Old Walt Old Walt Whitman Went finding and seeking, Finding less than sought Seeking more than found, Every detail minding Of the seeking or the finding. Pleasured equally In seeking as in finding, Each detail minding, Old Walt went seeking And finding. Langston Hughes, 1954

from A Supermarket in California Where are we going Walt Whitman? The doors close in an hour. Which way does your beard point tonight? (I touch your book and dream of our odyssey in the supermarket and feel absurd.) Will we walk all night through solitary streets? The trees add shade to shade, lights out in the houses, we'll both be lonely. Will we stroll dreaming of the lost America of love past automobiles in driveways, home to our silent cottage? Ah, dear father graybeard, lonely old courage-teacher, what America did you have when Charon quit poling his ferry and you got out on a smoking bank and stood watching the boat disappear on the black waters of Lethe? Allen Ginsberg, 1956

Emerson's Letter to Whitman 21 July Concord Masstts. 1855 Dear Sir, I am not blind to the worth of the wonderful gift of "Leaves of Grass." I find it the most extraordinary piece of wit and wisdom that America has yet contributed. I am very happy in reading it, as great power makes us happy. It meets the demand I am always making of what seemed the sterile & stingy nature, as if too much handiwork or too much lymph in the temperament were making our western wits fat and mean. I give you joy of your free brave thought. I have great joy in it. I find incomparable things said incomparably well, as they must be. I find the courage of treatment, which so delights us, & which large perception only can inspire. I greet you at the beginning of a great career, which yet must have had a long foreground somewhere for such a start. I rubbed my eyes a little to see if this sunbeam were no illusion; but the solid sense of the book is a sober certainty. It has the best merits, namely of fortifying & encouraging. I did not know until I, last night, saw the book advertised in a newspaper, that I could trust the name as real and available for a post-office. I wish to see my benefactor, & have felt much like striking my tasks, & visiting New York to pay you my respects. R. W. Emerson Mr. Walter Whitman. (from the Norton Anthology of American Literature, Shorter Fourth Edition, 546-547)

Selected Bibliography: Books

| Top |Primary Works

Leaves of Grass - publication chronology

1855 July published by Fowler & Wells, NY E-Text

1856 Second Edition published by Fowler & Wells, NY E-Text

1860 Third Edition published by Thayer and Eldridge, Boston E-Text

1867 Fourth Edition published by William Chapin, NY E-Text

1868 Second Issue of the Fourth Edition (contains Drum-Taps and Sequel including "When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom'd")

1871 Fifth Edition published by J. S. Redfield, NY E-Text

1876 Sixth Edition published by WW in Camden

1881 Seventh Edition, published by James R. Osgood & Co., Boston E-Text

1882 Eighth Edition, published by David McKay, Philadelphia (includes Specimen Days)

1892 Ninth Edition published by David McKay, Philadelphia E-Text

Adams, John. The wound-dresser ; Fearful symmetries [sound recording]. New York: Elektra Nonesuch, p1989. Res / Compact Disc D ADAM-J WD S82

Anderson, Quentin. ed. Walt Whitman: Walt Whitman's autograph revision of the analysis of Leaves of grass. New York: New York UP, 1974. PS3231 W33

Blodgett, Harold W. & Sculley Bradley, eds. Leaves of Grass: A Comprehensive Reader's Edition. 1965. PS3201

Bradley, Sculley. ed. Leaves of grass: a textual variorum of the printed poems. New York: New York UP, 1980. PS 3201

Carter, Elliott. Warble for lilac time, for voice and piano. New York: Peer International Corp., 1956. M1621 .C28 W3

Complete poetry and collected prose. New York: Penguin Books, 1982. PS3200 .F82

Cowley, Malcolm. ed. The complete poetry and prose of Walt Whitman, as prepared by him for the Deathbed. 2 vols. New York: Pellegrini & Cudahy, 1948. PS3200 .F48

Grier, Edward F. ed. Notebooks and unpublished prose manuscripts. 6 vols. New York: New York UP, 1984. PS3202 .G75

Hindemith, Paul. When lilacs last in the dooryard bloom'd [sound recording]: a requiem for those we love. Cleveland, Ohio: Telarc, 1987. Res / Compact Disc C HIND WLL D32

Holloway, Emory, and Ralph Adimari. eds. New York dissected, by Walt Whitman; a sheaf of recently discovered newspaper articles by the author of Leaves of Grass. New York: R. R. Wilson, 1936. F128.44 .W56

Miller, Edwin H. ed. The correspondence. 6 vols. New York: New York UP, 1961-77. PS3231 .M48

Orson Welles reads Song of myself [sound recording]. Guilford, CT: Audio-Forum, 1984. PS3222 .S6

Price, Kenneth M., and Dennis Berthold. eds. Dear brother Walt: the letters of Thomas Jefferson Whitman. Kent, Ohio: Kent State UP, 1984. PS3231 .A48

White, William. ed. Daybooks and notebooks. 3 vols. New York: New York UP, 1978. PS3231 A23

Walt Whitman [videorecording]. Santa Barbara, Calif. : Intellimation, 1988. Video Cassette PS305 .V65x 1988 no.12

| Top | Biographical

Allen, Gay W. Walt Whitman. Detroit, Wayne State UP, 1969. PS3231 .A697

- - -. Walt Whitman as man, poet, and legend. With a check list of Whitman publications, 1945-1960, by Evie Allison Allen. Carbondale: Southern Illinois UP, 1961. PS3231 .A698

Arvin, Newton. Whitman. New York: Russell & Russell, 1969. PS3231 A8

Bazalgette, Leon. Walt Whitman, the man and his work. Translated from the French by Ellen FitzGerald. New York: Cooper Square Publishers, 1971. PS3231 .B32

Callow, Philip. From Noon to Starry Night: A Life of Walt Whitman. Chicago: I.R. Dee, 1992. PS3231 .C25

Canby, Henry S. Walt Whitman, an American; a study in biography. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Co., 1943. PS3231 .C27

Chase, Richard V. Walt Whitman. Minneapolis: U of Minnesota P, 1961. PS3231 .C45

Kaplan, Justin. Walt Whitman, A Life. NY: Simon and Schuster, 1980. PS3231 .K3

Knapp, Bettina L. Walt Whitman. NY: Continuum, 1993. PS3231 .K58

Marinacci, Barbara. O Wondrous Singer: An Introduction to Walt Whitman. NY: Dodd Mead, 1970. PS3231 M18

Myerson, Joel. ed. Whitman in his own time: a biographical chronicle of his life, drawn from recollections, memoirs, and interviews by friends and associates. Detroit: Omnigraphics, 1991. PS3231 .W47

Reynolds, David S. Walt Whitman's America: a cultural biography. New York: Knopf, 1995. PS3231 .R48

Rubin, Joseph J. The historic Whitman. University Park: Pennsylvania State UP, 1973. PS3231 .R8

Schmidgall, Gary. Walt Whitman: A Gay Life. NY: Dutton, 1997.

Symonds, John A. Walt Whitman; a study. New York AMS P, 1968. PS3231 .S8

Traubel, Horace. With Walt Whitman in Camden. 3 vols. New York: Rowman and Littlefield, l961. PS3232 T72

| Top | Critical

Allen, Gay Wilson. The New Walt Whitman Handbook. NY: NY UP, 1975. PS3231 A7

Aspiz, Harold. Walt Whitman and the Body Beautiful. Urbana: U of Illinois P, 1980. PS3242.B58 A84

Bauerlein, Mark. Whitman and the American idiom. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State UP, 1991. PS3238 .B34

Bove, Paul A. Destructive Poetics: Heidegger and Modern American Poetry. NY: Columbia UP, 1980. PS78 .B57

Chari, V. K. Whitman in the Light of Vedantic Mysticism; an Interpretation. Lincoln, U of Nebraska P, 1976. PS3242.P4 C4

Cowley, Malcolm, ed. The Complete Poetry and Prose of Walt Whitman, as Prepared by Him for the Deathbed Edition. 1948. PS3200 .F48

Crawley, Thomas E. The Structure Of Leaves Of Grass. Austin, U of Texas P, 1971. PS3238 .C7

Erkkila, Betsy. Whitman the Political Poet. NY: Oxford UP, 1989. PS3242 .P64 E74

Gardner, Thomas. Discovering Ourselves in Whitman: The Contemporary American Long Poem. Urbana: U of Illinois P, 1989. PS310 .S34 G37

Hollis, C. Carroll. Language And Style In Leaves Of Grass. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State UP, 1983. PS3244 .H6

Kuebrich, David. Minor Prophecy: Walt Whitman's New American Religion. Bloomington: Indiana UP, 1989. PS3242 .R4 K84

Loving, Jerome. Emerson, Whitman, and the American Muse. Chapel Hill: U of North CarolinaP, 1982. PS1633 .L6

- - -. Walt Whitman: The Song of Himself. Berkeley: U of California P, 1999. PS3231 .L68

Miller, Edwin H., ed. The Artistic legacy of Walt Whitman; a Tribute to Gay Wilson Allen. NY: NY UP, 1970. PS3238 A7

Miller, James E. The American Quest for a Supreme Fiction: Whitman's Legacy in the Personal Epic. Chicago: U of Chicago P, 1979. PS323.5 .M45

---. Walt Whitman. Boston: Twayne Publishers, 1990. PS 3238 .M57

---. Walt Whitman's Poetry: A Psychological Journey. NY: NY UP, 1969. PS3238 .M45

Perlman, Jim, Ed Folsom, & Dan Campion, eds. Walt Whitman--The Measure of His Song. Minneapolis: Holy Cow!P. PS3238 .W37

Rajasekharaiah, T. R. The Roots Of Whitman's Grass. Rutherford: Fairleigh Dickinson UP, 1970. PS3238 .R25

Woodress, James L., ed. Critical essays on Walt Whitman. Boston: G.K. Hall, 1983. PS3238 .C74

Zweig, Paul. Walt Whitman: The Making of the Poet. NY: Basic Books, 1984. PS3231 .Z87

| Top | Selected Bibliography: Articles

Aspiz, Harold. "Sexuality and the Language of Transcendence." Walt Whitman Review 5.2 (Fall 1987): 1-7.

Bauerlein, Mark. "Whitman's Language of the Self." American Imago 44.2 (Sum. 1987): 129-148.

Beach, Christopher. "Walt Whitman, Literary Culture, and the Discourse of Distinction." Walt Whitman quarterly review 12.2 (Fall 1994): 73-86.

Breitwieser, Mitchell R. "Who Speaks in Whitman's Poems." Bucknell Review 28.1 (1983): 121-143.

Clancy, Barbara. "'If He Be Not Himself the Age Transfigured': The Poet, the 'Cultivating Class,' and Whitman's 1855 Song of Myself." Walt Whitman quarterly review 14.1 (Sumr 1996): 21-39.

Cummings, Glenn N. "Whitman's Specimen Days and the Theatricality of `Semirenewal'." American Transcendental Quarterly 6.3 (Sep 1992): 177.

Davis, Robert L. "Whitman's Tympanum: A Reading of Drum-Taps." American Transcendental Quarterly 6.3 (Sep 1992): 163.

Egan, Ken. "Periodic Structure in `Song of Myself.'" Walt Whitman Review 4.iv (1987): 1-8.

Folsom, Ed. "Whitman: A Current Bibliography." Walt Whitman quarterly review 14.4(Sprg 1997): 192-.

Hatlen, Burton. "The Many and/or The One: Poetics Versus Ideology in Whitman's `Our Old Feuillage' and `Song of the Banner at Daybreak'." American Transcendental Quarterly 6.3 (Sep 1992): 189.

Kaplan, Justin. "The Biographer's Problem." Mickle Street Review 11 (1989): 80-88.

Kateb, George. "Walt Whitman and the Culture of Democracy." Political Theory 18.4 (Nov 1990): 545.

Katz, Sandra L. "A Reconsideration of Walt Whitman: A Teaching Approach." Walt Whitman Review 27.2 (June 1981): 70-74.

Keller, Karl. "The Puritan Perverse." Texas Studies in Lit. and Lang. 25.1 (Sp. 1983): 139-164.

| Top | Knapp, Ronald. "Of Life Immense: The Poetic Vision of Walt Whitman." Religious Humanism 25.1 (Win 1991): 26-32.

Krieg, Joann P. "Without Walt Whitman in Camden." Walt Whitman quarterly review 14.2/3 (Fall 1996): 85-113.

Levine, Herbert J. "Union and Disunion in `Song of Myself.'" American Literature 59 (1987): 570-89.

Mainville, Stephen, and Ronald Scheifer. "Whitman's Printed Leaves: The Literal and the Metaphorical in Leaves of Grass." Arizona Q. 37.1 (Sp. 1981): 17-30.

Mayhan, William F. "The Idea of Music in 'Out of the Cradle Endlessly Rocking'." Walt Whitman quarterly review 13.3 (Wint 1996): 113-129.

Monteiro, George. "Fire and Smoke: Emerson's Letter to Whitman." Modern Language Studies 15.2 (Sp. 1985): 3-8.

Mullins, Maire. "`Act-Poems of Eyes, Hands, Hips and Bosoms': Women's Sexuality in Walt Whitman's Children of Adam." American Transcendental Quarterly 6.3 (Sep 1992): 213.

Murray, Martin G. "'I Knew Reuben Farwell as a First-Class Soldier': An Unpublished Whitman Letter." Walt Whitman quarterly review 13.3 (Wint 1996): 159-171.

Olsen-Smith, Steven and Hershel Parker. "'Live Oak, with Moss' and "Calamus": Textual Inhibitions in Whitman Criticism." Walt whitman quarterly review 14.4 ( Sprg 1997): 153-66.

Reisch, Marc S. "Poetry and Portraiture in Whitman's Leaves of Grass." Walt Whitman Review 27.3 (Sep. 1981): 113-125.

Reuben, Paul P. "Walt Whitman in Flower's Arena," Walt Whitman Review, 19 (March 1973): 3-7.

Reynolds, David S. "Whitman's America: A Revaluation of the Cultural Backgrounds of `Leaves of Grass.'" Mickle Street Review 9 (1988): 5-17.

| Top | Sarracino, Carmine. "Redrawing Whitman's Circle." Walt Whitman quarterly review 14.2/3 (Fall 1996): 113-134.

Schwiebert, John E. "Passage to More Than Imagism: Whitman's Imagistic Poems." Walt Whitman Q. Review 8.1 (Sum. 1990): 16-28.

Shurr, William H. "Walt Whitman's Leaves of Grass: The Making of a Sexual Revolution." Soundings 74.1-2 (Sp.-Sum. 1991): 101-28.

Sill, Geoffrey M; Roberta K. Tarbell, and Donald D. Kummings. "Walt Whitman and the Visual Arts." Clio 24.2 (1995): 228.

Simpson, Louis. "Strategies of Sex in Whitman's Poetry." Mickle Street Review 11 (1989): 34-45.

Smith, Gayle L. "Reading `Song of Myself': Assuming What Whitman Assumes." American Transcendental Quarterly 6.3 (Sep 1992): 151.

Tanner, James T. F. "Four Comic Themes in Walt Whitman's Leaves of Grass." Studies in Humor 5.1 (Sp. 1986): 62-71.

Wagoner, David. "Walt Whitman Bathing." The Yale Review 82.4 (Oct 1994): 82.

Walkington, J. W. "Mystical Experience in H. D. and Walt Whitman: An Intertextual Reading of Tribute to the Angels and `Song of Myself'." Walt Whitman Quarterly Review 11.3 (Win 1994): 123.

Warren, James P. "The `Paths to the House': Cluster Arrangements in Leaves of Grass." ESQ: A Journal of the American Renaissance 30.1 (1984): 51-70.

Weltzien, O. Alan. "Walt Whitman and Frederick Delius, Endlessly Rocking." Walt Whitman quarterly review 13.3 (Wint 1996): 129-149.

Whelan, Carol Z. "`Do I Contradict Myself?': Progression through Contraries in Walt Whitman's `The Sleepers'." Walt Whitman Quarterly Review 10.1 (Sum 1992): 25.

Wohlpart, A. James. "From the Material to the Spiritual in the Sea-Drift Cluster: Transcendence in 'On the Beach at Night,' 'The world below the Brine,' and 'On the Beach at Night Alone.'" Walt Whitman quarterly review 13.3 (Wint 1996): 149-159.

| Top |Whitman's Primary Work

Leaves Of Grass (1855)

From its first publication in 1855, Whitman continued to add and expand the Leaves of Grass. He published nine books with this same title - the last one appeared in 1892, the year of his death. His poems capture the sweeping expanse of America. Among the numerous themes, Whitman discussed the unity of I and you; good and evil; sex; death, the divine average, and democracy.

Whitman on Leaves Of Grass:

1. "Remember, the book arose out of my life in Brooklyn and NY from 1838 to 1853, absorbing a million people for 15 years, with an intimacy, an eagerness, an abandon, probably never equalled."

2. "I saw, from the time my enterprise and questionings positively shaped themselves (how best can I express my own distinctive era and surroundings, America, Democracy?), that the trunk and center whence the answer was to radiate, and which all should return from straying, however far a distance, must be identical body and soul, a personality, after many considerations and pondering, I deliberately settled should be myself - indeed could not be any other."

3. "An attempt of a naive, masculine, affectionate, contemplative, sensual, imperious person to cast into literature not only his grit and arrogance, but his own flesh and form, undraped, regardless of models, regardless of modesty or law; and ignorant as at first it appears, of all outside of the fiercely loved land of his birth. ... The effects he produces in his poems are no effects of artists or the arts, but the effects of the original eye, or the actual atmosphere, or tree, or bird."

4. "Leaves of Grass ... has mainly been . . . at attempt . . . to put 'a Person' a human being (myself in the latter half of the nineteenth century, in America) freely, fully, and truly on record. I could not find any similar personal record in current literature that satisfied me."

| Top |Contributions of Whitman

Richard Chase (in Walt Whitman Reconsidered, 1955) discusses the following contributions of the author and his book:

1. First poetic writing which combines lyric verse and prose fiction - modern poetry thrives on this combination.

2. Whitman made the city and urban living conditions suitable settings for poetry.

3. In his remarkable use of sex and sexual imagery, Whitman broke new ground in American writing.

4. The central metaphor, the unity of self with all other selves, is unique in American literature.

| Top |"The Song of Myself":

Its Structure:

I. Paragraphs 1-18 the self; mystical interpretation of the self with all life and experience.

II. Paragraphs 19-25 definition of the self; identification with the degraded and transfiguration of it; final merit of self withheld; silence; end of first half.

III. Paragraphs 26-38 life flowing in upon the self; evolutionary interpretation of life.

IV. Paragraphs 39-41 the superman.

V. Paragraphs 42-52 larger questions of life - religions, faith, God, death; immortality and happiness mystically affirmed

Its Meaning:

"Song of Myself" is hardly at all concerned with American nationalism, political democracy, contemporary progress, or other social themes that are commonly associated with Whitman's work. Its subject is a state of illumination induced by two (or three) separate moments of ecstasy. In more or less narrative sequence it describes those moments, their sequels in life, and the doctrines to which they give rise. ... they are presented dramatically, that is, as the new conviction of a hero, and they are revealed by successive unfolding of his states of mind. The hero - "I" - should not be confused with the Whitman of daily life ... he is put forward as a representative workingman, but one who prefers to loaf and invite his soul. Thus he is rough, sunburned, bearded; he cocks his hat as he pleases, indoors or out ... his really distinguishing feature is that he has been granted a vision, as a result of which he has realized the potentialities latent in every American and indeed, he says, in every living person. ... a feeling seems to prevail that it has no structure properly speaking; that it is inspired but uneven, repetitive, and especially weak in its transitions from one theme to another. ... The true structure of the poem is not primarily logical but psychological, and is not a geometric figure but a musical progression. ... There is also a firm narrative structure, one that becomes easier to grasp when we start by dividing the poem into a number of parts or sequences.

First Sequence (chants 1-4): the poet or hero introduced to his audience - presents himself as a man who lives outdoors and worships his own naked body, not the least part of which is vile. He is also in love with his deeper self or soul. His joyful contentment can be shared by you, the listener.

Second Sequence (chant 5): the ecstasy. This consists in the rapt union of the poet and his soul, and it is described figuratively, on the present occasion, in terms of sexual union.

Third Sequence (chant 6-19): the grass symbolizing the miracle of common things and the divinity (which implies both the equality and the immortality) of ordinary persons. The keynote of the sequence is the two words "I observe."

Fourth Sequence (chants 20-25): the poet in person. "Hankering, gross, mystical, nude", he venerates himself as august and immortal, but so, he says, is everyone else. The sequence ends with a dialogue between the poet and his power of speech, during which the poet insists that his deeper self - "the best I am" - is beyond expression.

Fifth Sequence (chants 26-29): ecstasy through the senses. The poet decides to be completely passive: "I think I will do nothing for a long time but listen."

| Top | Sixth Sequence (chants 30-38): the power of identification. After his first ecstasy, the poet had acquired a sort of microscopic vision that enabled him to find infinite wonders in the smallest and the most familiar things. The second ecstasy (or a pair of them) has an entirely different effect, conferring as it does a sort of vision that is both telescopic and spiritual. ... "afoot with my vision" he ranges over the continent and goes speeding through the heavens among tailed meteors. His secret is the power of identification. Since everything emanates from the universal soul, and since his own soul is of the same essence, he can identify himself with every object and with every person living or dead, heroic or criminal.

Seventh Sequence (chants 39-41): the superman. When Hindu sages emerge from the state of samadhi or absorption, they often have the feeling of being omnipotent. It is so with the poet, who now feels gifted with superhuman powers. He is the universally beloved Answerer (chant 39), the Healer, raising men from their deathbeds (40), and then the Prophet (41) of a new religion that outbids "the old cautious hucksters" by announcing that men are divine and will eventually be gods.

Eighth Sequence (chants 42-50): the sermon. He proclaims that society is full of injustice, but the reality beneath it is deathless persons (42); that he accepts and practices all religions, but looks beyond to "what is untried and afterward (43); that he and his listeners are the fruit of ages, and the seed of untold ages to be (44); that our final goal is appointed: "God will be there and wait till we come" (45); that he tramps a perpetual journey and longs for companions, to whom he will reveal a new world by washing the gum from their eyes - but each must then continue the journey alone (46); that he is the teacher of men who work in the open air (47); that he is not curious about God, but sees God everywhere, at every moment (48); that we shall all be reborn in different forms ("No doubt I have died myself ten thousand times before"); and that the evil in the world is like moonlight, a mere reflection of the sun (49). The end of the sermon (50) is the hardest passage to interpret in the whole poem. He seems to remember vague shapes, and he beseeches these Outlines to let him reveal the "word unsaid".

Ninth Sequence (51-52): the poet's farewell. Having finished his sermon, the poet gets ready to depart, that is to die and wait for another incarnation or "fold of the future"' while still inviting others to follow. At the beginning he had been leaning and loafing at ease in the summer grass. Now, having rounded the circle, he bequeaths himself to the dirt "to grow from the grass I love." I do not see how any careful reader, unless blinded with preconceptions, could overlook the unity of the poem in tone and image and direction.

(from Malcolm Cowley, "Introduction to Leaves of Grass," 1959 in Walt Whitman edited by Francis Murphy, 1969, Penguin Critical Anthologies.)

Study Questions

1. Notice that Whitman's "Song of Myself" begins with "I" and ends with "you." To what extent can the poem be understood as a transaction from an "I" (eye?) to a "you"? Consider too the first activity of the "I" in this regard: he loafs and observes a spear (why a single spear?) of summer grass. In what sense is this observation typical of the movement leading from "I" to "you"?

2. Whitman has often been accused of being egotistical. Discuss his use of "I" and its relation to the country at large. Why does he appear egotistic? What is his purpose?

3. What is Whitman's view of his physical self? Why does he stress it so much?

4. Discuss Whitman's poetry as a culmination point in the development of American identity. How does Whitman contribute to the ongoing evolution of self-reliance? of human freedom? of concepts of democracy?

MLA Style Citation of this Web Page:

Reuben, Paul P. "Chapter 4: Early Nineteenth Century: Walt Whitman" PAL: Perspectives in American Literature- A Research and Reference Guide. WWW URL: http://www.csustan.edu/english/reuben/pal/chap4/whitman.html (provide page date or date of your login). 

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