Song For Occupations

Song for Occupations (1855)

Evident in this section is an extension of the dialogic mode/relationship between reader/writer. They are still established as equals. He eroticizes distance and touch, and longs for levels of contact. He shuns “cylinders”— evocative of a manmade object, cold, dividing. I think the frequent ellipses used are suggestive of his democratic method, and are sort of equivalent to the conjunction “and.” They don’t subordinate sections of the sentence; they instead give equal weight to separate parts (I think we’ve discussed this…).  This sprawling form perhaps suggests authentic description.

He offers paradoxes (“usual terms…never the usual terms”) and rhetorical questions in a probable effort to obtain some cosmic truth. Also, he repeats grammatical forms (“If you…”; “Is it you…”), positing the similarities and nearness he shares with the reader. The ordinary is rendered “remarkable, eternal”; it is also absolute, and definitive.

The poem is partly concerned with immutable connections between reader and writer, but this is extended to all persons. In a country grappling with racial/ political divisions, unity of self and other is a frequent concern, and probably requisite for an authentic democracy the likes of which Whitman espouses. 

There is a civil rights emphasis on granting subjectivity to foreigners and women.

So many small, different scenes and aspects of life are presented, perhaps to show the variety and beauty of our possible existences that, at an initial glance, seem mundane. Whitman says to not think less of yourself if you are not a scholar, or to feel unwise if you have no education/training, but ushers in these images to give them poetic space and beauty; to let people know their lives are the stuff of poetry.

1856 brings a new title: Poem of The Daily Work of The Workmen and Workwomen of These States.  This suggests more specificity and resonance; it includes the female's in general hitherto-excluded voice) Ellipses have been replaced with commas and dashes. Cleaner, neater typographical presentation is presented (Walt makes use of indentations.).  The text is possibly more readable, and certainly less sprawling.

He alters some of the language, but doesn't change meaning greatly. Interestingly, he adds this self-reflexive moment to the list of jobs and job-utensils:

the compositor's stick and rule, type-setting, making up the forms, all the work of newspaper counters, folders, carriers, news-men

1860 brought another revised title to this section: “Chants Democratic (3).” Perhaps Whitman, in doing this process of manuscript revision, cultivated an appreciation for and linked working with a democratic ideal. Whitman, the loafer, also sees the necessity of all the parts functioning to produce a coherent system; I believe this is the reason for his enumerations.  

In 1871, Whitman retitled the poem “Carol of Occupations.” He explains the title, extending and plainly stating his theme: “In the labor of engines and trades, and the labor of fields, I find the developments, and find the eternal meanings.”It ends without that strange object-veneration part (it has been pushed back and modulated), and instead we see something closer to a restating of his thesis, the divinity of the working men. We also see him employ semi-colons here. This poem is situated in about the middle of LoG. Carol is an evocative word for the title because it often has a religious resonance, and Whitman is singing here of the divinity of the common man.

In 1881, the title “A Song for Occupations” was restored. It is a slightly more condensed version, and ends in the manner of previous editions (excluding '71). I also did not notice any semi-colons. Instead of “come closer,” it starts with “A song for occupations!” Perhaps this is done for thematic organization, as he initially states his intention and then develops and extends it. Pushing closer and longing for contact, as it initially began, suggests a poem that will continue to be concerned with that.

In the final edition, the title is preserved, and it appears earlier in LoG. The ending is revised and follows the 1881 edition, not the 1871. The last couple of editions are sprawling in size, much like his intial prose; our poem is just one song among the many songs, as in his frequent lists and his iterations that one thing is as good as any other, and just as worthy of your time.  We can also think of this as having an America-type expanse; thinking of its humble beginnings to the sprawling, effulgent poem that eventually surrounded "A Song for Occupation" and how it might mirror population expanse, diversity, and resilience beyond the war. 

Bowery b'hoy

This is a term used to denote a subset of the working class in Lower Manhattan (1840s-60s?) . The term is modeled after the Irish pronunciation of "boy." B'hoys dressed in an elaborate style (e.g. stovepipe hat, trousers tucked into boots, gaudy neckcloth) and employed swagger and slang, of which Whitman was enamored, and it had some influence in the composition of "Song of Myself." They attended the same theatre, and their influence on his writing demonstrates his hybrid artistic technique of mixing the high and low.

Thoughts on Whitman's process of revision

A striking difference from the initial 1855 composition, "Song of Myself" has been recast as "Walt Whitman." Looking at the different editions, the most widespread of Whitman's emendations seem to be typographical/organizational in nature, and demonstrate his interest/experience in that subject and printing. By the 1867 version nearly all of the words carrying the same form as "packed " and "helped" have been modified to "packt" and "help'd." Throughout the poem this is evident. The ellipsis of the 1855 version have been replaced by the 1860 version with dashes and commas. In the 1867 version, many of the commas (especially in lists) and exclamation points have become semi-colons. These changes, in addition to the exclusion of occasional extraneous passages, allow the poem to breathe a bit more since they can cut down on overall line length. He also, in the 1867 version, omits certain things: passages about particularly himself ("I am the poet;" "I step up"; "I eat and drink" ; "I receive you") ;  racially-specific language ("darkey"; passages about the "savage") ; and overtly eroticized language ( "thruster holding me tight" ; "the climax of my love-grip"). I think Whitman made these changes because of their ability to obscure the general message and the overall import of the poem. Often passages of conflict, especially the prisoners of war section, have been reduced or excised, suggesting the influence of the war on his writing. Some redundancies in place names have been eliminated. Fat and excess have generally been trimmed. However, the reason for many of the changes eluded me, and I will probably return to add something substantive to this post. It's tough for me to say how all the revisions alter the constitutional and thematic import of the poem as I think their effect on the poem has been generally minor.

Walt Whitman and Ariel Pink

Specimen Days: Abraham Lincoln

In this entry, Whitman considers his close proximity to president Lincoln, someone by whom he was apparently fascinated. He describes the route by which he sometimes catches glimpses of he and his wife during their daily sojourns. His precise detail of certain points and sensitive representation of Lincoln's character imply a minor obsession. This entry is interesting because Whitman meditates on greatness instead of common, rustic images. However, Lincoln's greatness is enhanced to Whitman because of the simplicity of he and his wife's bearing: he respects Lincoln's reluctance to engage in the perfume of haughty civilization, instead resembling the “commonest man” in attire, and, during their occasional evening pleasure-strolls, notes the simple “equipage” of their barouche. He forgives Lincoln for an ostensible extravagance, noting that the extensive cavalry that attend upon him is “against his personal wish.”

Specimen Days: A Sun-Bath -- Nakedness

This entry is a tract on the purity of nakedness and solitude in nature. Whitman attacks our “manners,” inverting the conventional idea of clothes-nudity, claiming that clothes make us indecent, and he elevates the potential of nudity in nature as a means of self-renewal (he is free of “prostration, pain.”). It is also a religious, transcendental experience for Whitman, as heaven “filters nutriment and peace” to him. He engages in a typical trope of his as he imagines himself merging with nature.

Instead of seeing himself as a communal figure, he emphasizes seclusion within nature in this entry, and invites his readers to the same thing, attributing his daily excursions into Nature to his enhanced health (and knowledge of “purity, art, faith,” etc.). He loves the touch of water against his whole body (“never before did I get so close to Nature.”).The language he employs is more poetic than in other entries, as he is experiencing a swelling of emotion.

Whitman and His Peers

“The Village Blacksmith”

Content/Thematic concerns: We see, as in Whitman, the sympathetic depiction of the working man as a fit subject for poetry. “He owes not any man” evokes Wilt's sensibilities of freedom. The subject of the poem also experiences the divine, as he possibly experiences a transcendental moment at church.

Formal characteristics: the form of this poem is in a regular prosody (with slight variations) form, the ballad, with alternating lines of iambic tetrameter and trimeter. This is repeated 3 times per stanza and the rhyme scheme is abcbdb. Obviously this poem is more highly-wrought and metrically regular than what we've read from Whitman. However, many of Whitman's concerns have been historically subjects deployed in the ballad form.

Oakes-Smith (An Incident); The natural theme evokes Whitman; the speaker of the poem is content to grant the eagle alone its sublime views of nature, preferring instead to remain aground with the rest of humanity and wingless creatures. This poem is much more pedantic than Whitman, and the argument of the poem is not as easily divined as in Whitman's work, especially in lines 3-5. Another highly-wrought poem, a Shakespearean sonnet. Stylistically, this is foreign to the prosody/form of Whitman.

Lynch (An Imitation); This poem is in iambic trimeter, and evokes the English Romantic poets: precise meter; poet as visionary experiencing something sublime (the sublimity of nature for example; large mountains, a tempest), a dream-vision; appropriating myth, irrational, emotive. Unlike Whitman, this poem has a linear narrative sequence, and contains much more action. There is something of a refrain of “Excelsior,” yet in lines of Whitman we've read so far, the refrains are generally thematic and less explicit. The end of the poem alludes to a synthesis of you-and-i, a recurring trope in Whitman.  

Tweet of the Week. Re: Barnum

P.T. Barnum and Walt Whitman are two distinct markers of American popular culture, and hardly similar: Whitman believes in essential human passions, the transcendental capabilities of humanity, the divine, the low as sublime, the possibility of a truly democratic republic, the power of nature, the transformative potential of the common, and human as wanderer; and Barnum is interested in tricking people, gaining capital from them, the extraordinary, and is indifferent to nature. He has studied human instinct toward capitalist ends; Whitman to ennoble the common man.

Interestingly though, their paths intersect: Barnum's autobiography (descibed as “sociopathic”) was published the same year as Leaves of Grass; when Whitman claimed to have exchanged glances with Lincoln in a deeply inspiring moment for him, it occurred within a busy crowd in front of Barnum's American Museum. Whitman describes the building in “Song of the Exposition” from Leaves of Grass:

"In large calm halls, a stately Museum shall teach you the infinite lessons of minerals,
In another, woods, plants, vegetation shall be illustrated -- in another animals, animal life and development."

Whitman also interviewed Barnum in 1846 for the Brooklyn Daily Eagle. For additional information, consult theses sources:

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/whitman/map/8.html

http://www.laphamsquarterly.org/reconsiderations/hatching-monsters.php?page=all

Motif Discussion

In this entry I'll be writing about the motif of democratic vision as it appears in “Song of Myself.” This is a broad motif, so I'll be selecting specific examples (since so many images in the poem work toward this effect, and enumerating all of them would be unnecessary) that illustrate the broader motif.

“I CELEBRATE myself, and sing myself, 
And what I assume you shall assume, 
For every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you. “ ;

“I loafe and invite my soul...Nature without check with original energy.”

These initial remarks serve to usher in his vision; the poem will be concerned with the self as it contributes to the other, and to the community, small and large (national identity). The trope of democratic vision is exemplified in the inaugural remarks, as the first utterance in the poem of his repeated insistence that I=you. Whitman sets out to dissolve this apparent duality, proposing a unified voice of America, calling for the cessation of division.

His democratic vision of a unified voice for America can be contrasted against the antiquated Augustan ideal that metered poetry is the highest form of art/writing; yet to Walt, certain conventions of poetry, namely a stiff , academic prosody/meter, may have an alienating effect, especially if the meter is more complicated than a ballad. He adjusts, democratizes his poetic form for his vision and audience.

“I am the poet of the woman the same as the man, 
And I say it is as great to be a woman as to be a man, 
And I say there is nothing greater than the mother of men. “

Also, to Walt, bard is equal to slave; no longer does the poet enjoy the most elevated status of a society, but the same status as everyone else. Throughout “Song of Myself,” he offers sympathetic perspectives on marginalized voices, that contextually are experiencing democracy withheld. He harbors slaves at the risk of sedition, yearns for their inclusion into the American democratic tradition. In fact, Walt often mentions slaves consecutively with women, often transposing woman to “mother.” He is fascinated by their reproductive potential, their “fit(ness) for conception.” He dislikes “neuters and geldings.” They are, as mothers, responsible for the diversity Whitman cherishes, responsible for the birth of democracy. For Whitman, what is better than being the mother to all men? He understands the need for greater female inclusion in our American scheme, to which the 29^th bather parable alludes.

"The pure contralto sings in the organ loft

The carpenter dresses his plank, the tongue of his foreplane
whistles its wild ascending lisp... 

And these tend inward to me, and I tend outward to them,
And such as it is to be of these more or less I am,
And of these one and all I weave the song of myself."

Wilt also democratizes the American experiences with his lists of jobs and scenes. He lends these rich portraits of American life a democratic voice; since each scene is as important and necessary as any other and the next, they are all given equal space. These iterations always confirm his democratic ideology.

This democratic motif, pervasive throughout the poem, suggests a Romantic influence. Romantic interests are evident in exalting low to high (although, for Whitman, everything is high), dialects, and love of nature. He employs these to sustain and enhance his vision of a greater America. Walt's democratic vision leads to, I think, fallacious relativism (if everyone is right, how can we improve? Especially morally.) but is also contextually necessary as Whitman employs it poetically to enact his vision of a truly democratic America.

“I depart as air, I shake my white locks at the runaway sun...

Failing to fetch me at first keep encouraged,
Missing me one place search another,
I stop somewhere waiting for you.”

The poem ends with Whitman dissolving into and becoming nature, suggesting a greater import for equality than previously imagined; men are equal to not only each other, but also to nature. The poem ends cryptically, on what feels like an unfinished tone (suggesting another departure from the Augustans, who believed poetry should be highly wrought): work remains that must be fulfilled in additional, subsequent steps by the reader, and involve adjustments and revisions of a national consciousness, away from division and unnecessary dispute. This is the ultimate democratic move; what we use the poem for is as equal as Walt's efforts creating it. The creator engages his audience with a task equal to his.

(Other occurrences of thematically linked excerpts:

“I will not have a single person slighted or left away, 
The kept-woman, sponger, thief, are hereby invited, 
The heavy-lipp'd slave is invited, the venerealee is invited; 
There shall be no difference between them and the rest;”

“Through me many long dumb voices,
Voices of the interminable generations of prisoners and slave;”

“ I am the hounded slave, I wince at the bite of the dogs;”

“The friendly and flowing savage, who is he?...

Wherever he goes men and women accept and desire him;”

“I hear bravuras of birds, bustle of growing wheat, gossip of flames,

clack of sticks cooking my meals …

It shakes mad-sweet pangs through my belly and breast.”