This entry focuses on three critical and contemporary
perspectives of Whitman and help to illustrate Whitman’s perception among his
contemporaries.
For the reviewer, great poets embody a national identity by
their poetry, and that it’s informed by the actions of his or her country from
the past, and the conglomeration of uniquely country-specific experiences.
Interestingly, he thinks of Whitman’s identity and poetics in terms of a long,
sprawling list, and he is adapting Whitman’s prose/poetry style to suit the
expansive subject. In a way, he is suggesting that Whitman himself is too large
to encompass normal prose, and he adjusts his form fittingly. He sees Whitman
as a break from tradition, from the practice of ornamentation and “ready-made
models,” whose writing eschews these in order to focus on “the very meanings of
the works of nature and compete with them.” He ascribes to Walt, as a “new
poet,” the ability to pack within his poem a pervasive, eternal, “fearless,”
and provocative element that if heeded, allows the reader to “tread the half
invisible road where the poet is standing fearlessly before.” If what Walt says
is true, poetry has a “subtler range” than large actions and events as
exemplified in Homer and Shakespeare.
The same review mentions Tennyson and that in spite of all
his “ennui and aristocracy,” he is still a real poet. Yet, the contrast between
the two poets is startling. The reviewer intimates that the moment of
publication of LoG signifies a break from tradition, and he feels on the cusp
of a liminal space. He, however, is not certain whether history will judge
Whitman’s “haughty” efforts as the “most lamentable of failures or the most
glorious of triumphs.”
Rufus Griswold unleashes a bitter diatribe against Whitman
and his poetics. He states that LoG adheres to the principles of
“metempsychosis,” which is apt for him since he declares that only a man could
have written it if he were in possession of the soul of a donkey. Griswold
declares that there is no “wit” in the poem, so he probably conceives of poetry
in the Augustan manner, as a highly wrought, traditionally/classically-inspired
form that utilizes rhetorical devices to illuminate some human
concept/essential truth. This highly-wrought form, in combination with the
Latin inscription with which ends the review, suggests he doesn’t think poetry
should be for the common people. He claims that these dissidents are finding a
way into the Academy and “leaving a foul odor.” There is no place for new
forms; revising or updating them is “licentious.”
Much of the language for the reviewer uses is excessively
passionate: vile, shameful, abhor, abuse, etc. A lot of the things we neutrally
or positively associate with Whitman cause problems for Griswold: his “vagrant
wildness”; “beastly sensuality.” This initial problem is strange considering
how frequently questing/vagrancy has appeared as a trope for classic/traditional
poetry. To the other charge, Whitman would not think beastly pejorative, as he
seeks to learn from the animals. He thinks Whitman, and the type of person that
he represents, ill for “having no secrets, no disguises,” employing the
Renaissance courtier aesthetic that poetry should disguise our urges; Whitman’s
indulgences “rot the healthy core of social virtues.” For Grisworld, Whitman’s
speech should be suppressed as it is tantamount to crime, which increases when
the “exposure of their vileness is attended with too great indelicacy.”
In this essay, Griswold obsesses on single points, instead
of seeing the big picture. He is disgusted with an unconventional method of
living, and so much so, that he attacks that way of life, and we are supposed
to take that over anything by way of actual criticism. In fact, not one word of
LoG is even mentioned in this ostensible review. The review ends with: Peccatum illud horribile, inter Christianos
nos nominandum”; that horrible crime not to be named among the Christians.
I believe this is a reference to sodomy, and a probable basis to his dislike of
Whitman.
The reviewer is unaware of how to proceed in his article;
there isn’t even an author’s name attached to LoG. Structurally, the reviewer doesn’t quite know where to
start, as the poem doesn’t contain any formal meter, but instead is an
amalgamation of “common-place remarks, aphorisms, and opinions.” This new
method of composition develops the author’s “undisciplined power” and seems to
convey emotional resonance, as the reviewer is confounded by and impressed with
the “perfect pictures” of the prose-poems. The review is short because the reviewer
does not yet possess sufficient poetic vocabulary to comment upon the work. He
is confounded by the “kaleidoscopic, grotesque” shifting of images and changes,
and informs us that possibly the author only can explain what these mean, as it
is indeed a “curiosity of literature.” He ends by stating that the author, who
he presumes is the fellow depicted on the frontispiece, is a “remarkable blade”
among the leaves of grass.
He describes the book as “singular”—a term which I’ve noted
several times so far in brief perusals of other reviews. This iteration
confirms our suspicion of Whitman’s radical departure from poetic norms of his
time.
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