Emerson had praised Whitman and it was a great pleasure for the poet to be recognised by such a great literary giant. Emerson’s essay, ‘The poet’ seems to have had an effect on Whitman. The two novels of George Sand, The Countess of Rudolstadt and The Journeyman Joiner also greatly influenced his mind. Malcolm Cowley, in this regard, writes: “There is no doubt that both books helped to fix the direction of Whitman’s thinking. They summarised the revolutionary current of ideas that prevailed in Europe before 1848, and his early poems would be part of that current. But the principle effect of the two novels was on Whitman’s picture of himself. After reading them, he slowly formed the project of becoming a wandering bard and prophet like the musician in the epilogue to The Countess of Rudolstadt.” He no longer planned to get ahead in the world by the means open to other young journalists: no more earning, saving, calculating, outshining. He stopped writing for magazines and, according to his brother George, he refused some editorial positions offered to him. Instead he worked as a carpenter with his father, like the hero of The Journeyman Joiner.
We might find it easier to picture at least three Whitman’s existing as separate persons. There was Whitman I, the printer, small politician and editor, always described by his associates as indolent, timid (except when making public speeches), awkward and rather conventional in his manners. He disappeared from public sight after 1850 yet he survived for 30 years or more in his intimate relations with family. Then there was Whitman II, the persona who characterised himself as “one of the rouges; 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.” This second Whitman, ripening with age and becoming much more discreet after he moved to Washington and went to work for the government, at last merged blandly into the figure of the ‘Good Gray Poet’. He wrote poems, too, as part of his role but they were poems of the sort that Polonius might have written. The real poet was still another person; let us call him Whitman III. He never appeared in public life. He was hardly more than a voice from the depths of the subconscious but the voice was new, candid, and powerful, and it spoke in different words not only from Whitman, the young editor, but also from Whitman the gray bard of democracy. Whitman III was boastful but often tender and secret whereas Whitman II was bluff and lusty. He was feminine and maternal rather than physically adventurous but, at the same time, he was revolutionary by instinct whereas Whitman I was liberal and Whitman II merely sententious. Different critics tell us about the miracle of Leaves of Grass: his visit to New Orleans, his chronological reading and his inspiration by Emerson’s doctrine of the representative individual.
Whitman was a well-read person. He had studied world religions. His love for humankind was above board. He was a pluralist by temperament and was diametrically opposed to priesthood. He was far from racial and religious prejudices. He had faith in democracy, social justice and humanity. He opined that future democracy would have to be based on manly comradeship or adhesiveness. About the unanimity and unison of humanity in Leaves of Grass, he writes: “And I know that the hand of God is the promise of my own,
And I know that the spirit of God is the brother of my own,
And that all the men ever born are also my brothers,
And the women my sisters and lovers,
And that a Kelson of the creation is love.”
Malcolm Cowley writes: “I doubt that any other poet has expressed self-love with so much ardour.” It was his Bohemian outlook that is found in the Concept of Sex by D H Lawrence.
The civil war was the greatest of those events in the poet’s life as it was in US history. It put an end to his period of dejection and gave him a shared purpose to which he could devote himself. Though his own brother George was also wounded in December 1862 Whitman was a regular visitor of the hospital in Washington and did not return to New York by saying: “I cannot leave them.” His intense passion is reflected his Civil War poems, especially in ‘The wound dresser’. He writes: “Aroused and angry, I had thought to beat the alarum, and urge relentless war,
But soon my fingers failed me, my face drooped and I resigned myself,
To sit by the wounded and soothe them or silently watch the deed.”
The bloodbath of his countrymen against each other shattered the poet. He emerged as a great lover of peace and strongly abhorred war. It seems necessary to mention that in later years he was a rich man and a man of fame but he never shirked from his innate passion and that was love for democracy and humanity.
I must acknowledge his influence in the shaping of my poetic zeal. I live in Valley Stream, New York. He also lived for a certain period in that vicinity. I may not agree with his lascivious ideology but I admire his deep love for democracy and humanity. He is a great sage for all ages. Of course, there are so many misconceptions about his poetic mantra. The real but almost unknown poet was a US citizen, not by thesis or proclamation but because he was born in the US, he absorbed it with his ears and eyes, and gave back honestly what he heard and saw. He was democratic, not by his vagrant philosophy but by instinct and inheritance. He was a democrat, as it were, from below, feeling his brotherhood with the crippled and despised rather than with the healthy average persons he later celebrated in his poems. He looked for companionship, not because he was grandly expensive by nature but because he was wounded and alone. He presented a showman’s mask to the world. He was a great poet behind the mask, not because he was wise but because, at first, he was rash and unworldly enough to reveal the depths of his nature and not because he celebrated the prairies, pastures, forests, vast cities and the snows but because he wrote of his own Manhattan and Long Island as no other poet has ever done. Not because he soared ecstatically to heights where people become abstractionists but because, in his early work, the ecstasy that was real cleared his eyes so that he could see the infinite wonder of little and homely things.
He is the poet of the US giving us the clarion call of democracy. I appeal to all sane and committed poets to bravely and solemnly raise the standard of democracy and weed out the roots of fascism, militancy and monarchy. The real message of Walt Whitman must be followed. We have to unite all of mankind on the platform of love, peace, democracy, social justice and humanity.
(Concluded)
The writer is an author, poet, scholar and politician based in New York. He can be reached at [email protected]