Specimen Days-A Discovery of Old Age

This entry is about patience. It reminds me of one of Whitman's maxims about seeing the poetry in neglected objects. He wonders where “the best is always cumulative.” Certain things (art, people, places), he notes, won't always at first appear special, but through time their brilliance is revealed. It may take years, but this is the way the “best” has been revealed to Whitman, either through “stealth” or a “sudden bursting forth.” He decries people who only want things “for the nonce.”

Frances Wright

Frances Wright was Scotland-born, and eventual U.S. Citizen, and noted for her involvement in feminist and abolitionist issues. Regarding slavery she has said, of the purported humanity of Virginian slave holders, that it is “better to break the chains than to gild them”; of gender, she has said that “the mind has no sex but what habit and education give it.” She is well known for her Independence Day speech, which is considered by some to have been the “first major public address by a woman” in the United States. She influenced many important people, such as “Thomas Jefferson, Mary Shelley, and Walt Whitman. Walt used to frequent anti-slavery halls, met her, and in retrospect called her “one of the best (characters) in history.” Walt loved to listen to her weekly talk of broad reforms in New York. He calls her “one of the sweetest of sweet memories,” and was “enthralled” by her “very appearance.” He also said she was “never satisfied unless she was doing good.” We see the influence in Whitman's work of civil reform, of slaves and women as equal to all and constitutive of a great American whole. Frances Wright's tombstone reads “I have wedded the cause of human improvement, staked on it my fortune, my reputation and my life.”

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.”