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LITR 5431 American
Romanticism 2010 Student Midterm Samples #2 short essay |
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Kyle Rahe
Shorter Essay Topic 2: Walt Whitman’s Children
When I think of previously read works that
exemplify the concepts we have discussed in our Romanticism class I immediately
thought of Jack Kerouac’s novel On the
Road, and by extension most of the Beat generation’s texts.
Even though these texts came much later than what is classically thought
of as Romanticism they still share certain ideals and ways of looking at the
self, America, and freedom. Nearly
all the beatniks took Whitman to be a spiritual godfather to their revolution
particularly Kerouac and Ginsberg.
Poems like “Song of Myself” and “I Sing the Body Electric” by Whitman are
American totem poles for the beats with their focus on personal freedom,
movement, and common people. By
looking at works like On the Road and
“Howl” we can learn much about Whitman’s influence as well as see Romanticism as
an ever evolving part of the American canon.
In the preface to “Leaves of Grass” Whitman
declares America itself “essentially the greatest poem”.
Kerouac obviously took this to heart because he spent so much of his
early manhood criss-crossing the entire continent soaking in the type of
experiences and people Whitman lived for.
An appreciation of the common and working people of America rather than
the magnates is a similar theme in the work of Whitman and Kerouac.
Kerouac sought out manual labor to do to put him closer to the reality of
the struggle of modern life. This
is akin to Whitman’s descriptions of his long walks through country and city
seeking to soak in every single emotion he could come across.
Kerouac also chose to embrace immigrants and disenfranchised groups.
An example from On the Road is
his living and working alongside Mexican migrant farm workers in the American
Southwest. Kerouac also immersed
himself in African-American culture particularly by being an expert in jazz
music considering it the real voice of the American people.
In Whitman’s work you also see the inclusion of African-Americans at a
time when American literature had confined them to slave narratives or
marginalized voices.
Another common theme between Whitman and the beats
is a desire to use common language to portray America.
There is a real focus on dialect and the language of the common man.
The free verse that Whitman uses allows for this freedom because it
doesn’t force him to be confined to any poetic conventions particularly elitist
ideals of “high” poetry. It is no
wonder then that Allen Ginsberg’s “Howl” also uses such freedom to represent the
“other America” with its portrayal of gays, drug-users, and hipsters.
Connected to the idea of using common language is the idea of a
revolution of ideas. This goes all
the way back to Whitman. In the
“Leaves of Grass” preface he declares that there will soon be no more priests
calling for a new group of prophets to take their place.
The beats were fascinated with new ideas and religions gathering views
from Buddhism, Hinduism, Rimbaud, and of course Whitman and Emerson.
The freedom to entertain contradictory life views and to evolve is
essential to Whitman and the beats.
The beatniks focused their lives on trying to remain essential to their selves while still constantly exploring new ways to live and understanding other people. These ideals are directly the children of the freedom exhibited throughout Whitman’s “Leaves of Grass”. Kerouac and Ginsberg romanticized the people of America in their prose and verse by focusing on the open possibilities of America and the character of the common people. As they were looking forward though, they were also looking backwards at Whitman’s dream that had already been laid out for them.
