LITR 4232 American Renaissance UHCL 2008 Text-Objective Presentation

“There Was a Child that Went Forth” and “Song of Myself”

By Walt Whitman

Objective 2- To study the movement of Romanticism and the genre of Romance. (And how Walt Whitman turned it on its ear and amazed everyone.)

The Author

Walt Whitman- May 31, 1819- March 26, 1892

Walter Whitman was born on May 31, 1819, in Long Island, to parents Walter and Louisa Whitman. He was the second of nine children. Walter Whitman Sr. named three of his seven sons after American leaders: Andrew Jackson, George Washington, and Thomas Jefferson. At age four, Whitman moved with his family from West Hills to Brooklyn. At age eleven Whitman concluded formal schooling. He worked for various newspapers, moving several times between Brooklyn, Manhattan, and Long Island. He also tried his hand at teaching. As early as 1850, he began writing what would become Leaves of Grass. A total of 795 copies were printed,though the author's name was not given. The book received its strongest praise from Ralph Waldo Emerson, who wrote a flattering five page letter to Whitman and spoke highly of the book to friends. Geologist John Peter Lesley wrote to Emerson, calling the book "trashy, profane & obscene" and the author "a pretentious ass". “O Captain! My Captain!”, written in 1865 was the only poem to be anthologized during Whitman’s lifetime. After years of declining health and a move to Camden, NJ, Whitman died on March 26, 1892. A public viewing of his body was held at his Camden home; over one thousand people visited in three hoursand Whitman's oak coffin was barely visible because of all the flowers and wreaths left for him. (This bio is an interfuse of Wikipedian knowledge and my skillful editing hand.)

Famed literary critic Harold Bloom said, “If you are an American, Walt Whitman is your imaginative father and mother, even if, like me, you have never composed a line of verse.”

I like Whitman for his mastery of language… the way he can put together words is unlike any other.

“O the orator's joys!
To inflate the chest, to roll the thunder of the voice out from the
ribs and throat,
To make the people rage, weep, hate, desire, with yourself,
To lead America--to quell America with a great tongue.”

A Song of Joys, Leaves of Grass

Introduction:

Walt Whitman not only used free verse in a beautiful way, he invented free verse. That’s like creating paint and then painting the Mona Lisa. “There Was a Child that Went Forth” is a nice opening to studying Whitman—it’s Whitman at his simplest, and it’s a poem that you can—but don’t have to—read too deeply into. When you are reading this poem, be thinking about who the narrator is. Also think about how this poem, written in the 1850’s, still speaks to us today.

“There Was a Child that Went Forth”

There was a child went forth every day,

And the first object he look'd upon, that object he became,

And that object became part of him for the day or a certain part of the day,

Or for many years or stretching cycles of years.

The early lilacs became part of this child,

And grass and white and red morning-glories, and white and red clover, and the song of the phoebe-bird,

And the Third-month lambs and the sow's pink-faint litter, and the mare's foal and the cow's calf,

And the noisy brood of the barnyard or by the mire of the pond-side,

And the fish suspending themselves so curiously below there, and the beautiful curious liquid,

And the water-plants with their graceful flat heads, all became part of him.

The field-sprouts of Fourth-month and Fifth-month became part of him,

Winter-grain sprouts and those of the light-yellow corn, and the esculent roots of the garden,

And the apple-trees cover'd with blossoms and the fruit afterward, and wood-berries, and the commonest weeds by the road,

And the old drunkard staggering home from the outhouse of the tavern whence he had lately risen,

And the schoolmistress that pass'd on her way to the school,

And the friendly boys that pass'd, and the quarrelsome boys,

And the tidy and fresh-cheek'd girls, and the barefoot negro boy and girl,

And all the changes of city and country wherever he went.

His own parents, he that had father'd him and she that had conceiv'd

him in her womb and birth'd him,

They gave this child more of themselves than that,

They gave him afterward every day, they became part of him.

The mother at home quietly placing the dishes on the supper-table,

The mother with mild words, clean her cap and gown, a wholesome odor falling off her person and clothes as she walks by,

The father, strong, self-sufficient, manly, mean, anger'd, unjust,

The blow, the quick loud word, the tight bargain, the crafty lure,
The family usages, the language, the company, the furniture, the yearning and swelling heart,

Affection that will not be gainsay'd, the sense of what is real, the thought if after all it should prove unreal,

The doubts of day-time and the doubts of night-time, the curious whether and how,

Whether that which appears so is so, or is it all flashes and specks?

Men and women crowding fast in the streets, if they are not flashes and specks what are they?

The streets themselves and the facades of houses, and goods in the windows,

Vehicles, teams, the heavy-plank'd wharves, the huge crossing at the ferries,

The village on the highland seen from afar at sunset, the river between,

Shadows, aureola and mist, the light falling on roofs and gables of white or brown two miles off,

The schooner near by sleepily dropping down the tide, the little boat slack-tow'd astern,

The hurrying tumbling waves, quick-broken crests, slapping,

The strata of color'd clouds, the long bar of maroon-tint away

solitary by itself, the spread of purity it lies motionless in,

The horizon's edge, the flying sea-crow, the fragrance of salt marsh and shore mud,

These became part of that child who went forth every day, and who now goes, and will always go forth every day.

2. What does this poem say about the unity of people’s lives? Reading it still 150 years later, we have schoolmasters, mothers, fathers, etc.

3. Whitman once said, “A great poem is for ages and ages in common and for all degrees and complexions and all departments and sects and for a woman as much as a man and a man as much as a woman,” (Preface to Leaves of Grass). How does this quote relate to this poem? According to Whitman, does the poem achieve greatness?

Introduction: “Song of Myself” was just a section of the book of poetry published by Whitman entitled “Leaves of Grass”. Written in 1855, changed and published again in 1856, 1860, and 1881. “Song of Myself” can be looked at as a life path through the poet. Song 1 begins with school and learning, and Song 52 details a death. Of course, it is not completely a dictated life path (most things in the middle happen out of order), but I found it’s the best way to wrap around the idea of all of these poems together. Song 1 is the beginning, Song 5 is a love/connection to another person, Song 46 evokes that he has a son, Song 47 describes him as a teacher, Song 51 talks about getting ready for death, and Song 52 is a last poem to say goodbye. It is almost as if the poet is “translating himself”, taken from #47, into a poem or a series of poems. Throughout “Song of Myself”, Whitman is at the same time content to a point most people admire, and restless with his situation.

1. How did you perceive this group of poems? Did you see the poems as connected, or did you see them separate?

2. What parts impacted you the most? Pull out some lines you just love. What parts did you dislike the most?

To keep in mind as we go over selected poems from the reading: what kind of subject matter does the poet write about? What does the poet feel about these subject matters?

· Humbleness in writing the songs, asserts the human-ness of himself: “form’d from this soil” line 6, “Born here of parents born here from parents the same” line 7, “Creeds and schools…I harbor for good or bad” ll. 10 & 12.

· Doesn’t need perfumes because he is intoxicated with nature… sense of animalistic man desperate to become one with nature (in accordance to Song 32).

· A poem about connection. Not necessarily sex, as lines 378-381 would have us think, but that all humans desire some kind of connection with other humans, of which sex is the most intimate kind. DH Lawrence took this further with The Rainbow.

· Discusses the poet’s relationship as a stander between the natural and the supernatural.

· Journey out of the city to appreciate the happenings of nature: mountains, forest-path, arctic sea

i. “Not I, not any one else can travel that road for you,/You must travel it yourself.” ll. 1210-1211

· “He most honors my style who learns under it to destroy the teacher.” l. 1236.

· This song is an admiration of man (it’s a little bit of an ego trip, mostly from line 1278)

· Final attempt of knowledge before death. (Notice that in Song 3, he didn’t want to hear what people said, and in this poem, he is asking people to speak.)

· Death, “I depart as air…/ 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.” ll. 1336 & 1338-1339.

1. How is Whitman’s new writing style of ‘free verse’ in line with Romantic ideals?

a. Letting the words speak for themselves without regard to meter or rhyme, Whitman focuses more on a moving style with words.

2. What did Whitman do to the Romantic Movement? How was it changed forever?

a. Introduction of ‘free verse’, talking about ‘real’ topics such as Americanism, sex, school, communication and connection.

3. Compare and contrast Whitman’s style and subject matter to other Romantic Poets we have read (brainstorm with a Venn diagram). In what ways does he remind you of Emerson? Whitman stands out in Romantic literature in a category of his own. What did Walt do differently?