The Laughing Philosopher
Whether it is deciphering a text or researching the historical context surrounding it, readers are always trying to analyze an author’s true intention in their work/s . However, sometimes new discoveries can open our eyes to the mind behind the pages. In the essay, “I Am Here like an Old Hulk Driven Up on the Sand,” Ted Genoways writes about a recent discovery of a letter by Walt Whitman that gives more insight into the life of “America’s poet”. Genoways begins his essay by giving historical context to when Whitman’s letter was written and the state of Whitman during this time. According to Genoways, “on the morning of April 15,1887, George Cox took several photographs of poet Walt Whitman” in celebration of his lecture about Abraham Lincoln. Just five years before his death, Whitman was a feeble old man and needed assistance being brought to the photography studio. Jeannette Gilder, editor of The Critic, is cited in Genoways essay as saying that “He must have had twenty pictures taken” and that throughout this session Walt’s “expression and attitude [remained] so natural that no one would have supposed he was sitting for a photograph.” Genoways goes on to describe how Walt Whitman called his favorite photo of himself (pictured left) “The Laughing Philosopher,” a persona that he wrote about to friends in subsequent letters.
After providing this context to the historical setting of the time in Walt Whitman’s life, Genoways begins to delve into the newly discovered letter by Whitman. Originally found pasted to an author’s autograph edition of The Complete Writings of Walt Whitman, Whitman writes to Jeannette Gilder from his home, 328 Mickle Street, in Camden, New Jersey. In the letter, Whitman discusses the photos he received from George Cox and which ones he likes best. After giving his love to Gilder’s nephew and niece, with whom Whitman took a photograph with (pictured below), he ends the letter to Gilder by saying he is “here like an old hulk driven up on the sand or floating with spars & rigging all gone, & no more voyaging”. By providing the historical context surrounding the letter and the letter itself, Genoways describes just why this short letter is all the more moving and how it is an insight into the aging poet’s mind. According to Genoways, Jeanette Gilder “had recently taken over raising [her nephew and niece] after the death of their mother. The loss they had suffered apparently affected Whitman visibly”. This suffering became present in Whitman’s work who wrote his poem, “The Dismantled Ship,” that same year. When asked about the meaning behind the poem, Genoways writes that Whitman admitted “that’s me—that’s my old hulk—laid up at last: no good any more—no good.”
I have always enjoyed the close readings and analysis associated with literature. Being able to sit in a classroom and bounce idea after idea off classmates and professors trying to find some semblance of meaning in a text has always been engaging for me as a writer and a student. However, sometimes I struggle with the idea that, as readers, we never can really know exactly what an author is saying on the page because, most of the time, they either don’t come out and say it or they’re dead. That struggle is what guided me towards this article. Although it is a brief essay, it says so much and gives insight into Walt Whitman’s mind that isn’t just the poetry found in Leaves of Grass. Genoways historical context and the newly discovered letter showed me the personality of Whitman. I was able to see beyond the pages of his book and into the human he was. Not only that, but Genoways closing remarks and Whitman’s acknowledgement of himself as the “dismantled ship” in his poem was exactly the context that I was missing. It is disheartening to know how Whitman perceived himself as being an “old hulk driven up on the sand,” but seeing him say it himself in the letter gives credence to the poems he was writing in his late life and how he truly felt. There is a satisfaction in knowing his meaning behind the poem and letters like the one that was discovered, can open gateways into the mind of this quintessential poet.
Whitman with Gilder’s nephew and niece
Works Cited
Genoways, Ted. “I Am Here like an Old Hulk Driven Up on the Sand: A Newly Discovered Letter by Walt Whitman.” Virginia Quarterly Review: A National Journal of Literature and Discussion, vol. 88, no. 2, 2012, pp. 26–29. EBSCOhost, search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=mzh&AN=2017701758&site=ehost-live&scope=site.
I love that photo of Whitman! I’m so happy you posted it; I feel like it gives me new insight into Whitman as a person and not just a writer (which then helps me to contextualize his writing). He looks so kind and wizened, exactly like a laughing philosopher. I agree that his negative perception of himself in his later age is disheartening, and I think the portrait of him just goes to show that your self-perception is not usually aligned with how other people actually perceive you. Maybe he thought of himself as an “old hulk,” but this portrait encourages a much kinder perception of him. I also think it’s cool to have Whitman’s context for poems like “The Dismantled Ship.” Certainly a major part of analyzing literature is letting the work speak for itself, but there comes a point where context shouldn’t be ignored. Especially in a class like this, which is a deep dive into one writer–his whole personhood, his life, his beliefs, etc., should all be considered
Great background here on “The Dismantled Ship.” Especially in the context of Whitman’s nautical metaphors in the late work–he’s always sailing out of port to explore death / spirit / the passage to “more” than India–the honest of feeling so bound here–dismantled–is so affecting. I always took this poem as a reflection on Whitman’s aging body, and perhaps by extension as a reflection on a failing and diseased body politic after the failures of reconstruction. But this article re-introduces or emphasizes once more that personal resonance, and that deeply felt experience of the aging body.