Walt Whitman Quarterly Review

Reads the 1855 version of "Song of Myself" in relation to "Whitman's manipulation" of the Virgilian "epic voice," arguing that Whitman both imitates and overturns epic conventions--"destabilize

Hardwig, Bill

English

Walt Whitman and the Epic Tradition: Political and Poetical Voices in "Song of Myself"

Introduces the special double issue of Walt Whitman Quarterly Review containing newly discovered Whitman materials

Folsom, Ed

Introduction: Discoveries, A Special Double Issue

Back Matter, Walt Whitman Quarterly Review, vol. 17, no. 3

McElroy, John Harmon, ed., The Sacrificial Years: A Chronicle of Walt Whitman's Experiences in the Civil War [review]

Identifies and prints an essay about Whitman for children, written by Charlotte French, and a poetic tribute to Whitman, written by Coates Kinney

Myerson, Joel

TWO UNRECORDED NOTICES OF 
WHITMAN IN 1888 
JOEL MYERSON 
MOST NOTICES OF Whitman that supplement the standard bibliographies 
of him by Scott Giantvalley and Donald Kummings have either been 
contemporary reviews of his works or parodies of his poetry.l The items 
reprinted below, both published in 1888, are different: one is 'a favor-
able poetic statement about Whitman, the other a positive biography of 
him for young readers. 
Writing in Treasure Trove: An Illustrated Magazine, Charlotte French 
continues. for young readers the tradition · of "The Good Gray Poet."2 
Concentrating on Whitman's Civil War years (and drawing heavily upon 
Richard Maurice Bucke's 1883 biography of Whitman) , French, like so 
many anthologists during this time,3 deals with a period of his life and 
his actions (called "patriotic") that struck a positive response with the 
post-war generation. The issue even contains a reprinting of "As Toil-
some I Wander'd Virginia's Woods," which had first appeared in Drum-
Taps (1865). French is quite fair to Whitman, balancing the negative 
critics (who said his verses were "bad, nonsensical, and conceited") and 
the positive ones (who called them "very grand and beautiful"), con-
cluding rather sensibly that whatever Whitman has "written since has 
only continued each side in its own opinion." Nevertheless, French notes 
that while he "prides himself on being the poet of the common people," 
the "conunon people do not understand his poems and never read them." 
Still, this is in many ways the standard boy-to-man sketch of the juve-
nile magazines, and a surprising entry for them of someone who was 
banned in Boston. 
In writing "A Parable for Walt Whitman," Coates Kinney presents 
a rare poetic tribute to his fellow poet.4 Kinney (1826-1904), called the 
"Poet Laureate of Ohio," equates Whitman with Vesuvius and Pompeii, 
in that, like them, his current "spontaneous gush" will be "preserved 
... for ages." Kinney's support of Whitman is not surPrising: in an 
1856 article on "Poetry and Poets," after quoting Emerson favorably, 
he defines poetry as "the great, beautiful making of the universe, matter 
and mind, the more of which we understand within ourselves the more 
85 
are we poets," and notes that "there may be thoughts and language so 
illustrious as to seem lowered by rhyme."5 
University ,oj South Carolina 
THE GOOD GRAY POET 
Charlotte French 
"Starting from fish-shape Paumanokwhere I was born, 
Well begotten and raised by a perfect mother." 
It takes some previous acquaintance with Walt Whitman, to understand 
that he means he was born on Long Island. Its Indian name was Paumanok, 
and if you look at the Island on the map you will see that it certainly is "fish-
shaped." Whitman belongs to a good family, and his mother was a beautiful 
woman, the idol of her children. 
His early home was called West Hills, and his poems are so full of the 
impressions made on him there, though he was very young when he left it, that 
a great admirer of his said, "No one can ever really get at Whitman's poems, 
and their finest lights and shades, until he has visited and familiarized himself 
with the freshness, scope, wilderness, and sea-beauty' of this rugged island."6 
Walt'-s growth was much like that of other boys, except perhaps that being 
one of a large family he had to work harder than most boys do. He went through 
the Brooklyn public school, learned to set up type in a printing-house, taught 
school himself, wrote for magazines, and newspapers, and finally edited one of 
the latter, all before he was twenty. 
Then he decided to live in New York, or as he expresses it, become a 
"Dweller in Mannahatta, city of ships, my city." 
He says he was "a lover of populous pavements." He enjoyed the crowds, 
he mingled freely with the very poor, and tried to learn their way of living and 
thinking, and they loved and trusted him. He would ride back and forth on the 
ferry-boats for the pleasure of watching the passengers, and he enjoyed above 
all things a trip down Broadway on top of an omnibus. 
He was fond of talking about himself in his poems. In one place he says he 
was "Fond of Brooklyn, fond of Broadway, fond of the life of the wharves and 
great ferries." In the same poem he describes his personal appearance: 
"Ample-limbed, a good feeder, weight a hundred and eighty pounds; 
Full-blooded, six feet high, forty inches round the breast and back; 
Countenance sunburnt, bearded, calm, unrefined; , -
Reminder of animals, meeter of savage and gentleman on equal tenns; 
Attitudes lithe and erect, costume free, neck gray and open." 
He was indeed a handsome man and grew gray very early in life. He was 
always scrupulously neat, but even when dressed for company no one could 
induce him to wear a neck-tie, and his turned-down collar and low-buttoned 
86 
shirt looked strangely out of place among men in ordinary costume. 
He had wonderful keenness of hearing and scent. He even thought he 
could hear wheat grow and smell the different kinds of snow. 
All the time he was working and enjoying himself in his own peculiar way 
in New York, he was slowly composing the poems he would afterwards publish 
in the little book called "Leaves of Grass." When he wanted to be entirely 
alone he would go off to Coney Island, then a desolate, uninhabited spot that 
nobody else ever visited. 
When "Leaves of Grass" was published, people paid little attention to it, 
until Emerson, always generous, wrote him a letter of praise which he pub-
lished. Then everybody thought they must read the poems of which the Con-
cord philosopher thought so highly, and soon a perfect storm arose on the 
subject. 
Some critics said they were bad, nonsensical, and 'conceited, and the news-
papers made all manner of fun at them. A few others, and those mostly poets 
themselves, said they were very grand and beautiful, and that Walt Whitman 
was the greatest poet in America, perhaps in all the world. Above all things they 
praised him for being patriotic and original, and this he certainly is. 
Whatever he has written since has only confirmed each side in its own 
opinion. Whether the question will ever be settled or not is doubtful. 
He prides himself on being the poet of the common people, but unfortu-
nately the common people do not understand his poems and never read them. 
He was devoted to children and they were always ready to go to him. 
Once when he was invited to meet some prominent people who wished to do 
honor to the new poet, soon as the introductions were over, he sidled off to a 
comer of the room where there was a group of young children, with whom he 
talked and laughed and played, evidently to their mutual satisfaction. "Our 
company, who had come from a distance to see Mr. Whitman, and did not 
expect another opportunity, were quite annoyed, and my mother was fmally 
commissioned to get him out of his comer. When she told her errand he looked 
up with the utmost merriment, and said, '0, yes, I'll do it, where do you want 
me to sit? On the piano?' He went forward very good nature dIy, however, but 
I knew that his happy time for the evening was over."7 
When he got tired of "Mannahatta," he wandered over the West and South 
earning money by teaching or writing, when he needed it, and making friends 
with the working people wherever he went. 
He was bitterly opposed to slavery, and wrote poems about the war, but 
they did not stir the nation as. Lowell's and Whittier's did. In another way, 
however, he accomplished a noble work for the North. 
His brother George was struck in the face by a shell at the first battle of 
Fredericksburg, and Walt started for the front to nurse the wounded soldier, as 
soon as he heard the dreadful news. George soon got well, but there were many 
others who needed his tender and sympathetic nursing, and for three years he 
remained in the hospitals either at Washington or at the seat of war, devoting 
himself to the suffering. 
"The hurt and the wounded I pacify with soothing hand, 
I sit by the restless all the dark night, some are so young, 
87 
Some suffer so much-I recall the experience sweet and sad. 
Many a soldier's loving arms around this neck have crossed and rested, 
Many a soldier's kiss dwells on these bearded lips." 
He would take no pay for his services, but lived by writing war articles and 
hospital sketches for New York papers, spending all he could save on his suf-
fering charges. There are many interesting accounts of his life at this time. One 
writer describes a visit to the hospital with him: 
"There were three rows of cots, and each cot bore its man. When he appeared, in 
passing along, there was a smile of affection and welcome on every face, however wan, 
and his presence seemed to light up the place as it might be lit by the presence of the 
Son of Love. 
"From cot to cot they called him, often in tremulous tones or in whispers; they em-
braced him, they touched his hand, they gazed at him. To one he gave a few words of 
cheer, for another he wrote a letter home, to others he gave an orange, a few comfits, a 
cigar, a pipe and tobacco, a sheet of paper or a postage stamp, all of which and many 
other things were in his capacious haversack. From another he would receive a dying 
message for mother, wife or sweetheart; for another he would promise to go an errand; 
to another, some special friend, very low, he would give a manly farewell kiss. He did 
the things for them which no nurse or doctor could do, and he seemed to leave a bene-
diction at every cot as he passed along. The lights had gleamed for hours in the hospital 
that night before he left it, and as he took his way towards the door, you could hear the 
voice of many a stricken hero calling, 'Walt, Walt, Walt, come again! come again!"8 
As a contrast to this, another writer tells how he lived by himself in those 
trying days. 
"He occupied a little room in the third or fourth story of a house where he could get the 
cheapest rent. He was just eating his breakfast; it was about ten A. M.; he sat beside the 
fire, toasting a slice of bread on a jack-knife, with a cup oftea without milk; a little sugar 
in a brown paper, and butter in some more brown paper. He was using all his means, 
and time, and energies for the sick and wounded in the hospitals."9 
At last even his splendid constitution gave way under such a strain, and he 
had a severe fit of illness. When the war was over he received a government 
appointment, but was immediately discharged by the Secretary of the Interior, 
who disapproved of his writings. 
He received another appointment, however, which he held until a stroke 
of paralysis made him incapable of work. He is still living and is said to be very 
poor, but he is very proud, too, and hates to take help even from his best 
friends. 
A PARABLE FOR WALT WHITMAN 
OLD Vesuvius, calmly possessing its forces primeval, 
Keeping them pent in its bosom as far, dim dreams of the passions 
Which in its youth it had vented in red molten outbursts of thunder, 
Held its form and stood serene through ages and ages. 
88 
Men had forgotten its ravages. Villages clustered about it. 
Peasantry climbed it with vineyards. The opulence, luxury, pleasure, 
Learning of dissolute Italy lolled in the charm of its outskirts. 
Spartacus banded his gladiatorial athletes for freedom 
Once in the top of it-safe in its great, broad cup, which was empty 
Then, long then, of the wine of its wrath, wherewithal it had staggered 
When, through its mad young years, in carouse with its comrades Titanic, 
Ischia, Barbaro, Somma, Arsoni, and Solfatara. 1o 
Mediterranean winds blew balm through its orchards and gardens. 
West, and north, and east it swung, from sunrise to sunset, 
Slowly about from its shoulders its long, wide mantle of shadow, 
Shielding the men at their toil on the slopes and the birds at their singing. 
Far to the folk coming in on the ships it appeared a great pillar, 
Steadfast prop of blue roof of sky over blue floor of water, 
While, aland, it showed itself bulked on the world's gravitation, 
Fixed of form and poised serene through ages and ages. 
Suddenly then, with a bellowing frenzy, it panted out darkness 
Over itself and the land and the sea; as a priest gone apostate, 
Tore off its mitre and hurled it (renouncing the faith with blaspheming) 
Down on the worshippers; growing in rage, drew a dagger of lightning, 
Brandished, and slashed all its veins and bled hell-fire. And the people, 
Seeing sublimity gloom into horror, and day into midnight-
Majesty topple from cosmical forms into rubbishy ruin-
Rocks fly as meteors, chaos ejaculate flame, and with thunder 
Sputter plutonian ashes and scoriac cinders-the people 
Fled from the mountain, abandoning castle, and farmhouse, and villa, 
Stumbling their perilous ways through the roar, and the stench, and the blackness 
Out to the sun on the plain of Campania. Multitudes perished, 
Whelmed by the fire-flakes that fell from the clouds of the smoke like a snowing. 
Civilization forgot them for centuries. Stricken Pompeii, 
Borne down under the deluge infernal, and smothered and buried, 
Sank out of memory, lost, and no more was it known where its grave was. 
Now, after hundreds and hundreds of years, is unearthed the dead city. 
Matter that once flew as flame in the heavens and startled an empire, 
Dig it up, shovel it, cart it away, it is dirt and obstruction, 
Hiding the relics of man and the rare forms of art he has fashioned. 
Here in the marl is the mold of an old Roman sentinel's body, 
Now more than eighteen centuries dead at the post of his duty. 
Here is the exquisite ring of a bride whose love is immortal. 
Here is the beautiful dwelling of Sallust. Here theatre, forum, 
Where Rome's language, whose ghost, from the Church, still haunteth the nations, 
Lived on the stage and the rostrum-in greeting of neighbor to neighbor-
Shouted the plays of the school children here in the streets. And the temples, 
Here they stand in the full broad day of the worship of Jesus, 
Shockingly waked from their obsolete gods as from dreams in a nightmare. 
What the spontaneous gush from yon old and familiar volcano, 
Violent, formless, beside these reminders of man and his labors? 
Yet the volcano had covered all these and preserved them for ages. 
COATES KINNEY 
89 
NOTES 
See Scott Giantvalley, Walt Whitman~ 1838-1939: A Reference Guide (Boston: G. 
K. Hall, 1981), and Donald D. Kummings, Walt Whitman~ 1940-1975: A Reference 
Guide (Boston: G. K. Hall, 1982). 
2 French, "The Good Gray Poet," Treasure Trove: An Illustrated Magazine 11 (May 
1888),282-283; "As Toilsome I Wander'd Virginia's Woods" appears on 275. I have 
silently corrected typographical and spelling errors in both items. 
3 See Ed Folsom, '''Affording the Rising Generation an Adequate Notion': Walt 
Whitman in Nineteenth-Century Textbooks, Handbooks, and Anthologies," Studies 
in the American Renaissance 1991, ed. Joel Myerson (Charlottesville: University Press 
of Virginia, 1991),345-374, for an extended discussion of why Whitman's Civil War 
verse was so attractive to anthologists and critics. 
4 Kinney, "A Parable for Walt Whitman," Belford's Magazine, 1 (August 1888), 
372-373. 
5 Kinney, "Poetry and Poets," Ladies' Repository, 16 (March 1856), 170-174. 
6 William Douglas O'Connor, quoted in Richard Maurice Bucke, Walt Whitman 
(Philadelphia: David McKay, 1883), 18. 
7 Helen M. Price, quoted in Bucke, 97. 
8 John Swinton (quoted from the April 1, 1876, New York Herald) in Bucke, 36. 
9 Quoted from a letter "by a lady addressed to the present writer" in Bucke, 38. 
10 Mountains, cities, or geographical areas near Pompeii. 
90 


Two Unrecorded Notices of Whitman in 1888

Points out that Whitman appears in Camden directories, along with others living in his house

Edge, Donald

WHITMAN IN CAMDEN CITY DIRECTORIES, 
1877-1892 
DONALD EDGE 
WALT WHITMAN APPEARS in Camden City, New Jersey, directories from 
1877 until his death in his Mickle Street home in 1892. His name ap-
pears on page 713 of Howe's Camden City Directory, Containing the Names 
of the Inhabitants of Camden City, 1891-1892, where the alphabetical entry 
reads: 
Whitman, Walt, poet, h[ouse]. 328 Mickle 
This entry is the same in the directories printed by Howe starting in 
1883. The 1891-1892 directory also contains separate listings for: 
Davis, Mary 0 wid[ow] Levin T h[ouse] 328 Mickle 
Fritzinger Frank, mariner, h[ouse] 328 Mickle 
The directory for 1889-1890 does not contain a Mary 0 Davis, but it 
does list: 
Fritzinger, Frank, foreman, h 328 Mickle 
Fritzinger, Harry M, laborer, h 328 Mickle 
In previous directories, by Chew, some details of Whitman's life emerge. 
He first appears in the city directory in 1877-1878, listed as a boarder at 
his brother George's house: 
Whitman, Walter b[oar]ds 431 Stevens 
The next year, in the directory for 1878-79, he is identified as the poet 
Walt Whitman: 
Whitman, Walt, poet, 431 Stevens st. 
In 1881-82 he is again "Walter"-
Whitman, Walter, poet, 431 Stevens st. 
91 
And in 1882 he is again identified as a boarder: 
Whitman, Walter, poet, bds 431 Stevens st. 
The directories yield names and details about Whitman's neigh-
bors, as well as the whereabouts and occupations of others close to 
Whitman-his brother George, for example. The directories list citi-
zens by alphabetical occupation ("poet" is not among them), and they 
list fraternal organizations, including officers and members. A fruitful 
source for Whitman scholars, the directories are to be found in the li-
brary of the Camden County Historical Society at Park Boulevard and 
Euclid Avenue in the Parkside neighborhood of Camden, New Jersey. 
The Library does not permit photocopying of the original directories, 
but -they are available on the library's microfiche. 
Cherry Hill, New Jersey 
92 


Whitman in Camden City Directories, 1877-1892

Announcements, Winter 2000

Gathers and annotates all the Whitman letters discovered since the publication of Edwin Haviland Miller's "Second Supplement" in WWQR (Winter/Spring 1991), and includes an update on recently discovered letters to Whitman

Genoways, Ted

The Correspondence of Walt Whitman: A Third Supplement with Addenda to the Calendar of Letters Written to Whitman

Identifies an image in "Passage to India" indebted to Lucretius and describes the more general Lucretian influence on the poem, finding Whitman's attitudes toward Lucretius mixed

Jacobson, Howard

NOTES 
"PASSAGE TO INDIA": WHITMAN AND LUCRETIUS 
Shortly after the opening of his "Passage to India," Whitman launches a de-
scription of the infinity of time, a description notable for its vivid spatial imag-
ery: "The Past-the dark unfathom'd retrospect! / The teeming gulf-the sleep-
ers and the shadows! / The past-the infinite greatness of the past! / For what 
is the present after all but a growth out of the past?" (10-13) 
Whitman then introduces a curious parenthesis: "As a projectile form'd, 
impell'd, passing a certain line, still keeps on, / So the present, utterly form'd, 
impell'd by the past" (14-15). A puzzling statement, indeed. A simile that 
would appear to defeat rather than enhance the point. Time is the eternal 
passage from past into present. It proceeds uninterruptedly like a' projectile 
that is hurled and "still keeps on." But what projectile "still keeps on"? What 
thrown object can be analogous to the infinite passage of time? 
The answer lies in the reader's recognition of Whitman's allusion here. In 
another famous text dealing with infinity-the infinity of matter and void-
Lucretius represents a man at the edge of the world hurling a missile into the 
void, in which-if indeed the void, like matter, is infinite-it will go hurtling 
on forever: "If a man ran forward to the farthest edge <of the world> and cast 
a flying missile ... it would go whither it had been sent and fly on afar ... it 
proceeds far off" (De Rerum Natura 1:969-979). Whitman's reader will recog-
nize that Lucretius's projectile, thrown into the infinite void, will go on for-
ever and so is a perfect analogy for Whitman's course of infinite time that itself 
"still keeps on."1 In a poem of cosmic purport, "it is no surprise to hear Whit-
man echoing Lucretius, antiquity's greatest poet of the cosmos, and one highly 
regarded by Whitman, who speaks of "all the great imported art-works, trea-
tises, systems, from Lucretius down."2 . 
Indeed, the relationship of "Passage" to Lucretius's great poem is probably 
more extensive and deeper than this single allusion. In a very real and power-
ful sense, "Passage" falls into the tradition of works that are Lucretian in style 
and substance, yet fundamentally "Anti-Lucretius."3 Early on Whitman writes, 
"Ec1aircise the myths Asiatic, the primitive fables" (17). Lucretius of course is 
the paradigmatic opponent of fables and myths. Whitman continues, "Not 
you alone proud truths of the world, / Nor you alone ye facts of modern sci-
ence, / But myths and fables of eld, Asia's, Africa's fables, / The far-darting 
beams of the spirit, ' the unloos'd dreams, / The deep diving bibles and leg-
ends, / The daring plots of the poets, the elder religions" (18-23). This senti-
ment is diametrically opposed to Lucretius's view that reason, truth, and sci-
ence will in fact drive out the base coin of fables, dreams, legends, and reli-
gion. The very language ("the unloos'd dreams ... the daring plots of the 
poets, the elder religions") will make us recall Lucretius's tirade at the open-
ing of his treatise, tantum religio potuit suadere malorum. / ... vatum / terriloquis 
121 
· .. dictis ... / multa ... somnia . .. / religionibus atque minis ... vatum (1 : lOl-
109). The mention of "temples fairer than lilies" and "fables mounting to 
heaven" (23-24) counters Lucretius's scorn of both temples (e.g. 5:74-75, 
6:417-418,6:1272-1273) and fables. In all progress, Whitman can see "God's 
purpose from the first" (31). Lucretius knows that quaeque fiant opera sine 
divom, that all things come about without the role of deity (1:158). 
Lucretius believes that all can be discovered and explained by the applica-
tion of human reason (e.g. 1: 143-148). But in the workings of the world Whit-
man sees an "inscrutable purpose, some hidden prophetic intention" (86). 
Whitman's words here seem a response to a passage in Lucretius: "Alternate 
light and day and the teeming spiritual darkness, / Unspeakable high proces-
sions of sun and moon and countless stars above, / ... With inscrutable pur-
pose, some hidden prophetic intention, / Now first it seems my thought begins 
to span thee" (83-87). Lucretius had written of the ordered procession of the 
heavens, the sun, the moon, the stars, the ordered alternation of day and night 
arid the seasons, and saw man's inability to explain the natural order as the 
source of human anxiety and unhappiness (5:1183-1193). But for Whitman 
this is indeed the beginning of wisdom. 
One can sense in Whitman's remarks about Lucretius and a contra-Lucretius 
in his Democratic Vistas a presentiment of what he himself would do in "Pas-
sage," namely to take root from Lucretius but produce a very different plant: 
"What the Roman Lucretius sought most nobly, yet all too blindly, negatively 
to do for his age and its successors, must be done positively by some great 
coming literatus, especially poet, who, while remaining fully poet, will absorb 
whatever science indicates, with spiritualism, and out of them, and out of his 
own genius, will compose the great poem of death. Then will man indeed 
confront Nature, and confront time and space, both with science, and con 
amore, and take his right place, prepared for life, master of fortune and misfor-
tune. And then that which was long wanted will be supplied, and the ship that 
had it not before in all her voyages, will have an anchor" (PW2:421). 
Knowledge, Lucretius felt, would lead a man away from belief in religion. 
The view of "Passage," in the words of S. K. Coffman, Jr., is that "knowledge 
leads inevitably to faith."4 There we have it: Lucretius and Anti-Lucretius, 
Whitman no less than Cardinal Polignac.5 
University of Illinois, Urbana HOWARD JACOBSON 
NOTES 
1 Whitman's "passing a certain line" probably reflects Lucretius's reference to re-
peated hypothetical "ends" of the universe (1:969-970, 980-981). 
2 Prose Works 1892, ed. Floyd Stovall (New York: New York University Press, 1964), 
2:485. Hereafter cited parenthetically as PW. Some believe that Leaves of Grass was 
broadly influenced by Lucretius. For example, see Frederik Schyberg, Walt Whitman 
(New York: Columbia University Press, 1951), 253. 
3 For example, the works of Scipione Capece and Aonio Paleario (both sixteenth 
century) and, most notably, that of Cardinal Polignac (eighteenth century). 
122 
4 S. K. Coffman, Jr., "Form and Meaning in Whitman's 'Passage to India'" PMLA 
70 (1955), 338. 
5 There are, I suspect, other instances ofLucretian "presence" in "Passage." Thus, 
the repeated invocations of the soul must be counterpoint to Lucretius's emphatic 
notion of the soul as just another collection of atoms. The description of the earth as 
"swimming in space" (81) may owe something to Lucretius's description of the earth 
as "hanging in space" (in spatio pendere: 2:602-603). The "voiceless earth" (110) is 
Lucretius's "silent" mother-earth (2:625: muta). The metaphorical description of "the 
true son of God, the poet, / (He shall indeed pass the straits and conquer the moun-
tains" (111-112) recalls Lucretius's portrait of his nearly deified hero, Epicurus, who 
is metaphorically both traveller and conqueror (1 :72-74). 
123 


"Passage to India": Whitman and Lucretius

Front Matter, Walt Whitman Quarterly Review, vol. 17, no. 1/2

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