“I have let Whitman alone”

https://www.nybooks.com/articles/2019/04/18/walt-whitman-alone/

by mstats • 7 years ago

39 7 7 years ago

“I celebrate myself,/And what I assume you shall assume,/For every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you.” Whitman was unequivocally declaring his own independence from poetic conventions and niceties.

This is why I always struggle communicating in the arts. This author speaks with such conviction that she understands Whitman's intent and yet I can't find a shred of it for myself.

mturmon• 7 years ago

That's the opening stanza from Leaves of Grass, the Ur-text of American poetry. The opening stanza doesn't convey Whitman's break with convention fully, but it stands in for the rest, which does. And certainly these lines -- self-celebratory, all-encompassing, without conventional rhyme or meter -- convey an expression of independence!

theoh• 7 years ago

I'm pretty sure that two sentences you quote don't form a meaningful pair, so I wouldn't expect the second sentence to explain the first.

The sentence "Whitman was unequivocally declaring his own independence from poetic conventions and niceties." relates to what Whitman was doing, i.e. to announcing himself as "American, one of the roughs" in an earlier sentence.

"... Every atom belongs as good to you" corresponds to the later phrase "Here was a poet of the people for the people". That's my reading anyway. The structure is ABAB: quote, quote, gloss, gloss.

whatshisface• 7 years ago

Shhhh, if you admit you don't see it the game is ruined. Instead you should build on it, like improv actors in a jam session.

swamp402• 7 years ago

Why can't I find any stories of that time Mark Twain and Walt Whitman tried to dig up the grave of Elias Hicks to make a plaster cast of his head? Is there a conspiracy of silence going on here? What good is the internet if not for tracking down obscure details of events like this?

defen• 7 years ago

That was Samuel E. Clements, not Samuel L. Clemens, and Whitman wasn't involved; he was just an apprentice for Clements at the newspaper Clements edited.

Clements did succeed at digging up the grave, but apparently the mold and busts were destroyed during an argument over money.

Source: Walt Whitman's America: A Cultural Biography by David Reynolds

swamp402• 7 years ago

Ahh, I see. Well that certainly explains things. Thanks!

“I have let Whitman alone”

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