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In Quest of the 'Real' Walt Whitman
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10125 |
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Section : |
MODERN THOUGHT
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| Issue
Date : |
4 / 1993 |
3,041 Words |
| Author
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Milton Birnbaum
Milton Birnbaum is dean of the School of Arts and Sciences and
professor of English at American International College in
Springfield, Massachusetts. |
It would seem that 100 years after Whitman's death and almost 150 years after the publication of "Song of Myself," the questions about his biography, poetry, and prose would be well resolved, that he would be seen, like Robert Browning's hoped-for vision of Shelly, "plain" and clear. The exploration of Whitman and his works continues in geometric progression, however, and the reader who looks guidance is lost in a maze of conflicting interpretations of Whitman's life and work. Even Whitman thought of himself as an enigma, as the following verse demonstrate:
O baffled, balk'd, bent to the very earth,
Oppresse'd with myself that I have dared to
open my mouth.
Aware now that aimed all that balb whose
echoes recoil upon me I have not once had
the least idea who or what I am,
But that before all my arrogant poems the
real Me stands yet untouche'd, untold.
altogether unreach'd,
Withdrawn far, mocking me with mock-
congratulatory sings and bows,
with peals of distant ironical laughter at every
word I have written ...
"As I Ebb'd With the Ocean of Life"
In this article, I shall examine some of the Whitmanesque paradoxes and contradictions and will consider various possibilities of resolving them. I do not propose to consider Whitman's artistry as a poet or prose writer but to concentrate on the dualities in his life and work and on representative criticism of both.
PARADOXES AND CONTRADICTIONS
Strange and hard that paradox true I give,
Objects gross and the unseen soul are one.
"A Song of Preoccupations"
Do I contradict myself?
Very well then I contradict myself.
...
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