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Whitman - Part One October 1995 |
2.1 Introduction In this chapter we will focus on Walt Whitman
and his Leaves of Grass, examining it from the perspective of Pure
Consciousness Mysticism. We will also look at how Whitman represents the
possible development of what can be termed nature mysticism, and to help
understand the particular embraciveness of Whitman's work we will also look
at the ideas of the modern British mystics Douglas Harding. Whitman is generally
known as a poet, and perhaps one of the best American poets of the 19th
Century, but with no particular religious emphasis. The poets and authors
of the beat generation (Jack Kerouak and Allen Ginsberg for example) are
sometimes seen as his inheritors, but they have only taken some of the outward
imagery, mainly that of the open road. It was his contemporary, Richard
Maurice Bucke, who, more than anyone, saw a mystic dimension to Whitman
and cited him in his book Cosmic Consciousness [1] as the best example
of his kind, though he was often ridiculed for his enthusiasm for this cosmic
dimension in Whitman (R.C. Zaehner called him fatuous and silly [2]). Comrade, this is no book, Who touches this touches a man, (Is it night? are we alone?), It is I you hold and who holds you. [3]
"Just as here cruelty and sympathy ring true, and do not mix or interfere with one another, so did the Greeks and Romans keep all their sadnesses and gladnesses unmingled and entire. ... Walt Whitman's verse, 'What is called good is perfect, and what is called bad is just as perfect', would have been mere silliness to them". [9] Whatever James found laudable in this respect in the Greeks, he found missing in Whitman's 'outpourings'. Whitman appears too brash; "his gospel has a touch of bravado and an affected twist". Zaehner, a more recent writer on mysticism, classed Whitman with the 'nature mystics', more of which later. 2.2 Whitman's Life Whitman was born in 1819 in Long Island, USA
(Ramakrishna in 1836). His mother was a Quaker and his father a carpenter
(a fact sometimes alluded to in Christ-comparisons). Whitman had only a
simple education, but became a teacher, a printer's assistant, then editor
of various newspapers, and writer of prose and poetry. His mother's Quaker
influence, and the natural surroundings of Long Island were undoubted influences
on him, but his evolution into the writer of Leaves is unchartable;
in the 1984 preface to Gay Wilson Allen's critical biography Allen considers
that the secret of this transformation during his early thirties has eluded
all the biographers. [10] Whitman's instinct for writing led him to publish
numerous articles, and some early novels, all of which were so eclipsed
by his Leaves that none remain in print today, and are universally
considered mediocre. For Bucke however the explanation of the transformation
was simple: Whitman had entered cosmic consciousness. I first heard of him among the sufferers on the Peninsula after a battle there. Subsequently I saw him, time and again, in the Washington hospitals, or wending his way there, with a basket or haversack on his arm, and the strength of beneficience suffusing his face. His devotion surpassed the devotion of woman. It would take a volume to tell of his kindness, tenderness, and thoughtfulness. Never shall I forget one night when I accompanied him on his rounds through a hospital filled with those wounded young Americans whose heroisms he has sung in deathless numbers. There were three rows of cots, and each cot bore its man. When he appeared, in passing along, there was a smile of affection and welcome on every face, however wan, and his presence seemed to light up the place as it might be lighted by the presence of the God of Love. From cot to cot they called him, often in tremulous tones or whispers; they embraced him; they touched his hand; they gazed at him. To one he gave a few words of cheer; for another he wrote a letter home; to others he gave an orange, a few comfits, a cigar, a pipe and tobacco, a sheet of paper or a postage-stamp, all of which and many other things were in his capacious haversack. From another he would receive a dying message for mother, wife, or sweetheart; for another he would promise to go an errand; to another, some special friend very low, he would give a manly farewell kiss. He did the things for them no nurse or doctor could do, and he seemed to leave a benediction at every cot as he passed along. The lights had gleamed for hours in the hospital that night before he left it, and, as he took his way toward the door, you could hear the voices of many a stricken hero calling, 'Walt, Walt, Walt! come again! come again!' [11] Whitman was greatly affected by these experiences, as the following comments in letters to his mother showed: Mother, I have real pride in telling you that I have the consciousness of saving quite a number of lives by keeping the men from giving up, and being a good deal with them. The men say it is so, and the doctors say it is so; and I will candidly confess I can see it is true, though I say it myself. I know you will like to hear it, mother so I tell you. [12] In a later letter he says: Nothing of ordinary misfortune seems as it used to, and death itself has lost all its terrors; I have seen so many cases in which it was so welcome and such a relief. [13] In 1865 he was appointed as a clerk in the Department
of the Interior, only to be dismissed shortly afterwards when it was discovered
that he was the author of Leaves of Grass. Whitman's friend William
Douglas O'Connor published his defence of Whitman and attacked the Secretary
of the Interior, James Harlan, for dismissing him (the pamphlet may have
been the first time that the epithet 'The Good Grey Poet' was associated
with Whitman). Secretary Harman of the State Department had sacked Whitman
from his recent appointment as a clerk for "being the author of an
indecent book", and went so far as to say that even if the President
had ordered it he would not re-instate him. Bucke reported that a friend
had been with Abraham Lincoln when Whitman passed outside the window of
the East Room at the White House and described Lincoln's assessment of Whitman
as follows. The President asked who he was, and was told that it was Walt
Whitman, author of Leaves of Grass. 'Whitman "went by quite
slow, with his hands in the breast pockets of his overcoat, a sizeable felt
hat on, and his head pretty well up."' The President, 'says nothing,
but took a good look until Walt Whitman was quite by. Then he says (I can't
give you his way of saying it but it was quite emphatic and odd) "Well,
he looks like a man." He said it pretty loud, but in
a sort of absent way, and with the emphasis on the words I have underscored.'
[14]
Whitman in turn had great respect for the President and on his assassination
in April 1865 wrote 'When Lilacs Last in the dooryard Bloom'd', a great
elegy for the dead man, and included it amongst a series of poems in the
section of Leaves called 'Memories of President Lincoln'. City of orgies, walks of joys, ... Nor to converse with learn'd persons, or bear my share in the soiree or feast; Not those, but as I pass O Manhattan, your frequent and swift flash of eyes offering me love, Offering me response to my own these repay me, Lovers, continual lovers, only repay me. If this were the only poem by Whitman (and of
which I have left out the bulk), one would think it fantasy, but one gradually
realises, reading the rest of Leaves, and the impressions Whitman
made on his friends, that Whitman loved and was loved on a scale that most
of us cannot understand, or at least not outside of a religious context.
Bucke describes the impact Whitman had on a friend (who had been reading
Leaves) after only some hundred words from the poet: "but shortly
after leaving, a state of mental exaltation set in ... compared to slight
intoxication by champagne ... or falling in love." The state lasted
about six weeks and left a permanent change in the mind of this person.
[16] He never spoke deprecatingly about any nationality or class of men or time in the world's history, or feudalism, or against any trades or occupations not even against any animals, insects, plants, or inanimate things nor any of the laws of Nature, or any of the results of those laws, such as illness, deformity or death. He never complains or grumbles either at the weather, pain, illness, or at anything else. He never in conversation, in any company, or under any circumstances, uses language that could be thought indelicate. (Of course he has used language in his poems which has been thought indelicate, but none that is so.) [17] Bucke concluded: "Perhaps, indeed, no man
has ever lived who liked so many things and disliked so few as Walt Whitman."
This is a key insight into the man, and this quality comes over in his poems
in such a way that any lengthy immersion in them either provokes this quality
in the reader, or leaves them cold and hostile. Whitman liked children,
and they him; he made a habit in later life of attending a local school
twice a week just to play with the children and tell them stories. It was
not unusual on a hot summer's day to find a child fast asleep in his lap
in a meadow. "For young and old his touch had a charm that cannot be described, and if it could, then the description could not be believed except by those who know him either personally or through Leaves of Grass. This charm (physiological more than psychological), if understood, would explain the whole mystery of the man and how he produces such effects, not only upon the well, but among the sick and wounded." [18] Bucke recalls a distant relative of Whitman,
while agreeing with Bucke's views on Whitman's gentler qualities, was quite
conversant with a 'deepest sterness and hauteur' in him, now mastered in
older age, 'a combination of hot blood and fighting qualities'. For your life adhere to me, (I may have to be persuaded many times before I consent to give myself really to you, but what of that? Must not Nature be persuaded many time?) No dainty dolce affettuoso I, Bearded, sun-burnt, gray-neck'd, forbidding, I have arrived, To be wrestled with as I pass for the solid prizes of the universe, For such I afford whoever can persevere to win them. (Starting from Paumanok, v. 15) Burroughs said of Whitman's appearance: With all his rank masculinity, there was a curious feminine undertone in him which revealed itself in the quality of his voice, the delicate texture of his skin, the gentleness of his touch and ways, the attraction he had for children and the common people. [19] Also: The sea, too, had laid its hand upon him, as I have already suggested. He never appeared so striking and impressive as when seen upon the beach. His large and tall gray figure looked at home, and was at home upon the shore. The simple, strong, flowing lines of his face, his always clean fresh air, his blue absorbing eyes, his commanding presence, and something pristine and elemental in his whole expression, seemed at once to put him en rapport with the sea. [20] Burroughs tells of a trip in 1879 or '80 where
Whitman visited red Indian prisoners in the company of well-known politicians
and government officials (yet another example of Whitman's inclination to
simply be part of events with which he had no formal business). The sheriff
explained to the Indians who the distinguished men were, but they paid little
attention as they filed past until Whitman brought up the rear. The old
chief looked at him steadily, then extend his hand and said "How."
All the other Indians followed suit. [21] I know not what talisman Walt Whitman carries unless it be an unexcluding friendliness and goodness which is felt upon his approach like magnetism; but I know that in the subterranean life of cities, amongst the worse roughs, he goes safely; and I could recite instances where hands that, in mere wantonness of ferocity, assault anybody, raised against him, have of their own accord been lowered almost as quickly, or, in some cases, been dragged promptly down by others; this, too, I mean, when he and the assaulting gang were mutual strangers. I have seen singular evidence of the mysterious quality which not only guards him, but draws to him with intuition, rapid as light, simple and rude people, as to their natural mate and friend. I remember, as I passed the White House with him one evening, the startled feeling with which I saw the soldier on guard there a stranger to us both, and with something in his action that curiously proved that he was a stranger suddenly bringing his musket to the "present", in military salute to him, quickly mingling with this respect due to his colonel, a gesture of greeting with the right hand as to a comrade; grinning, meanwhile, good fellow, with shy, spontaneous affection and deference; his ruddy, broad face glowing in the flare of the lampions. [29] The picture that we build up from these accounts
of Whitman is of an exceptional man, but, for Pure Consciousness Mysticism,
his personality is not of primary concern, any more than the Krishna's personality
is of primary concern. However the picture of Whitman as a man is important
as a background to Leaves, and Leaves is of importance in
the way that it illuminates the infinite and the eternal. It is Whitman's
unique embraciveness in his poetry that makes it important to have a picture
of his life and influence on those who came into contact with him; his embraciveness
presents a challenge to the common view of how a mystic can live in the
world and it is important that we do not see it as just a literary device. Here are some quotes from those who were against Leaves of Grass. The Brooklyn Daily Times carried an article on September 29th 1855 with the following comments (all the following extracts are from Bucke's biography of Whitman): "This poet celebrates himself, and that is the way he celebrates all. He comes to no conclusions , and does not satisfy the reader. He certainly leaves him what the serpent left the woman and the man, the taste of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, never to be erased again. What good is to argue about egotism? There can be no two thoughts about Walt Whitman's egotism. That is what he steps out of the crowd and turns and faces them for." An example of a section that 'comes to no conclusions'
in Leaves of Grass is verse 34 of "Song of Myself", where
he describes the massacre of four hundred and twelve young soldiers in Texas
after surrendering to the enemy. He describes the slaughter neutrally, other
than to call the men "Large, turbulent, generous, handsome, proud and
affectionate"; he says, "The work commenced about five o'clock
and was over by eight". It is astonishing the first time one
reads it in its lack of condemnation or outrage, but as one gets to know
Leaves, it seems quite in keeping with the rest, and in keeping with
the mystic's deeply known understanding of the eternal, as Krishna explains
to Arjuna. Perhaps Hubert Selby Junior's descriptions of his tenement dwellers
in Last Exit to Brooklyn has taken the cue from Whitman: quite appalling
scenes of every-day human brutality, but in an odd way made tender by the
lack of judgement that the author conveys: a compassion from dispassion.
As in many of the adverse criticisms of Whitman made at the time, there
is often a perceptiveness in them. The comment made that Whitman "steps
out of the crowd and turns and faces them" (for his egotism) is somehow
a vivid and graphical portrait of his stance, though as to the egotism,
that is for each person to make up their minds on. "Is it possible that the most prudish nation in the world will adopt a poet whose indecencies stink in the nostrils? We hope not; and yet there is a probability, and we will show you why, that this Walt Whitman will not meet with the stern rebuke which he so richly deserves. ... Walt Whitman is as unacquainted with art, as a hog with mathematics. ... The very nature of this man's compositions excludes us from proving by extracts the truth of our remarks; but we, who are not prudish, emphatically declare that the man who wrote page 79 of The Leaves of Grass deserves nothing so richly as the public executioner's whip." Whitman was accused by many of being 'unacquainted
with art', though in fact he was widely read in classical and contemporary
literature. His poems are possibly devoid of the artificial, which
perhaps offended the more traditional of readers, including Longfellow who
said: "Well, I believe this man might have done something if he only
had a decent training and education." [30] "We were attracted by the very singular title of the work to seek the work itself, and what we thought ridiculous in the title is eclipsed in the pages of this heterogeneous mass of bombast, egotism, vulgarity, and nonsense. The beastliness of the author is set forth in his own descriptions of himself, and we can conceive of no better reward than the lash for such a violation of decency as we have before us." It was Boston's District Attorney that turned the revulsion felt by the moralists into the only actual banning of the book. The New York Criterion in November 10th 1855 wrote: "Thus then, we leave this gathering of muck to the laws which, certainly, if they fulfil their intent, must have power to suppress such obscenity. As it is entirely destitute of wit, there is no probability that any would, after this exposure, read it in the hope of finding that; and we trust no on will require further evidence, for, indeed, we do not believe there is a newspaper so vile that would print confirmatory extracts." One almost regrets the passing of Victorian
prudery, that made these passages possible; these and many more, while amusing
to us, also are oddly instructive about Whitman. Possibly the strangest
attack on Whitman came however from D.H.Lawrence in 1923 in Studies in
Classic American Literature. Lawrence cannot stand that Whitman ACHES
WITH A MOROUS LOVE (Lawrence's capitals): it takes a steam-engine to do
that. Lawrence wails: "Oh Walter, Walter, what have you done with it?
With your own individual self? For it sounds as if it had all leaked out
of you, leaked into the universe." [31] Lawrence cannot stand it!
He cannot stand that Whitman can become the universe or anything
in it, and in particular not a 'greasy Eskimo'. If Lawrence's attack were
not so funny, and in an odd way to the point, one would be rather ashamed
of him. Lawrence does get to the heart of Whitman in what he rejects, and
we will consider this issue of identity and its apparent loss later on.
"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." Without asking Emerson, Whitman had the letter published in the New York Tribune in 1855, and it was this and Emerson's word-of-mouth enthusiasm that may well have enabled Leaves to survive its early years. The two men met, but Whitman and Emerson were poles apart in their temperament, Emerson being a refined establishment intellectual, graduating in divinity, and pastor for a time at the prestigious Second Unitarian Church in Boston, while Whitman was a carpenter's son and a man of the rough outdoors. Whitman took Emerson for a beer in a rowdy pub, but despite this indelicate introduction, and Emerson's public annoyance that Whitman should publish his letter without permission, they saw each other, albeit infrequently, until Emerson's death. Emerson was ambivalent in his attitude to Leaves, as the following letter to Carlyle in 1856 shows: "One book, last summer, came out in New York, a nondescript monster, which yet had terrible eyes and buffalo strength, and was indisputably American which I thought to send you; but the book throve so badly with the few to whom I showed it, and wanted good morals so much, that I never did. Yet I believe now again, I shall. It is called Leaves of Grass and was written and printed by a journeyman printer in Brooklyn, New York, named Walter Whitman; and after you have looked into it, if you think, as you may, that it is only an auctioneer's inventory of a warehouse, you can light your pipe with it." Emerson also referred to Leaves as a singular blend of the Bhagavad Gita and the New York Tribune, and we shall see some of those similarities to the Gita later on. Whether Carlyle lit his pipe on Leaves, I do not know, though Whitman was an admirer of his, excepting the gloominess of his later work. Whitman gives us this interesting insight into his relationship with Emerson (and at the same time a foretaste of how he relates to Nature, in this case trees) in the following passage: 10 - 13 October [1881]: I spend a good deal of time on the Common, these delicious days and nights every mid-day from 11.30 to about 1 and almost every sunset another hour. I know all the big trees, especially the old elms along Tremont and Beacon streets, and have come to a sociable-silent understanding with most of them, in the sunlit air, (yet crispy-cool enough), as I saunter along the wide unpaved walks. Up and down this breadth by Beacon street, between these same old elms, I walk'd for two hours, of a bright sharp February mid-day twenty-one years ago, with Emerson, then in his prime, keen, physically and morally magnetic, arm'd at every point, and when he chose, wielding the emotional just as well as the intellectual. During those two hours he was the talker and I the listener. It was an argument-statement, reconnoitring, review, attack, and pressing home, (like an army corps in order, artillery, cavalry, infantry,) of all that could be said against that part (and a main part) in the construction of my poems, 'Children of Adam'. More precious than gold to me that dissertation it afforded me, ever after, this strange and paradoxical lesson; each part of E's statement was unanswerable, no judge's charge ever more complete or convincing, I could never hear the points better put and then I felt down in my soul the clear and unmistakable conviction to disobey all, and pursue my own way. 'What have you to say then to such things?' said E., pausing in conclusion. 'Only that while I can't answer them at all, I feel more settled than ever to adhere to my own theory, and exemplify it,' was my candid response. Whereupon we went and had a good dinner at the American House. And thenceforward I never waver'd or was touch'd with qualms, (as I confess I had been two or three times before.) [33] Anne Gilchrist, herself respected in literary
circles, by Carlyle, Swinbourne, and Tennyson amongst others, read one of
Rossetti's imprints of Leaves, and fell in love with it, writing
to Rossetti that she was spellbound and could read no other book. In 1870
she published an anonymous article in the Boston Radical called 'An
Englishwoman's Estimate of Walt Whitman', which gave unreserved praise for
Leaves of Grass. Whitman forwarded a letter and photograph to her.
The following year, on Rossetti's encouragement she wrote directly to Whitman
with what amounted to a proposal of marriage, but he responded to her letters
in the most delicate of ways, saying that he was not insensible to her love,
and to accept a brief reply because he had put himself body and soul into
Leaves, "my best letter". He concluded: "Enough that
there surely exists so beautiful and delicate a relation, accepted by both
of us with joy." Anne Gilchrist was not put off and wrote further letters
until Whitman was forced to write in 1872: "Let me warn you about myself
and about yourself also, you must not construct such an unauthorized and
imaginary figure and call it W.W., and so devotedly invest your loving nature
in it. The actual W.W. is a very plain personage and entirely unworthy of
your devotion." "Wives and mothers will learn through this poet that there is a rejoicing grandeur and beauty there wherein their hearts have so longed to find it; where foolish men, traitors to themselves, poorly comprehending the grandeur of their own or the beauty of a woman's nature, have taken such pains to make her believe there was none nothing but miserable discrepancy." It is partly this reinforcement of the sense of 'miserable discrepancy', that makes Nietzsche and his work suspect. More of that later, but for now, how superb does Whitman seem! Throughout Leaves he never leaves women out, and never diminishes them. Take for example this passage: The prostitute draggles her shawl, her bonnet bobs on her tipsy and pimpled neck, The crowd laugh at her blackguard oaths, the men jeer and wink to each other, (Miserable! I do no laugh at your oaths nor jeer you;) (from Song of Myself) Compare this with what D.H.Lawrence would prefer him to say: 'Look at that prostitute! Her nature has turned evil under her mental lust for prostitution. She has lost her soul. She knows it herself. She likes to make men lose their souls. If she tried to make me lose my soul, I would kill her. I wish she may die.' [34] It is hard not to despise Lawrence for this, and for it not to wipe out every tender and perceptive comment he made on the relationships between men and women. Perhaps Lawrence just chose to empty his bile on a soft target (American 'pretensions' at literature) knowing that his British audience would lap it up. But Lawrence looks paranoid, spiteful, and churlish next to Whitman's generosity. Whitman does not talk about relationships in any analytical way, he just includes women in all his gestures: I am the poet of the woman the same as the man, And I say it is as great to be woman as to be a man, And I say there is nothing greater than the mother of men. (Song Of Myself, v. 21) Is he just making an effort in his poetry to include women? It would be hard to do on such a grand scale if it were not his nature one suspects, and this is supported by a typical remark to Bucke on quite another subject (drink): "[alcohol] takes away all the reserved control, the power of mastership, and therefore offends against that splendid pride in himself or herself which is fundamental in every man or woman worth anything." Whitman's inclusion of women is not a feminist
issue in this book, but rather it relates to a characteristic of a person
approaching the transcendent: a distance from one's sexual identity, and
the sense of conflict between the sexes that so gripped D.H.Lawrence for
example. What of Whitman and women in his own life, other than Anne Gilchrist?
Bucke once asked him why he had not married "Did you remain single
of set purpose?" Whitman replied: "No, I have hardly done anything
in my life of set purpose, in the way you mean." He added, "I
suppose the chief reason why I never married must have been a overmastering
passion for entire freedom, unconstraint; I had an instinct against forming
ties that would bind me." Bucke commented: "Yes, it was the instinct
of self-preservation. Had you married at the usual age, Leaves of Grass
would never have been written." Sometimes with one I love I fill myself with rage for fear I effuse unreturn'd love, But now I think there is no unreturn'd love, the pay is certain one way or another, (I loved a certain person ardently and my love was not return'd, Yet out of that I have written these songs.) The 'sting of slighted love' often appears in Leaves. Biographers make much of Whitman's relationships with younger men, and there is a homosexual reading made of some of the Calamus poems, but Whitman denied this, claiming in a letter to John Addington Symonds that he had sired six illegitimate children (1890). Carpenter devoted a whole chapter in his book on Whitman to the subject of his alleged children, of which he tells us only four had survived, but that one had produced a grandchild. The question of Whitman's sexuality is not relevant to Pure Consciousness Mysticism, but it is amusing to note that the poet Allen Ginsberg (a long-time Buddhist) recently claimed on British television to have a homosexual lineage with Whitman. Ginsberg says that he slept with Neil Cassidy, who slept with Gavin Arthur, the grandson of Chester Arthur (president of the USA from 1881 to 1885), who had slept with Edward Carpenter, who claimed to have slept with Whitman (though I have found no such claim in his writings). This may or may not be nonsense, Ginsberg admitting that Whitman 'wasn't candid about his physical loves if he had any'.
References for Whitman, part One
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