Leaves of Grass by Walt Whitman

One of the Back to the Classics challenge prompts was to read a classic that you started in the past, but ended up abandoning. It's very rare for me to leave a book unfinished, so I had to go all the way back to my college days for a novel that fit this category. In my American literature class, the professor assigned Walt Whitman's classic collection of poetry, Leaves of Grass. I read a bit of it, but then the book ended up being cut when we ran out of time in the semester. Poetry has never been my genre, so I was pretty relieved when that happened and immediately stopped reading it. I always meant to get back to it one day though, as it's one of those seminal American works that I feel like I have to experience. As such, I added this novel to my Classics Club list too. This seemed like a good opportunity to finally give it another try and be able to cross this collection off both challenges.

Walt Whitman first published Leaves of Grass in 1855, and expanded on and republished it over the course of his lifetime. The final version is nearly 500 pages worth of poems written over the course of forty years. I knew from the start of my reading that I was going to have a terrible time if I tried to read it straight through, so I took a slower approach. I started my journey in March, and made my way through the work in bits and pieces in between all the other books I was reading. 

Now that I've finally finished it, I'm not quite sure how to review it. It's a collection of poems written at different points throughout a man's life. I am certainly not enough of an expert on poetry to remark on the quality of the poems or reflect properly on their deeper meaning. Frankly, there were a good chunk of them that I didn't even understand. There were, however, parts of Leaves of Grass that I really liked too. So, since this was a very different reading experience for me, I decided to write this blog post differently. I decided to make a list.

Things I Noticed While Reading Leaves of Grass

1. Walt Whitman loves listing things.

While the poems in Leaves of Grass are about various topics, the structure of many of them are remarkably similar: lists. I don't mean that as a criticism; no one can write a list like Whitman can. It's just a noticeable technique he repeats. A lot. The most famous example of this is probably, "I Hear America Singing," which you probably had to read in school at some point:

I hear America singing, the varied carols I hear,

Those of mechanics, each one singing his as it should be blithe and strong,

The carpenter singing his as he measures his plank or beam,

The mason singing his as he makes ready for work, or leaves off work,

The boatman singing what belongs to him in his boat, the deckhand singing on the steamboat deck,

The shoemaker singing as he sits on his bench, the hatter singing as he stands,

The wood-cutter’s song, the ploughboy’s on his way in the morning, or at noon intermission or at sundown,

The delicious singing of the mother, or of the young wife at work, or of the girl sewing or washing,

Each singing what belongs to him or her and to none else,

The day what belongs to the day—at night the party of young fellows, robust, friendly,

Singing with open mouths their strong melodious songs.

2. Parts of this are absolutely filthy.

I knew going into this work that parts of it were scandalous. Whitman was actually fired from his job at the Department of the Interior when it was first published. I was expecting the objectionable content to be that soft, old-fashioned kind of spicy that is barely detectable by today's standards. Whoa boy, this was not the case. Whitman "sings of the phallus" in his poems. In "I Sing the Body Electric," he talks about his "love-flesh swelling and deliciously aching" and his "limitless limpid jets of love, hot and enormous." This type of content appeared in quite a few poems towards the beginning of the collection. He clearly embraced his sexual side and viewed lovemaking as a transcendent experience, as something that should be celebrated. It was pretty awesome. 

3. Whitman is extremely patriotic.

Many of Whitman's poems are written in celebration of America, and this theme persists throughout most of the sections of the collection. It's clear that he fully believed in the American Dream and loved all the different types of people living and working around him to make the country successful. There are several poems appreciating the natural beauty of different regions (often presented in the form of a list!) and several more poems expressing endless optimism towards the freedom and liberty that characterizes the land. Curiously, he doesn't really comment on the slavery that also characterized the land at this time, which denied freedom and liberty to thousands. I couldn't help but feel that this was a weird omission, and that his view of the world was very privileged, naive, ignorant, or maybe a combination of all three. I wish he would have written more about it. It would be interesting to know his thoughts.

4. The Civil War left a huge impression on Whitman.

 Once the Civil War kicks off, Whitman's poems take a dark turn. Where before there was an explosion of freedom, happiness, and "limitless, limpid jets of love," there now appears soldiers, battles, and death. While Whitman wasn't a soldier in the conflict himself, his brother George was, and he once took a journey across several battle-scarred regions when he believed George might have been gravely injured. What he saw profoundly affected him and served as the inspiration for several poems encouraging the Union soldiers and describing the horrors of war. These were dark and not the most enjoyable to read, but they were interesting in a historical sense. Again, I couldn't help but notice a lack of references to slavery. When Whitman supports the North and celebrates their victories, it is because he is relieved the states are once again united. He doesn't really comment on his feelings about slavery being over.

5. Whitman sure did love Abraham Lincoln.

This goes along with the previous point. Lincoln saved the United States that Whitman so loved, so he was naturally quite devastated when he was assassinated.This is where "O Captain, My Captain" and "When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom'd" live, after all.

6. The poems follow a clear arc from youth to old age.

If you read Leaves of Grass in order, there is definitely a sense of time passing. In the beginning sections of the collection, when Whitman was younger, the poems focus on freedom, sex, and joy. As he gets older, the poems shift to more serious topics, including war and politics. At the end of the collection, the poems begin to talk about death and what might come after. This makes work feel epic in scale. It's truly a grand achievement in poetry.

7. It's better to read this slowly, rather than all at once. 

This might not be true for super-poetry fans, but for me, this collection was way too long to read straight through. While I liked a lot of it and appreciated its scope and creativity, reading poem after poem made them all start to blend together in my mind. It was a much better approach to read smaller sections over time, and give myself breathing space to appreciate and think about the work before moving forward with it.

8. My favorite poem in the collection, and maybe of all time, is "Song of Myself" Verse 52.

The spotted hawk swoops by and accuses me, he complains of my gab and my loitering.

I too am not a bit tamed, I too am untranslatable,

I sound my barbaric yawp over the roofs of the world.

The last scud of day holds back for me,

It flings my likeness after the rest and true as any on the shadow'd wilds,

It coaxes me to the vapor and the dusk.

I depart as air, I shake my white locks at the runaway sun,

I effuse my flesh in eddies, and drift it in lacy jags.

I bequeath myself to the dirt to grow from the grass I love,

If you want me again look for me under your boot-soles.

You will hardly know who I am or what I mean,

But I shall be good health to you nevertheless,

And filter and fibre your blood.

Failing to fetch me at first keep encouraged,

Missing me one place search another,

I stop somewhere waiting for you.

"When I Heard the Learn’d Astronomer" and "Orange Buds by Mail from Florida" get honorable mentions too. 

So ultimately, Leaves of Grass was a challenging and different kind of read. Poetry still isn't my preferred genre, but it wasn't as tough to make my way through this as I was anticipating. A lot of it was deep and beautiful. I'm glad to have gone back and experienced it. It's an important work and I feel like my knowledge of American classics would be incomplete without it. 

 

Challenge Tally
Back to the Classics 2020 (An Abandoned Classic): 11/12

Classics Club (#66 on my list): 76/100 books completed

Total Books Read in 2020: 62