For Greater Understanding

1. What office did New York Urban center play in the shaping of Whitman'southward work?

two. What was notable nigh Whitman'southward verse form "The Sleepers"?

3. What was public reaction to "The Sleepers"? Did this affect Whitman's next edition of Leaves of Grass?

Suggested Reading

Whitman, Walt. Notebooks and Unpublished Prose Manuscripts. Sculley Bradley, Gay Due west. Allen, and Edward F. Grier (eds.). New York: New York University Printing, 1984.

Other Books of Involvement

Burrows, Edwin G. and Mike Wallace. Gotham: A History of New York Urban center to 1898. Durham, New York: Oxford University Printing, 2000.

Dunbar, David S. Empire Metropolis: New York Through the Centuries. New York: Columbia University Printing, 2002.

Whitman, Walt. Walt Whitman's New York. Henry Grand. Christman (ed.). New York: Ira R. Dee Publisher, 1989.

Commodity of Interest

Whelan, Carol Zapata. '"Do I Contradict Myself?' Progression through Contraries in Walt Whitman's The Sleepers,'" Watt Whitman Quarterly Review, Volume 10, 1992, pp. 25-39.

Sites to Visit

1. New York History Internet, a collection of internet resource on the urban center that fascinated Whitman — http://world wide web.nyhistory.com/

2. Homepage for the Museum of the City of New York — http://world wide web.mcny.org/

Lecture 5: Sex activity Is the Root of Information technology All

Before beginning this lecture y'all may desire to ...

Read Walt Whitman's "To a Mutual Prostitute," "The Calamus," and "Children of Adam."

"Sexual practice is the root of it all: sex—the coming together of men and women: sex: sexual activity."—Whitman to H Traubel

The American culture of Whitman's time was steeped in Victorian ideas. Sex was a taboo topic that didn't enter polite conversation. The word "underwear" wasn't used; these items were actually chosen "unmentionables." Piano legs were deemed too sensual to exist seen and were often covered. Even artillery and legs were called "limbs" or "branches."

However, simply as Americans today are full of contradictions, there was a dark underbelly to Whitman's America. From 1820 to 1865, the number of brothels in New York City tripled from 200 to more 600. Past 1865, prostitution was a S6.35-million business, second only to tailor shops in revenue. Prostitution, though frowned upon, was lucrative for the women involved. In the 1840s, women in standard jobs made ii to three dollars average per calendar week, just one could make 10 to fifty dollars turning a single trick.

Whitman neither wanted to be associated with the tight-lipped beliefs of the reformers or the raw obscenity that he saw in some types of American life. He tried to position himself betwixt these two extremes and glorify sex in a fresh and natural way.

Even and so, in a repressive environs, it is piece of cake to understand why vice squads banned poems like Whitman's "To a Common Prostitute."

Be composed—be at ease with me—I am Walt Whitman, liberal and brawny as Nature, Not till the sun excludes you, practice I exclude you, Not till the waters turn down to glisten for you, and the leaves to rustle for you, do my words refuse to glisten and rustle for yous.

My girl, I appoint with you an appointment—and I charge yous that y'all make preparation to be worthy to meet me, And I charge you that you lot be patient and perfect till I come. Till then, I salute you with a meaning look, that you do non forget me.

This was ane of the "banned poems" of 1881. His point with this verse form is quite clear; Whitman gave to these women, who were considered the lowest of the low in society, a new respect, and dignity. Whitman took smashing pride in his directness and in his own words, wrote in a periodical:

Avert all the 'intellectual subtleties' and 'withering doubts' and 'blasted hopes' and 'unrequited loves' and 'ennui' and 'wretchedness' and the whole lurid and artistical and melo-dramatic effects. Preserve perfect calmness and sanity ... in the best poems appears the human body, well-formed, natural, accepting itself, unaware of shame, loving that which is necessary to go far complete, proud of its strength, active, receptive, a begetter, a mother...

For Whitman sexuality is non just a muddy subject that gets talked virtually in dark corners but is something that is represented by potent, ordinary people similar mothers, fathers, and athletes.

Even so, even with this new openness in mind, there was a fine line to exist drawn that Whitman seems to cross at times. Consider "Spontaneous Me," otherwise known every bit "Agglomeration Poem," one of the poems "banned in Boston," every bit discussed in a later lecture.

The existent poems (what we call poems being just pictures), The poems of the privacy of the night, and of men like me, This poem, drooping shy and unseen, that I always acquit, and that all men carry (Know, once for all, avowed on purpose, wherever are men similar me, are our lusty, lurking, masculine poems), Love-thoughts, love-joice, dearest-smell, love-yielding, love-climbers, and the climbing sap, Arms and hands of honey—lips of beloved—phallic thumb of love—

breasts of dearest—bellies, pressed and glued together with love, World of chaste love—life that is only life after dear, The body of my beloved—the body of the woman I dear—

the body of the man—the torso of the earth ... (lines vii-14)

Notice phrases such as "phallic thumb of dearest," "dear-juice," and "love odor." Consider your own thoughts almost this poem and what impact information technology must have had on Whitman's own globe. Should at that place be a line and if so, where should information technology exist drawn?

In fact, sometimes Whitman himself would censor his own behavior. The first edition of Leaves of Grass in 1855 is the most raw, aggressive, and sexual of editions. As time went on Whitman himself decided to excise certain words and phrases, as can be seen in this instance:

"I hear the train'd soprano ... she convulses me like the climax of my love grip" from the original edition later became, "I hear the train'd soprano ... what work with hers is this?"

Even some of Whitman's biggest supporters came downwardly hard on his use of certain words and phases. Emerson in a famous 1860 substitution in Boston Commons about "The Children of Adam" serial, asked of Whitman after suggesting sure changes to the poem considering of its content, "What have you to say to such things?" Whitman replied," Just that while I can't answer them at all, I feel more settled than e'er to adhere to my own theory, and exemplify it." Even though Whitman would change some of his content, it is articulate from this that philosophically he felt very strongly about preserving the feelings within the poems.

At that place are other examples of censorship; Whitman'due south dominate at the Bureau of Indian Affairs in Washington, D.C. where he worked during the Civil War, fired him on June 30, 1865, after Secretary of the Interior James Harlan was told that Whitman's poems were "indecent." In add-on, Thoreau, who admired Whitman profoundly, was prompted to write to a friend with regards to some of the poems.

There are two or three passages in the book which are disagreeable, to say the to the lowest degree: merely sensual. He does not gloat love at all. Information technology is as if the beasts spoke. I recollect that men have not been aback of themselves without reason. No doubt there have always been dens where such deeds were unblushingly recited, and it is no merit to compete with their inhabitants ...

What Kind of Sex Life Did This Poet of Sexual practice Have?

In Thousand. Jimmie Killingsworth's book, Whitman'south Poetry of the Body, Sexuality, Politics, and the Text, he argues that Whitman is the "offset gay American"— that he "invented gayness" in literature. Remember, the give-and-take "homosexuality" did not announced until Havelock Ellis and John Addington Symonds coined it in their groundbreaking study, Sexual Inversion (1897).

In his poetry, Whitman suggests that he is heterosexual or sometimes bisexual, though arguably he writes that style to include women'southward points of view and to appeal to a universal audience. During his life though, sure patterns announced that suggest he was defensive about his sexual orientation and that he had experiences with women. When the English language critic John Symonds wrote to him with certain questions near the Calamus poems Whitman wrote back:

My life, immature manhood, mid-historic period, times South etc., have been jolly, bodily, and doubtless open to criticism. Though unmarried I have had half dozen children—two are dead, 1 living Southern grandchild, fine boy, writes to me occasionally—circumstances (continued with their fortune and do good) have separated me from intimate relations.

Research has been washed to verify these claims of progeny on Whitman's role, only to date no solid testify has surfaced to support these suggestions. We can't say though, that Whitman was fearful of existence known as a homosexual, information technology seems far more than probable that his business concern lay in not being narrowly categorized as a

Walt Whitman Fred Vaughn
Walt Whitman with Pete Doyle

homosexual writer, for he felt this would deny him the universal appeal that he believed so very important for a writer.

Far more distinct patterns in his life seem to illustrate quite soundly that he was indeed a homosexual. Effectually 1859 Whitman befriended a human named Fred Vaughn and from his writing from this menses it is quite evident that Whitman and Vaughn about probable had a very certain type of friendship Then in 1865, Whitman met Pete Doyle, a former Confederate soldier who became his close companion for many years, and, in essence, the beloved of his life. In fact, Whitman saw Pete into the 1880s, though their attachment started fizzling out in the mid-1870s. During the late 1850s through the early 1860s, Whitman wrote extensively in his notebooks near meeting dozens of men and his relationships with them.

Whether or not he had sex activity regularly, Whitman's life and poetry suggest he was a very concrete person and securely interested in the body and its functions. He was fascinated, for example, with the pseudoscience of phrenology (the concrete manifestation of spiritual and emotional weather). He also was interested in other experiments having to do with sexuality, such as the Free Honey movement that took root in America in the 1840s. Though he does non seem to have been directly involved, he certainly mingled with participants like Henry Clapp of the Pfaffs circle, who appears to have been active in the Brooklyn branch of the Commune of Gratuitous Love. Whitman was also very interested in anatomy and physiology. He was a fan of works such equally The Illustrated Family Gymnasium (1857), and with the euphemistically titled "Anatomy Museums."

Any his sexuality, he was clearly a sexual and concrete poet and no work represents this better than the 1860 edition of Leaves of Grass.

The Calamus and Children of Adam Clusters

The 1860 edition of Leaves of Grass is made upwardly of several poem groupings that Whitman termed "Clusters.'' The two clusters that are most interesting with regards to Whitman's sexuality are:

i. "The Calamus" (A Calamus is a reed-similar found with obvious phallic connotations, making this title advisable for the homosexual qualities of these poems.)

ii. "The Children of Adam" (As the title suggests, these clusters accept more to practice with procreative/heterosex-ual concerns.)

Whitman intended that these two collections be juxtaposed. The reasons he includes both these clusters together comes dorsum to his desire to appeal to as universal of an audience as possible. However, in that location is much more passion and feeling in the "Calamus" cluster than in the "Children of Eden" cluster. In add-on, the "Calamus" poems are arguably the strongest evidence to show that Whitman was indeed a homosexual.

If one compares the outset "Children of Adam" poem with the get-go "Calamus" poem, several important distinctions tin exist made. "Children of Adam 1" conspicuously shows Whitman every bit the universal man of poetry walking through the new Eden of America with Eve both in front and behind him, suggesting that they are all on an equal basis. The poem has an accent on the procreative capacity of human being and woman and shows Whitman'south ideas nearly heterosexual-ity and its utilitarian capacities and the beauty of those possibilities. If you compare these with "Calamus 1," which emphasizes homoeroticism and male person upon male person friendship, the distinction becomes very clear. The poem uses words like "undercover" and "demand" and has a much more personal and daring feel to it. You see Whitman talking for the first time to a selective group, fifty-fifty mentioning "immature men" and "comrades." This poem heralds the showtime of a collection that dives to a deeper space within Whitman's world. As you read on in the "Calamus"IJ series the personal passion of Whitman becomes stronger and more direct and highlights straight his deep behavior and feelings.

Following chronologically from these poems, we find Whitman traveling to the Civil War front in 1862. In the next lecture, Whitman's involvement and connection with Ceremonious State of war verse will be discussed.

Acorus calamus

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Acorus calamus

Robert H. MohUOUOCh Q USOA-NRCS PLANTS Database uSOA NRCS 1999 Northeast A-rr.ir.: tlcra Fietd ortet guNJo to plant spec«« Northeast Nauonel Technic« Center Chester PA

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