Whitman and Mass Culture

A quotations of Whitman was cited in a section of Oprah Winfrey’s O magazine in 2004 whose intention was to enhance their audience’s sense of self worth in connection with their bodies.  The quote is “If anything is sacred, the human body is sacred.” Whitman is an especially useful writer to invoke for this purpose, as he always finds the other beautiful and connects them to himself/ his own sense of self worth.

Another popular culture reference to Whitman occurred in an episode of Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman entitled “The Body Electric.” Whitman is dramatized in this episode, as he travels to Colorado Springs where he is welcomed as a poet but it’s understood that he “prefers the company of men.” Dr. Quinn worries that her adopted son, who has been employed to interview Whitman alone for the town’s newspaper, will find himself in a sexual quagmire. Her fears are eventually dissipated, but Whitman apparently disturbed by her intolerance. This adaptation is useful because it helps us conceptualize contemporary perspectives on Whitman and his gay sexuality.

Van Morrison has a track called “Rave On, John Donne” in which he cites Whitman among other writers: Donne, Yeats, Omar Khayam, and Kahlil Gibran. He urges them to “rave on” through “industrial, atomic, nuclear” periods and visualizes Whitman “nose down in the wet grass,” and as someone who “fills the senses on nature’s bright green shady path.” This corroborates the popular conception of Whitman as a nature poet and demonstrates that respect for nature is something that extends across generational lines and remains consistently relevant, contrasted against the technological/machine industry of our and previous times against which these writers must “rave.”