LITR 5731: Seminar in American Multicultural Literature

Poetry Presentation, fall 2007

Thursday, 15 November

Poetry: Walt Whitman, "In Paths Untrodden"

Poetry reader / discussion leader: Gordon Lewis

In Paths Untrodden

In paths untrodden,
In the growth by margins of pond-waters,
Escaped from the life that exhibits itself,
From all the standards hitherto published, from the pleasures, profits, conformities,
Which too long I was offering to feed my soul,
Clear to me now standards not yet published, clear to me that my soul,
That the soul of the man I speak for rejoices in comrades,
Here by myself away from the clank of the world,
Tallying and talk’d to here by tongues aromatic,
No longer abashed, (for in this secluded spot I can respond as I would not dare elsewhere.)
Strong upon me the life that does not exhibit itself, yet contains all the rest,
Resolv’d to sing no songs to-day but those of manly attachment,
Projecting them along that substantial life,
Bequeathing hence types of athletic love,
Afternoon this delicious Ninth-month in my forty-first year,
I proceed for all who are or have been young men,
To tell the secret of my nights and days,
To celebrate the need of comrades.

First published in 1860.

  l. 4  “eruditions” added in 1870.

  l. 7  1860 reads “only in comrades.” 1867 reads “in comrades.”

From all the standards hitherto publish’d-from the pleasures, profits, eruditions, conformities

That the Soul of the man I speak for, feeds, rejoices most in comrades

That the Soul of the man I speak for, feeds, rejoices only in comrades

So, what’s so important about Whitman? Not only does he count as one of the most famous American poets to address homosexuality, but he believed homosexuality - which he called “adhesive love” - to be integral to the formation of a stable democracy. He wrote:

Intense and loving comradeship, the personal and passionate attachment of man to man — which, hard to define, underlies the lessons and ideals of the profound saviours of every land and age, and which seems to promise, when thoroughly developed, cultivated, and recognized in manners and literature, the most substantial hope and safety of the future of these states will then be fully expressed.

It is to the development, identification and general prevalence of that fervid comradeship (the adhesive love, at least rivaling the amative love [i.e. heterosexual love; the terms homosexual and heterosexual had not yet been coined]

I confidentially expect a time when there will be seen running through . . . the myriad interests of America, threads of manly friendship, fond and loving, pure and sweet, strong and life-long, carried to degrees hitherto unknown, not only giving tone to individual character and making it unprecedentedly emotional, muscular, heroic and refined, but having the deepest relation to general politics. I say democracy infers such loving comradeship as its most inevitable twin or counterpart, without which it will be incomplete, in vain and incapable of perpetuating itself.

It’s for this reason that Whitman became the unofficial poet of the early gay rights movement.

Objective 1
To define the “minority concept" as a power relationship modeled by some ethnic groups’ historical relation to the dominant American culture.

1b.  “Voiceless and choiceless”
(Contrast the dominant culture’s self-determination or choice through self-expression or voice,

1c. To observe alternative identities and literary strategies developed by minority cultures and writers to gain voice and choice:

·        “double language” (same words, different meanings to different audiences)

·        using the dominant culture’s words against them

·        conscience to dominant culture

Objective 2 

To observe representations and narratives (images and stories) of ethnicity and gender as a means of defining minority categories.

Question One: 

2a. Is the status of women, lesbians, and homosexuals analogous to that of ethnic minorities in terms of voice and choice?  Do Black homosexuals become "double minorities?"

Question Two:  What is your attitude about homosexuality as subject?  What problems are unique to gay lit?

Question Three:  Should gay lit be treated as an alternative or mainstream? 

Question Four:  What are the Voice and choice issues involved in homosexual or lesbian literature?