America’s Emissary: Walt Whitman

I’ve never formally studied Walt Whitman’s poetry, despite a graduate degree in English. That’s because I made Victorian Literature my major interest, with modern American and British Literature secondary. Still, I’ve read his landmark Leaves of Grass many times, America’s psalmody in its pioneering free verse; in its robustness, an encomium of America were it doing more than lip service to the American dream.

It says much about Whitman, out-of-joint with his generation much like contemporary Emily Dickinson, uncomfortable with the cultural shibboleths of middle class Amherst. Perhaps influenced by his father’s radical views on politics and religion, Whitman emerges an essential element of America’s constant of progressive rebellion, resistant to mercenary interests that gave us slavery, wealth inequality, desecration of nature, racial injustice, and imperialism.

If you’re looking for a summation of Leaves of Grass, nothing excels his “Credo” in the poem’s Preface. Conscious of America’s failure to live up to its promise, “Credo” exemplifies its gulf and champions its realization:

“This is what you shall do; Love the earth and sun and the animals, despise riches, give alms to everyone that asks, stand up for the stupid and crazy, devote your income and labor to others, hate tyrants, argue not concerning God, have patience and indulgence toward the people, take off your hat to nothing known or unknown or to any man or number of men, go freely with powerful uneducated persons and with the young and with the mothers of families, read these leaves in the open air every season of every year of your life, re-examine all you have been told at school or church or in any book, dismiss whatever insults your own soul, and your very flesh shall be a great poem and have the richest fluency not only in its words but in the silent lines of its lips and face and between the lashes of your eyes and in every motion and joint of your body.”

—rj

Author: RJ

Retired English prof (Ph. D., UNC), who likes to garden, blog, pursue languages (especially Spanish) and to share in serious discussion on vital issues such as global warming, the role of government, energy alternatives, etc. Am a vegan and, yes, a tree hugger enthusiastically. If you write me, I'll answer. View all posts by RJ