Walt Whitman: War Poet & Beyond
© Audrey McCrone
One cannot ignore Whitman's national sense, as he addresses President Lincoln's assassination (in "When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom'd"), and precursory clammor for the civil rights movement and ensuing war (in "Beat! Beat! Drums!"). One gains the sense he is actually singing a patriotic song to drive home the cause of freedom and democracy. Whitman was more than a war poet, though he tolls such soaring spirits for his countrymen! One does see such change in Whitman, as he learns the effects of war (in "Come Up from the Fields Father"). Men were now wearing red their hands with the blood of kin, and this was the most brutal war our country had ever experienced, as well as the most personal (until that point in time, anyway).
Whitman, the Manhattan native and shameless self-promoter, took a cornerstone piece of American literary criticism offered him by Ralph Waldo Emerson and had it published in a New York paper, much to Emerson's dismay. The praise also reflects Emerson's poetic sense, when he describes Leaves of Grass as being so wonderful that "the solid sense of the book is a sober certainty." Whitman's actions may have hurt Emerson's feelings, as the letter seems to shoot straight from his heart, and would be awful exposing, unexpectedly. Emerson was positive Whitman's verse was proof of his own written, Transcendental ideas, wanting to meet the man in person, and saying so, frankly (flowing, for the poetic mind they shared). Emerson should've seen that coming after reading Whitman's work, understanding Whitman sees himself as a universal eye, to record his life and society around him. There is nothing wrong, furthermore, with his publishing the letter, since otherwise we'd never have known its existence, and we may have lost that portion of literary history.
Per Whitman, a thread of humanity binds everyone, though writing is to catalogue the life which surrounds us, as we snap visual images into verse, including all senses and sensualities surrounding both Body and Soul. Whitman mutated the moral sense of our country, which continually changes, not for better nor worse, but as to define us in our time, as we (the poets) perceive. He wrote for future generations to maintain hope and to know the human condition existed, exists, and continues onward. Imagine the scrutiny he faced in the mid-Victorian era, due to his colorful explications of sex (such as in "Dalliance of the Eagles," where Whitman details a sexual tussle between American symbols of freedom). As openly as was possible, Whitman revealed to us the many facets of life in his time.
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