Walt Whitman, old Walt – the colossus, skulking in the shadows of all modern verse, hovering in the gloom, this ancient Gandalf trapper. An all-American, in the original manner that that description was supposed to refer to before it became so muddled. Indeed, generations of American writers have viewed Whitman as the original American voice, he has become something of the source with which to get to, the way to finding the ‘Lost America’. Indeed, before Whitman nobody really wrote about the America that we have since searched so fervently for, is that the problem? Does the source stretch back further? Did Whitman dilute it by simply attempting to describe it? Whitman was the first to fling out all other literary models and concentrate on what he was seeing and hearing, he loved America so he wrote about her using it’s slang, it’s rhythms of speech, it’s colloquialisms – it’s voice, it’s true voice. He loved and immersed himself in the banal and everyday America, for it was all great, for it all went to make up great America. And so the railroad worker, the foot-soldier, the trapper, the farmer became his muses. Equally, he dived into the activities of the outcasts of society, the geezers on the fringes, he exalted them, he ripped up the puritanical code, like the code of verse he wrote in, what he wrote about was Biblical, epic and Biblical. But what mere mortal can remain so childishly enchanted with any place on earth? Within his own lifetime, elements of disillusion germinated – burgeoning during the corruption that pervaded during Reconstruction. But his legions of disciples tend to omit many elements of both his work and his life – Ginsberg and the Beats mirrored his vagabond lifestyle but was it really as decadent as they exalted it to? I mean Whitman worked for the government, embraced all religions, was a teetotaller and though he kissed the Wilde one, he definitely was far from an unqualified dandy. Like any Messiah I suppose, a good story often gets in the way of truth, Bram Stoker asserted with a straight face that he based Dracula on Whitman – get up the yard Bram for Chrissakes! But there are some serious dents in Whitman’s pedestal – he viewed blacks as inferior, a common stupidity at the time but it doesn’t really qualify him for sainthood does it? Great writer, of that there is no doubt but I just feel for the likes of Allen Ginsberg loping around late night supermarkets searching for the ghost of Whitman.
Russell Shortt is a travel consultant with Exploring Ireland, the leading specialists in customised, private escorted tours, escorted coach tours and independent self drive tours of Ireland. Article source Russell Shortt, http://www.exploringireland.net http://www.visitscotlandtours.com
Russell Shortt is a travel consultant with Exploring Ireland, the leading specialists in customised, private escorted tours, escorted coach tours and independent self drive tours of Ireland. Article source Russell Shortt, http://www.exploringireland.net http://www.visitscotlandtours.com
