My goal in transforming this section of Whitman’s review into the poem was to find out if it could be read as a poem when put into verse. As you can see or read, I believe it does. In fact, I believe that this particular passage reads more precisely as a poem titled “An American Bard at Last.” My previous studies informs me that a bard was a “professional poet” in medieval times and it seems to me that this is Walt’s declaration that his poem Leaves of Grass is an American classic. Whitman confirms my assertion when he asks of the reader “but where in American literature is the first show of America?” I believe that Whitman is imploring readers to accept his work as the first great piece of American Literature. As a result, making Whitman the first great American writer: a Song of Himself, so to speak. 

Specimen Days

More loafing…

“Loafing here deep among the trees […]” is where you’ll find Mr. Whitman in this installment of Specimen Days titled “Loafing in The Woods.” It seems as though loafing for Walt would akin to anyone else being engrossed in serious thought. While reflecting on this entry, I couldn’t help but think of the old adage “work smarter, not harder.” Whitman seems to be the master at working smarter and seems to be constantly loafing. However, while loafing generally refers to passing time at leisure, Walt’s loafing seems to share more in common with scientific observations.  Put it this way, if your job was to observe the changes of the coastline of the Pacific Ocean and you loved the outdoors and the beach: would you not be loafing while doing your job? Whitman’s loafing was a part of his scientific method. Loaf/observe then write. Maybe this explains the organic feel of Leaves of Grass. 

Frances Wright

Described as a “utopian abolitionist,” Frances Wright shared many similarities with Walt Whitman. Scottish-born Wright came to the United States and became so enamored with the fledgling nation that she decided to write a book that praised the land that she had come to admire. Rather than turn a blind eye to the institution of slavery, Wright became determined to find a solution to what she believed was the “paramount problem” of the United States.

According to the www.nndb.com website, Wright supported “free boarding schools, endorsed free love, and called for equal rights for women.” I noticed in the 1856 version of Whitman’s Leaves of Grass places A Poem for Women immediately after his Poem of Walt Whitman, An American. For me, this placement indicates Whitman’s connection to women as his first and primary connection to someone other than himself. Arguably, Wright’s greatest influence on Whitman was her position as a “utopian abolitionist” and her insistence on having sexual freedom. Our current assigned reading, A Song for Occupations, echoes the same sentiments of a utopian milieu where occupations do not define individuals. The speaker of A Song of Occupations illustrates Whitman’s desire for a utopian environment when he asserts “but I am eternally in love with you and with all my fellows upon the earth.”

I haven’t any evidence that suggests that Whitman had ever met Wright, but I’m willing to bet dollars to doughnuts that Whitman knew of the eccentric Frances Wright.