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  #1  
Unread 07-31-2014, 06:10 AM
Michael F's Avatar
Michael F Michael F is offline
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Default William James on Walt Whitman

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His optimism is too voluntary and defiant; his gospel has a touch of bravado and an affected twist, and this diminishes its effect on many readers who yet are well disposed towards optimism, and, on the whole, quite willing to admit Whitman is of the genuine lineage of the prophets.


I think Whitman is a visionary poet and a great poet. I also think this criticism by James is acute, and I have struggled to square it with my admiration for Whitman. I’m interested in others’ opinions, particularly others who appreciate Whitman as I do. Do you think James’s criticism is true? Does Whitman do justice to human experience?
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Unread 08-01-2014, 06:48 AM
Gregory Dowling Gregory Dowling is offline
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WJ was as smart as his brother, I think. And this is a very shrewd comment on Whitman. That's my penny's worth. I'll be interested to see what others think. I know Whitman is not to everyone's taste. I can take him in small doses. There are some wonderful things, like "When lilacs last..." and bits of "Song of Myself". But you would have to pay me a good deal to read his complete works.
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Unread 08-01-2014, 09:23 AM
David Danoff David Danoff is offline
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"His optimism is too voluntary and defiant"--strikes me as true. There is something a little over-insistent, a little bit manic and sleeve-tugging about it all.

But then, I'm definitely not someone who is "well disposed towards optimism."

I do like Whitman okay, at least in moderate doses. Maybe he's a tonic for me, maybe I should read him more.
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Unread 08-01-2014, 10:05 AM
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W.F. Lantry W.F. Lantry is offline
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I admire the pragmatic philosopher so much I named my son William James Lantry, *and* I adore Whitman. Criticizing either of the two would feel like heresy. Or maybe blasphemy.

Do we love gardens bursting with flowers everywhere, wild, rampant, passionate? Of course we should. Perhaps there's room for both passion and reflective tranquility?

Thanks,

Bill
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Unread 08-01-2014, 05:30 PM
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Michael F Michael F is offline
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Thanks for the responses.

Like Bill, I am much more than half in love with Whitman’s ‘mystic ontological emotion’ (again quoting James). He says many, many things supremely well, and his is an ecstatic vision.

However, part of me objects that Whitman’s Panglossian optimism is impossible to live by; that to say “whatever IS, is right”, which Whitman feels to me to say, is nihilism by another name. He leaves no room for conscience. (A consequence, I think, is his reflexive veneration of America and our political system, such that he wavered in his support of abolition, on the grounds that it would destroy the Union, and he enthusiastically supported America’s expansionist, aggressive war against Mexico for Texas and California. These are the very issues that sent Thoreau to jail, because he refused to fund such as system with his taxes.)

My theory is that Whitman’s mature poetry is an (over)reaction to peering into the abyss: it is a willful mystic’s vision, a yanking of fugitive Heaven down to Earth.

Contrast this by Mary Oliver (“A Certain Sharpness in the Morning Air”):

for it’s true, isn’t it
in our world
that the petals pooled with nectar, and the polished thorns
are a single thing –
that even the purest light, lacking the robe of darkness
would be without expression --

Last edited by Michael F; 08-26-2014 at 05:28 AM.
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Unread 08-02-2014, 12:09 AM
ross hamilton hill ross hamilton hill is offline
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Something there is,
(With my lips soothing thee, adding I whisper,
I give thee the first suggestion, the problem and indirection,)
Something there is more immortal even than the stars,
(Many the burials, many the days and nights, passing away,)
Something that shall endure longer even than lustrous Jupiter
Longer than sun or any revolving satellite,
Or the radiant sisters the Pleiades.

Whitman was a rare genius, I couldn't give a crack what anyone says, you only have to read this poem "On the Beach at Night' to know he was as good as a poet gets.
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Unread 08-02-2014, 10:50 AM
Roger Slater Roger Slater is offline
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I agree with Ross completely. Even the James quote allows that Whitman was "of the genuine lineage of the prophets," and frankly I don't even understand what is meant by the criticism that his optimism was "too voluntary and defiant." Too voluntary and defiant for what? That's just gobbledygook. And what's wrong with a bit of bravado now and then?

Yes, there are passages in which Whitman tends to go on and on a bit too long, but no poet in history has ever not written some boring poems. But his frequent triumphs in poems like "This Compost" and "Crossing Brooklyn Ferry," to name just two, are as good as it gets.
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Unread 08-02-2014, 02:40 PM
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Michael F Michael F is offline
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Ross -- the lines you quote are spectacularly beautiful, and I agree with your praise for Whitman.

Roger – Forgive me if you understood this, but I think James means voluntary in the sense of ‘by force of will, by an act of will’, as to opposed to spontaneously felt. I think what he means is there’s something forced in the breadth and depth of Whitman’s optimism.
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Unread 08-02-2014, 04:18 PM
Roger Slater Roger Slater is offline
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I suppose you're right, Michael, but to me "voluntary" is the opposite of compelled and not inconsistent with spontaneity. No matter how you slice it, I don't agree in the slightest, except to the extent that every poet, when producing less than his best work, sounds a bit forced and less than spontaneous.
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