SOURCE:
https://daily.jstor.org/should-walt-whitman-be-cancelled/
With Walt Whitman’s Leaves of Grass, Whitman attempts the unthinkable and tries to encapsulate the feelings and emotions of every American. By doing so, however, it seems Whitman wrongfully depicts the trials and tribulations of minorities and by doing so shows his prejudices towards minorities in the United States. In his essay, “Imagined America: Walt Whitman’s Nationalism in the First Edition of Leaves of Grass“, Nathanael O’Reilly dives deeply into the first of edition of Leaves of Grass to extract what America means to Walt Whitman and to show Whitman’s warped nationalistic views of America.
O’Reilly begins his essay by examining what Whitman’s version of nationalism looks like. He states that Leaves of Grass is meant to be an almost utopian depiction of America — a America that didn’t exist in his time or has ever existed. Immediately in the preface to Leaves of Grass, Whitman situates himself as the only person in America who has the ability to speak for America and depicts his warped idealized version of America. Along with this, O’Reilly also states Whitman constructs a hierarchical system for America and places himself at the top as America’s poet with the rest of America below. By putting this emphasis on himself as this idealized America’s poet, Whitman also shows the reader how he perceives America as superior to other countries, thus showing his nationalistic tendencies.
O’Reilly continues by suggesting, based on writings from the Brooklyn Daily Times and a few passages from Leaves of Grass, that Whitman also viewed America’s racial composition in a negative light. Whitman’s racist comments in his article for Brooklyn Daily Times about the “impassable seal” of interracial sex and mingling and his passage in Leaves of Grass involving a runaway slave not being able to share a room with a white man shows Whitman’s racist tendencies. This is all in spite of his rhetoric towards an all inclusive, equalized America. Whitman’s attempts to convey an all inclusive America is further muddied by, as O’Reilly puts it, his inability “to avoid derogatory language” (4). He further shows this unequalized version of America through words such as “keptwoman”, “sponger” and “venerealee”, all of which denote a sense of difference and inequality.
Along with showing his racial tendencies, O’Reilly notes that Whitman also shows his marginalized view of Native Americans and immigrants through his diction. Whitman expresses Native Americans and immigrants as “savage” and are subsequently separated from Whitman’s idealized America. O’Reilly also points out that Whitman’s exclusion of Native Americans in his imagined America is further expressed in Whitman’s 1876 edition of Leaves of Grass as he celebrates Custer’s last stand at Little Big Horn. This is all in spite of his desire to create an “inclusive America”.
O’Reilly ends his essay by bringing to the reader’s attention Whitman’s own acknowledgement of his own contradictions and egotism. O’Reilly quotes Whitman’s infamous “I contain multitudes” passage as a citation of Whitman’s acknowledgment of his shortcomings. O’Reilly then questions whether or not Whitman’s acknowledgment is an acceptable excuse for his contradictory diction and if the reader accepts this excuse. O’Reilly states that “Whitman’s imagined America is arrogant, expansionist, hierarchical and exclusive” (8).
REFLECTION:
While Whitman’s Leaves of Grass shows the reader a contradictory, arrogant, and absolutely racist Whitman, I think it is important to keep in mind Whitman’s stranglehold over American poetry and its study. Whitman’s work shows his complex nature and because of this many people have various views of how Whitman truly felt about minorities in the United States. O’Reilly’s textual evidence from Leaves of Grass is damning to say the least as he brings up multiple uses of derogatory language that contradicts Whitman’s message for equality and inclusivity. The fact that all of this derogatory language is directed to minorities and the disabled is even more frightening when taking into account that Whitman sees himself on top of the hierarchical structure of America. As “America’s poet”, Whitman gives himself the power to construct tales from the perspective of minorities and warp them to fit his hierarchical and exclusive agenda. With all that being said, I believe that Whitman’s work has done more good than bad in terms of constructing an inclusive America. Whitman’s work has served as a stepping stone for minorities to share their own stories. When very little people in the literary world stepped up to share the experiences of minorities, Whitman did it in the grandiose gesture that is Leaves of Grass. Even though it came across as arrogate and derogatory in his work.
Work Cited:
O’Reilly, Nathanael. “Imagined America: Walt Whitman’s Nationalism in the First Edition of Leaves of Grass.” IJAS Online, no. 1, 2009, pp. 1–9. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/26234233.
Noah – I found it interesting that you focused some on Whitman’s diction. In this case, it is towards the Native Americans, often calling them words like “savages,” as you mentioned. This is interesting to me because this is one of my biggest problems with Whitman. He often had questionable diction when talking about different people groups or cultures and it is till something I get distracted by. I’m glad I’m not the only one to have noticed this.
With the way in which O’Reilly tackles his article showing the contradictions, racism, and “multitudes” of Whitman, it almost reminds me of popular culture today and how celebrities are being torn down for comments made earlier in life. It is an interesting debate, and one I won’t weigh my opinion on, but if a celebrity can say that “they’ve grown” or “it was a regrettable mistake” when something comes out in the media and people accept it, then can we accept Whitman for his faults against Native Americans, for instance, because he admits his faults when he says he “contains multitudes”? It is interesting to consider, especially since he lived in a different era than our own.
Thanks for this summary–it’s a more scholarly version of the briefer article we read on Whitman and #CancelCulture. I was especially struck by the author’s sense that “Whitman’s imagined America is arrogant, expansionist, hierarchical and exclusive.” He takes Whitman’s utopic vision and suggests that many aspects of his ideal of deferred perfection lead to a more dystopic vision in the end.
You mention in your own response that you’re quite convince by the ways later poets have used Whitman. You have a sense, it seems, that such responses can do something to right some of Whitman’s wrongs. Which subsequent authors do you find most compelling in this regard? Which of his successors, that is, justify him?