Walt Whitman

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The poetry of Walt Whitman is both strong and subtle. His words both forceful and passive. They are as vague as they are revealing. His lines are complex within their simplicity. As colorful as they are dark. As free to roam as they are tied down. His words are as unifying as they are unique. I think this would be how Whitman would describe his own works. There was always a deep sense of unification in his poetry. Always a sense of acceptance of the dark as well as the light, always an idea that the bad was just as important as the good. If Walt Whitman's work does one thing it is unify.

In Song of Myself, section 3 Whitman writes "There was never any more inception than there is now, / Nor any more youth or age than there is now, / And will never be any more perfection than there is now, / Nor any more heaven or hell than there is now." The "now" in these lines refers to now. Not just Whitman's "now" but ours too. Every time "now" is read it is now. This being the case Whitman has unified time, "our now" always representing Democracy and America in close sketches of American ideals and situations. This use of "now" is like his continuous use of "I" to mean the solidified voice of this country's people, the downtrodden to the 5th Ave. Fabulous. The range of the voice, Americans all the way up, Americans all the way down.

The America of Walt Whitman's time was one of destruction and then reconstruction. He was there to see the country building itself up ready to tear itself down the middle. He was also there to see the dominance of one half over the other and the reconstruction under that stronger half. Like Abraham Lincoln, Walt Whitman just wanted one thing, union. "The distinguishing event of my time," as Whitman called the Civil War, conspired to turn his mind too exclusively to modes of reconciliation, comradeship, and unity..."(Chase, 146). Chase's point here in some ways supports mine, Whitman wrote to reconcile, to heal. Chase, however, seems to feel that Whitman was too excessive with this theme. I disagree with Chase in that respect. If Whitman were hurting someone with his attempts to heal, or creating a further rift in the nation, than I would consider it excessive. But he wasn't separarting anybody, he was joinging them together. He wanted the Americans to stand together again, one nation. Lincoln's answer was "reconstruction" and the introduction of a new Thanksgiving holiday. Walt Whitman wanted to transcend the wounds of the past and join together in a new future.

In the poem Shut Not Your Doors Whitman says "Forth from the war emerging, a book I have made, / The words of my book nothing, the drift of it every thing...." The book is the new America, printed in the blood of a limping nation. It was the feelings of the Americans. It was not the feelings of the North or of the South. He joined the two again. Walt Whitman became everyone that was American he united the Union in his own persona. He brought North and South together in his work in attempt to heal us again, and by healing the nation he hoped to unify it. Each page of this book is written by an American each with it's own tale. The "pure contralto, the carpenter, the pilot with his king-pin, the deacons, the lunatic, the quadroon girl, the machinist, the half-breed, the newly-come immigrants, the paving men, the opium-eaters, the prostitute, and the President," they're all there in Whitman. The emotions of each tattooed to the skin of each page of the book America.

I have already said that Whitman wrote to heal a nation. So we must take a look at what he wrote. Song of Myself standing out in my mind most seems a great place to start. Song of Myself, however, was written in 1855. The Civil War didn't start until 1861. This presents us with a problem as to proving that he wrote it it to heal a nation. Whitman's book, Leaves of Grass, though, was revised and expanded after it's original release in 1855. In 1867 Whitman's Civil War influenced group of poems, Drum Taps was incorporated into a new edition of Leaves of Grass. It is from this edition and the others that followed until 1892, the year of the publication of the last edition, that the healing, unifying pull came into Whitman's book.

Whitman saw the damage of the Civil War first hand. During the war Whitman became a hospital attendant, in Washington, D.C.. As a wound dresser he saw, first hand, the destruction on an individual level (Norton Anthology 2079). This is where the pages of the book he mentions in Shut Not Your Doors come from. It is here he learned compassion, and more importantly empathy, for the American people. His drive to physically heal fueled his poetic drive to heal the country after the war. He brought to light the slow healing pain of the Civil War, but he never blamed the hurt on anyone, unless he blamed it on all of America.

His words are pertinent, they just make sense. You feel them. You visualize them touching the masses. Healing them. He seems to know how to get in your head, talk to you in a way that seems like he is the one listening. During his time in D.C. for the war, he also served as a psychological nurse to the wounded men. Perhaps that experience taught him to listen through writing.

While Lincoln tried healing the country, before his assassination, through reconstruction, Whitman would try then and later to heal this country through his words. Whitman and Lincoln were much alike. They both came from middle-class working backgrounds, with a gentle air about them, and they both felt an unflinching love for America and its democracy. From their similar backgrounds, through their respective achievements and their shared goals, the men must have held each other in the greatest respect.

In Whitman's "Death of Abraham Lincoln," a lecture deliverd first in New york in 1879 he mentions nothing of ever meeting Lincoln. He does recall the first time, and some subsequent times, that he saw Lincoln in 1861 when Lincoln stopped in New York on his way to Washington (Whitman 36). Whether he met Lincoln or not des not matter, we know that he bowed himself before the idea of Loncoln, with great reverence. It is also said that Lincoln held great respect for Whitman's work Leaves of Grass. "It is remarkable that we should have had to wait till long after Herndon was dead to discover that Leaves of Grass, which Herdon bought, found a lover and defender in Lincoln" (Barton 65). In Whitman's poem Oh Captain! My Captain! Whitman mourns the assassination of the President. "Oh Captain! my Captain! our fearful trip is done, / The ship has weather'd every rack, the prize we sought is won." At the opening of the first stanza Whitman cheers the victory over social/political differences and slavery, with the South. By the end of the stanza, however, Lincoln lies dead. "Where on the deck my captain lies, / Fallen cold and dead."

Again in When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom'd we listen as Walt Whitman, and America, mourn the murder of their leader. The phase of Whitman's writing beginning in 1859 and continuing to the first publication of "When Lilacs Last" in 1865 has been called the "tragic phase" (Whicher 78). There isn't a more appropriate poem to end a "tragic phase" than one about the death of Lincoln. In the case of an important person being shot it is always referred to as assassination, well in this case I use murder. I think that Whitman would have felt it to be murder. He held Lincoln so close in his mind, he must have felt it to be murder. Because murder is the word you use when its someone you feel you know, assassination is for someone murdered that you feel no real closeness for. This poem reminds me greatly of Alfred Lord Tennyson's In Memorium, perhaps that is why Tennyson enjoyed Whitman's work, perhaps Whitman reminded Tennyson of himself. I have no doubt in my mind that Tennyson referred to the death of Arthur Hallam as murder, even though his death was natural. Its just something that comes with the territory of loss.

What's confusing in Whitman is the use of the word "I." Metaphorically, "I" embodies the whole voice of the democratic ideals and the people of America. "I" is the representation of the unified, healed, nation that Whitman, and Lincoln, hopes will reemerge. It is, however, sometimes hard to keep that in mind when you are reading all these first person lines. Author John Updike, for instance, believes that the line "I celebrate myself," from Song of Myself "is the superb subject of the poem, the exultant egotism which only and American could have voiced" (Updike 46). "O cruel hands that hold me powerless--O helpless soul of me! / O harsh surrounding cloud that will not free my soul." You can read it as if Whitman is blaming himself for the death of Lincoln. "Was there something I should have done?" he asks himself. That's the interpretation that hits first. You think to yourself, "How silly you are Uncle Walt, what could you have done?" Since the idea that Whitman would use "I" to refer to himself seems to not go along with his ever present feeling of unification, we instead take the idea that America is asking the question, "Was there something I should have done?" America is the "I," not Whitman. Once you look from that view point it is not so odd for the persona to ask a question such as this. As a nation we should ask ourselves, how and why we dropped the ball.

From this line, "O cruel hands that hold me powerless--O helpless soul of me! / O harsh surrounding cloud that will not free my soul." we see not only the desperation of a self-convicted guilt but also that we are being held back by something. We who drop the ball always try to blame it on someone else. The expression, "Damn the Man!" comes to mind. But a nation in one voice complaining of the cruel hand that holds it down is a weak nation. The "cruel hands" were inside those Americans, everyone of them even Whitman. Without those hands hidden away within them, Lincoln would have never been shot, Lincoln would never have really been needed in the first place if we didn't assign a space within us for those "cruel hands." Whitman figured this out, he saw what was inside himself and what was inside the great "I" of this nation. He did blame himself, all of the great "I," and with reason. They dropped the ball.

At one point, in Song of Myself section 18 Whitman writes, "Have you heard that it was good to gain the day? / I also say it is good to fall, battles are lost in the same spirit / in which they are won." This seems to be one of the clearest direct references to the outcome of the Civil War. I think he is speaking to and for both North and South here. He speaks to the South to feel better in itself and not wallow. Through the same words he tells the North that they should not hold the victory in front of the losers face. Why does he say this? Because like Lincoln he just wants the Union, United States back. If the spirit of the nation being torn apart survives through sore losers and winners bloated over their triumph, the wound will never heal. It'll always be there to remind and separate, those with the wound, and those without. Whitman, along with Lincoln, was trying to end this cycle before it could get into full spin.

Whitman's unification theme is scene greatly in Song of Myself section 16. "Of every hue and caste am I, of every rank and religion..." The great melting pot that is America is shown in this line. Here again Whitman accepts the responsibility of uniting America within himself, seeing that, this line makes perfect sense. He is that melting pot, or rather the speaker of the poem is the melting pot. Whitman created one singular voice to express the American feeling, to express what it means to be American. This poem, I think, says "If this is how you feel, you are one of us." Song of Myself is what it means to be American. You don't have to be a citizen to feel this way. It is more of an idea than anything else, less substantial but more important than whatever certificate they may give you upon your completion of your quest for citizenship. Because democracy is not an American invention, Whitman has invited foreigners into the realm. "If you hold our ideals, I speak your voice," is what Whitman seems to be saying to everyone in the world with a democratic way of thinking.

Walt Whitman's poetry attempted to unify America. Within the realm of words on a page he has done that. He uses one voice to express them all. He has a unified America. Unfortunately I don't think that could work outside the realm of ink on a page, they can only suggest. If Whitman's poetry stood a sign to all generations to unite together to do good things, it would always fail. We drop the ball, we always drop the ball. I can only hope that his words tell this same ideal to at least a few of the people who read it. Perhaps then we'll have a fighting chance to lift that ball just a little longer.