Professor David Peimer
Emily Dickinson, Walt Whitman: Moments of Vision
Professor David Peimer - Walt Whitman and Emily Dickinson
- Hi to everybody and hope everybody is well in these incredibly tough times everywhere. Okay. So we’re going to dive into obviously, the two real greats from the 19th century in America, Emily Dickinson and Walt Whitman. And I’m just going to focus on a couple of aspects, ‘cause there’s obviously so much of their poetry, their lives, their contribution, their originality, and critical questions that to be asked of both. So I’m going to focus on a couple of their poems and certain specific aspects. And I think, looking at text and context, looking at the context of these two, writing as they did more or less in the middle of the 19th century, and obviously going on a bit later, the 1870s, 1880s, Emily Dickinson and Walt Whitman. Two very different individuals, very different writers. And always the question which obsesses me is why do they endure? Why do they inspire, lost, and speak to us today? Or do they or don’t they? And I’m going to suggest in a couple of ways that I think they do, and in a couple of ways in which I think that you can re-look at Walt Whitman, again and again with perhaps more critical eyes. But these two are so endlessly resonant in the mind, I think. It’s like William Blake in England and others, you keep coming back to them in some way. And the question is why? Obviously, it’s the language, obviously, it’s some lines, but there’s a feeling inside, a structure of feeling inside the poetry, a sense they give us of finding just the right words for something about human nature and society and our times, or just before our times. So, to look at these two, apparently, very contradictory and very different individuals and poets.
And yet, I think that they really rise to the top of the mountain when it comes to the 19th century of American and world literature in the English language without a doubt. In essence, what I’m going to suggest is that, what I feel is in common with both of them. And I don’t want to force sort of finding common ideas between them, but I’m following instinct here. Emily Dickinson, I think, has such an independent spirit. I think there’s such a force of independence, of thinking, of ways of writing, putting words together and a fierce determination inside her that I think is quite remarkable. Not only, obviously, she’s a woman in the middle of the 19th century, and what rights does she have? What not only legal, but social cultural rights, what can she really do and so on. And given the extreme reclusive quality of her life which we can endlessly speculate on why, but there’s something that is fiercely determined to have her own mind, have her own opinion, have her own way of writing, and not conform to popular ways of writing at the time. And I think she has a remarkable way of putting words together that is still so resonant today. And I want to try and show that in just a couple some of her poems. With Mr. Whitman, totally different, obviously. But I think that fierceness of independence, that determination of self-reliance, can do, will do, going to do no matter what, is so strong inside the guy and his writing. And the whole celebration of herself, the celebration of the individual, obviously, in liaison with nature and other things, I think is so, it gives a sense to the new world spirit.
Certainly, seen from the old world of independence of thought, independence of idea, language, ways of writing, poetry or other things. There’s a determination no matter what, to follow that line. And is it for Walt Whitman, does it seem overly romantic? Does it seem naive to us today? Doesn’t seem, well, it was idealistic maybe of his times, but doesn’t really hold water today. It’s a fascinating debate. Emily Dickinson, that same ferocity of independent spirit, but does her language still hold? Does she seem like LVOE aphorisms today or not? So I’m not going to really compare. What I want to do now is go into Emily Dickinson first, because I find something quite remarkably contemporary in her writing. And I think that it’s stunning in a way because of the brevity and that determination to find her own way of putting language together that just is so evocative for us. And it’s ironic because we live in a time of such excessive communication, excessive use of words and language. And so many more people obviously are educated and have access to just more words in a dictionary and language. And yet to be so minimalist is often so much more powerful in today’s writing. And I think she almost prefigures that over 150 years ago, which is extraordinary for, given what we might stereotypically imagine about her life. We can go on to the next slide, please. So this is from her own writing from the poem. I’m sure many know “Wild Nights.” And it’s interesting, I’m not going to get into fake writing analysis or anything like that, but what I’ve always liked about looking, and when you look at how writers actually wrote, you get a feeling of a definiteness, with pen and paper, and just how they’re determined in some way, to express themselves. You can go to the next slide, please.
Now I’m going to hold this for a moment and just go a little bit into Emily Dickinson’s life, just to remind ourselves of the essence of a few important aspects of her life briefly before going onto what I think is one of her most, if not the most remarkable poem for me, “Because I could not stop for Death, he kindly stop for me,” which I’ll come to in a moment. So she was little known in her own life, born in Massachusetts, as everybody knows, into a prominent well off family and lived most of her life in a pretty extreme isolation and had a desire to constantly wear white as we know. And then for the last 15, 20 years of her life, as far as we know, she hardly ventures outside, talks to people through the door, is in her bedroom so much, the life of her and her mother and is being ill. But we are not sure if it’s physical, if it’s more what we’d call physical and mental health today or not. And even the same with her own life. We don’t know exactly the details. But it’s this extraordinary solitariness and aloneness, and determination in a way. And I know a lot of people have seen this recuse quality as a timid scaredy cat, sort of withdrawal from life. But I’m going to suggest it in a different way. And I am influenced, but I’m going to say it up front with her after reading Camille Paglia, who I think is one of the most brilliant scholars in the world, not just America of our times today, and who’s written about her and others. I don’t think it’s just a timid, shadowy refusal to engage with life. I think it’s ironically, a determination to live a life of the mind in her own way. And I don’t want to romanticise that in the slightest, but I’m going to suggest reasons why. She never married, as we all know.
Most of the friendships were based on correspondence. She wrote an enormous number of letters, poems, et cetera. In a lifetime, only 10 poems were published of nearly a thousand poems, which were discovered later. And I think there are unique for her era and unique for ours, and speak to us. The brevity of the lines that coronary, which I’m going to suggest inside it. That short line quality is so contemporary and so modern and so influential. And then of course, the themes of aloneness, loneliness of- And yes, to see the truth of death in our lives and the role of it, and a constant reminder. By the 1840s, a quarter of all the deaths in Amherst where she really lived in Massachusetts, a quarter of all the deaths were due to tuberculosis. And we have to remind ourselves of this era of so much disease, of so much dying. And what she went through with so many people that were close to her, family and friends, one off to the other, dying, dying. And it’s that sense of a cold truth about life and the life obviously of the 19th century, pre-modern medicine, pre-modern real sanitation, understanding of so much of biology and so many other things. It gives us such a sense, and it’s only 150 years ago. It gives such a sense of even somebody living in a pretty wealthy family is going through. And the effect that it has to be a shadow in everyday life, which I guess, is either going to make some people just go out there and conquer the world and be explorers or whatever, do all things and travel or whatever it is. But the sense of dying at such a younger age and so many around, dying. That the sense of death being a daily feature of life.
I think so much of contemporary life is to deny that and to try and live in avoidance of that, whereas, she doesn’t. And she’s not scared to go in a hell for leather into the truth of it, in the way that Whitman isn’t either. But he has a completely different response. After her death, her younger sister discovered many of the poems, this is what an early poem that she wrote, “Teenage Years.” “They shut me up in prose as when a little girl. They put me in the closet because they liked me, still. Still, put themselves, have peeped, and seed my brain go round. They might as wise have lodged a bird for treason in the pound.” I mean, just look at that. That’s it, that’s the poem. They shut me up in prose as when a little girl. They put me in the closet because they like me, inverted commas. Still, it’s so ironic. There’s so much fierce, passion, independence, determination. This deceptively simple rhyming. And yet to me, it goes right in. And yes, she had what was called a deepening menace of death, especially the deaths of those who were so close to her. But she was a rebel. She rebelled against evangelical fervour, which was present in the school that she went to, this constant pushing of religion. And let’s never forget the role of religion in these times, obviously the Civil War is huge, but she’s a little rebel as well. And that I don’t think goes away. And then later with in her adulthood and this sense of seclusion, this melancholy, especially after the Amherst Academy principle, this guy, Leonard Humphrey died so suddenly and others. And let’s remember, the death cannot be explained. It’s called illness. It’s called disease. Nothing nearly as specific as today, when the diagnosis, prognosis, the whole approach to medical language in our times.
Did she have epilepsy, agoraphobia, both? We don’t really know. I mean, we can debate that endlessly. And obviously then she starts to not leave the home and it was absolutely essential. And dresses in white, all these other things I’ve said. Another brief poem that I want to mention, she wrote 1884, called “Home Is So Far From Home.” “Though the great waters sleep that they are still the deep, we cannot doubt. No vacillating God, ignited this abode to put it out.” What I want to suggest is that both she and Walt Whitman rebel against the evangelical, very extinctive, let’s call it the more extreme religious or the dominant religious ethos of their times. And for them, they replace it with nature. Whitman is much more the imagery of nature, but so does Emily Dickinson. And whether it’s a bee or a flight or a little trip, or for him, a big road trip or him a big ship or for her, a shorter little trip around sort of village areas, village lanes, et cetera. And we need to remember this religious mindset of the times in most of large parts of America and elsewhere, that it’s replaced by nature. It’s replaced by these are the laws of nature and nature itself. Whether it’s the trees, the skies, the whatever, the seas, the bees, the fly. But it’s also just the law of nature, live and die, et cetera, and mortality. A very different mindset to deal with it and understand it. And the role of what we would call today, life or death or birth or death. Very different perception of it, compared to us today, I think. And that jolts us into a reminder, I want to suggest of how do we deal with it?
Do we deal with it in a more sanitised, in a more numbing or sort of put it outside, sort of put it into the hospital, the white walls, or give it a sign, an enormous scientific quality mixture of all of these things. Neither is right nor wrong, it’s just a better or worse. It’s just a different way of perceiving. Obviously, one of probably the most crucial thing about being alive. She wrote as death almost succeeded, death in her life. And she found her world totally changed because of this. In the fall of 1884, I think she significantly wrote, “The dyings have been too deep for me. And before I could raise my heart from one, another has come.” It’s in a letter she wrote, 1884. So, “The dyings have been too deep for me. And before I could raise my heart from one, another has come.” She gets it in two sentences. She understands such a fundamental thing of human nature, of her time, her life. And that to me explains that ferocity of independent spirit. It explains for me, I want to suggest, why she retreats so much. Of course, there’s her mother, father, the life she lived and perhaps she was physically ill, other things. But she needs to self-protect, she needs to hold onto herself and can’t in the external world. And that’s why I think she retreats and sets up a safe citadel. She sets up a safe place for where she can be independent, free inside. And I think that the home becomes a metaphor and a literal space of security, safety, a base for all of that. Okay. If we can go onto the next slide, please. I’m not going to show this because that reading I was going to show is read in such, I think an ironic way. Actually, let’s go back for a few seconds. Sorry, Lauren, if we can just go back and we’ll play a few seconds of it. Thank you.
[Narrator 1] Because I could not stop for death, he kindly stopped for me. The carriage held but just ourselves and immortality.
If we could hold it there please. And then go onto the next slide, please, Lauren. Thank you. Okay. I want to go through this because this to me, is one of the most remarkable poems ever written in the English language. And these two opening lines never stop reverberating in my mind. “Because I could not stop for death, he kindly stopped for me. The carriage held, but our just ourselves and immortality. We slowly drove, he knew no haste. And I had put away my labour and my leisure too, for his civility. We passed the school where children strove. At recess, in the ring, we passed the fields of gazing grain. We passed the setting sun.” We go to the next slide, please. “Or rather, he passed us. The Dews drew quivering and chill for only Gossamer and my gown, my tippet, only tulle. We paused before a house that seemed a swelling of the ground. The roof was scarcely visible. The cornice in the ground. Since then, tis centuries, and yet feels shorter than the day. I first surmised the horse’s heads were toward eternity.” We could go back to the previous slide, please. What I don’t like about that reading that I showed those few seconds, is that there’s no irony. I think it’s trying to be so over romantic sonorous and profound. This is real poetry, hello everybody. I think this is so ironic, this poem. I think that she is angry. Gosh, she’s upset, she’s raging and yet, she’s got such a tenderness of in her spirit as well, 'cause I could not stop. It’s witty and so painful.
It’s ridiculous and yet so painful. “Because I could not stop for death, he kindly stopped for me.” It’s nonsense. But it’s such an inversion of what happens that it’s memorable forever. And I think it’s an ingenious allegory. This is like a screenplay that she envisages, riding a carriage with the horses and death is stopped. And that she is the respectable lady. She’s been courted or seduced, but kidnapped and then murdered by a gentleman caller called death. And she’s coy Emily Dickinson, toying. She’s ironic, playful, and yet so serious. And that’s what makes it ironic for me. I mean, there’s four lines, the carriage held but just ourselves and immortality. It’s almost like a playful childlike rhyme. And it’s such an inversion, that it’s apparently innocent, naive, dangerously so. And the more lighter and childlike, the more dangerous. These sing-song rhythms and rhymes are feeling absurd. Ridiculous. And yet, it so resonant in our minds. There’s an intention. She’s playing with death as being a seducer. Death is ultimately a seducer, a kidnapper of life. “And the carriage held, but just ourself. We slowly drove, he knew no haste.” And the charmer took his time, the grim reaper. “And I had put away my labour and my leisure too.” That’s life. “My labour and my leisure too, for his civility.” In other words, for his charm. Death is a seducer, a charmer, who will ultimately kidnap me and all of us. It’s played with a seduction, with a toying, with such an ironic inner rage and anger and pain, I would say. And it’s like a suitor, good manners. All of this, my labours and my leisure in one line. That’s the whole of life. And it’s in the common, “We passed the school where children strove at recess in the ring. We passed the fields of gazing grain. We passed the setting sun.”
It’s almost like an idyllic, archetypal 19th century image of rural, pastoral peace and calm and simple pleasure. Little brook, little tree, the school, the fields, gazing grain, et cetera. But it’s death who’s taking me on this charming ride. What an inversion of the horror and the terrible truth of death she knows. People that have gone through the suffering, the pain, the end of life, everything. It’s a seducer. Death is a seducer, a trickster, a game player, ultimately, a conman. All these archetypes, I think are very popular in this time, in America, in this context. And I think she gets it in such brilliant short language. And of course, death comes when we least expect it. “He kindly stopped for me.” What an extraordinary line. His behaviour is just natural. It’s the kinship of mortality. It’s seducer of mortality. As I said, the charmer, the conman, all of that. “We slowly drove, he knew no haste,” didn’t have to rush. So this becomes like, almost like a funeral journey already before anything. But the way she brings death in, we go to the next slide, please. So it could be the second, yeah, that’s it, of the same poem. So we passed the school, we passed the trees, the grass, all of that beautiful that almost idyllic way. But of course, it’s not, 'cause of what’s going on. And these are the things we erect against death. There’s the school, there’s the farm, there’s the grain. All the order, we try and set up in life. But of course, along comes the charmer and it’s over. And it’s done in almost like a childlike rhyme, but it’s the opposite of a childlike innocence. For me, a deep, insightful knowledge.
And here we get, or rather, and this is back to death. Exactly in the middle of the poem, she stops and pauses, “Or rather he passed us, the dews drew quivering” until suddenly I got colder. My clothing, this is her clothing, a gown, et cetera. And I not quite so certain, not quite so playful, the character, not necessarily her, but the character changes here, because death is now where it’s going to take her. And suddenly, she’s discovered, she’s underdressed. She’s unprepared for what’s happening. Like we all are in life. We are never going to be metaphorically dressed and ready for when death comes calling. You decked out in white, in a gown. Well, what’s it going to help? Given that where she’s going to, where he’s kidnapped to take her to. And then it becomes, we pause before a house, it seemed a swelling in the ground. This is almost like suddenly the poem becomes like a gothic horror novel. This is like images of the gothic, which is hugely popular in those times, the gothic novel. The house that seemed a swelling of the ground. What an image. The roof was scarcely visible, the corners in the ground. It’s gloomy, decaying, it’s haunted. That’s the gothic. I think for those writers of the gothic, obviously, they were linking it to sexuality and death, the attempt to, and how that obviously was always part of life. And then finally, time. What did she say? She comes to the big theme of time. Since then to centuries, and yet feels shorter than the day. I first surmise horses heads. So time is centuries or I’ve had a whole life, but it feels shorter than one day.
In one line, she gets it. The role of time in our lives and how when we feel time is forever or we don’t, and constantly contracting, constantly expanding the sense of time and the relentless truth of time in our life, in human life and society. It’s the biggest theme when you look at Shakespeare’s sonnets or the sonnets, it’s a theme that it comes back to most is time. And so many of the other great writers, and it’s something we forget, obviously, very often we do and necessarily so. But the horses are going, we all know where they’re going to eternity. The end, it’s a one way trip to the underworld. It’s a one way ticket to extinction. And we are all big going to be kidnapped. And that’s it. I think because she does it, and I’m spending time on this poem because I think it’s so brilliant and it’s so brief. But she inverts it in this apparent childlike lighter way. But inside it is such a bittersweet irony about life, death, time, what we’re going to do without time, while we have it in life. It’s a call to grab it, to grab time, to grab life and make something of those moments in my personal opinion. Because I could not stop for death. So, inevitably came, because of that, I grab it. So this is my interpretation, obviously, very influenced by Camille Paglia. But this is what resonates today. Okay. Can we go on to the next slide, please? Not a writer. The soul select to own society. I mean, this is in the middle of the 19th century with all the restrictions on women and the lack of rights and the lack of independence socially that they were given. And yet what is she doing? No. This to me, is a poem, which is absolutely about, it’s a declaration of independence by her, by the poet. I’m going to select my own society, which goes back to what I was saying about, I don’t think it’s just a terrified retreat, her life of seclusion. It’s a conscious choice for someone that’s intelligent.
Yeah, I’m going to sit but the way of writing, select to own society. It’s not just a room of my own, a room with a view. The soul, my soul, the essence of who I am. Uh-uh. I ain’t going to kowtow to what anybody wants. I’m going to select my own society. “The soul selects her own society then shuts the door.” Of course, that’s a psychological door, it’s not literal. To her divine majority to what most people want, present no more. “Unmoved, she notes the chariots, pausing at her low gate. Unmoved an emperor, be kneeling upon her mat.” I don’t care what chariots come calling. I don’t care what guys come trying to seduce me or want, or con me or whatever. Not only for sex or for life or marriage, but anything else. Even an empress, I don’t care if they come. I’m unmoved. And hold my heart protected. And it’s not just a love struck heart. Oh God, I’m rejected, I’m love struck. And I lost it all. And it’s not that at all. I’m unmoved and emperor can kneel on his net. Hmm, tough. I’ve known her. She’s talking about herself “From an ample nation, choose one, then close the valves of her attention like stone.” I think she’s talking about herself or part of herself. Yeah. She’s not talking about some lover who rejected her simple little love story or love poem of rejection. I don’t think it’s that at all. It’s a self choice because the soul selected her own society. She’s talking to herself. I’ve known her from an ample nation.
That’s the nation of my multiple selves. I chose one, close the valves. Cardiology, let’s bring it in of her attention like stone. So brief, I select my own society. It’s that same independence, I think, we get in Walt Whitman in a totally different way of writing, totally different context. And shut the door. Well, I shut the psychological door. I shut my own mental door on conformity to her divine majority. Present no more, present no more. Forget it. It’s the extraordinary declaration of independence, of spirit, of mind, and self-belief. No matter what the majority wants. And I don’t think it’s that far from Mr. Walt Whitman in spirit and in thought at all. And I think it’s so intense, even though it’s so briefed. And it’s again, this apparent light touch unmoved. But underneath it is something really powerful. I think the other- She hardens her heart against possible suitors, possible con people, con men or women, buyers, whoever comes and wants a piece of action, even an emperor couldn’t care. I’m not going to be like Cinderella or any of those others. It’s a choice in the end. And she chooses herself. I sing for myself. I think it’s pretty similar. And she chooses herself and marries to herself and constructs the life that she wants, select to earn society. It’s similar to what John Donne wrote in one of his poems where about breaking the iron heart. But here, it’s close the valves of her attention like stone that end just comes. I think it’s like a punch in the gut. It’s like saying, if you don’t choose your own society, your toes, you’re not going to make- You’re going to forever be running around pleasing others, being applicator people pleaser in life. Okay. If we can go the next one, please. Okay. This is two very short poems. You can play it, please.
[Narrator 2] Safe in their Alabaster chambers, untouched by morning and untouched by noon. Sleep the meek members of the resurrection, rafter of satin and roof of stone, grand go the years in the crescent above them, worlds scoops out arcs and firmaments row, diatoms drop and doges surrender, soundless as dots on a disc of snow.
We can hold it there, please.
[Narrator 2] And another short poem-
We can hold it there, Lauren. Thanks.
[Narrator 2] To tell all the truth, but-
This is about one main idea, which is you have all the dead people and they lost or defeated hopes. And the determination to not be one, that line lie the meek members of the resurrection. And I think what she does, is she replaces religious conformity and religious need with nature and self choice. And that’s the battle. And it’s so much the battle of the times, of ideas of the enlightenment and other things to replace the democratic independence of the self and the mind to take that and put it number one, as opposed to religious demands, religious conformity, the legacy or the society, hierarchical social structures in a way. Yeah. And these dead people are safe in the Alabaster chambers, but is it a life ready lived because they’ve lived it with hopes that haven’t been lived, broken dreams, lost dreams. Okay. We can go onto the next slide, please. Here, can just play a couple of those short poems here.
[Narrator 3] I am nobody, who are you? Are you nobody too? Then there’s a pair of us, don’t tell. They’d banish us, you know. How dreary to be somebody! How public like a frog to tell your name the livelong day, to an admiring bog.
[Narrator 4] Wild nights, wild nights! Were I with thee? Wild knights should be our luxury. Futile, the winds to a heart in port, done with a compass, done with a chant. Rowing in Eden, ah, the sea. Might I but moor tonight in thee.
Here, if we can hold it there please. And we can go on to the next slide, please. So before we go on to Mr. Whitman, somebody who can write those two poems, that first one for me is so ironic. I’m nobody. Are you somebody? It’s so pretended playful. It’s ironic. It’s a twist, it’s a turn of who is a somebody, who is a nobody? Who do you think you are? Who do I think? It’s such self-awareness and yet done in this deceptively, but dangerous way, that is underneath the playfulness and in Wild Nights, which is completely sexual and powerful. And I mean, this is written in the middle of the 19th century. And given the kind of life that she’s brought up to live and where she- Yeah. It’s such a rejection and a challenge of the life that she has been, they’ve attempted to socialise her into. Okay. I’m going to hold those there and go on to Walt Whitman. And this is just a little bit from obviously, the big one of his leaves of grass. But I’m just going to show one or two other poems, just a short reading. We can play it please.
[Narrator 5] From “Leaves of Grass” by Walt Whitman. A child said, what is grass? Fetching it to me with full hands, how could I answer the child? I do not know what it is anymore than he. I guess, it must be the flag of my disposition out of hopeful green stuff woven or I guess it is the handkerchief of the Lord. A scented gift and remembrancer designedly dropped, bearing the owner’s name somewhere in the corners that we may see and remark and say whose? Or I guess, the grass is itself a child, the produced babe of the vegetation, or I guess, it is a uniform hieroglyphic, and it means sprouting alike in broad zones and narrow zones, growing among Black folks as among white, Kanuck, Tuckkahoe, Congressman, Cuff. I give them the same, I receive them the same. And now it seems to me the beautiful uncut hair of graves tenderly. Will I use you curling grass? It may be you transpire from the breasts of young men. It may be if I had known them, I would’ve loved them. It may be you are from old people or from offspring, taken soon out of their mother’s laps. And here you are, the mother’s laps. This grass is very dark to be from the white heads of old mothers, darker than the colourless beards of old men. Dark to come from under the faint red rules of mouths who I perceive after all, so many uttering tongues. And I perceive that they do not come from the rules of mouths for nothing. I wish I could translate the hints about the dead young men and women, and the hints about old men and mothers and the offspring taken too soon out of their laps. What do you think have become of the young and old men? What do you think have become of the women and children? They are alive and well somewhere, the smallest sprout shows that there is really no death. And if ever there was, it led forward life. And it does not wait at the end to arrest it and ceased the moment life appeared. All goes onward and outward, nothing collapses. And to die is different from what anyone supposed and luckier. I believe a leaf of grass is no less than a journey work of the stars,
If we can hold it there, please.
[Narrator 5] I think I could turn and live with animals.
Okay. A leaf of grass is nothing less than the work of stars. All of this, I’m sure many people know. Walt Whitman is of course, the ultimate hurt of, or supreme poet almost, of American romanticism. And it’s also linked obviously to kinds of writing happening in England and parts of Europe at the time. But it’s almost the height of romanticism, of celebration, of individual, of self. I singing for myself, all the classic lines that we know so well. It’s epic. It incorporates nature, it incorporates politic, it’s everything. Animals, he’s coming onto here, nature, grass, everything. All of it goes into this one poem. He’s trying to follow the great tradition of homo of two and a half thousand years ago and put so much into one. And it’s this sort of long perm structure to take us again on a journey. Life is a journey. Life is a discovery of self and of the qualities one needs to live, a celebration of self. A literal and metaphorical singing my own song. Well, writing my own song, making my own song, finding my own literal and metaphorical voice to sing my own song. I don’t think it’s that far from Emily Dickinson in what I said right at the beginning of that independence of spirit. And that’s the power of these two. And yes, it’s the time of the American Civil War and obviously that is the huge, huge experience. But what is the big picture of America that these two are tapping into, is of course, getting away from the old world and all the hierarchy, the religion, the obse- Everything to the dream of the individual. I’m not even going to use the cliches of the American dream, but the dream of just the individual living and not necessarily to achieve remarkable things only, but just to try and not conform, try and live according to one’s own spirit and mind. It’s ultimately very romantic. Is it over romantic for our times? Do we live in much darker, complicated, semi cynical times or not?
Do we feel much more forced to conform given mass media and all the other things and the way society is structured? Or do we still always have that tension between the individual and the group? What is powerful for me is that, what he does is he replaces religion with nature. It’s animals, it’s grass, it’s so many other things. It’s finding the answer to life in a way to live through the power of grass. And grass is just a leaf. It’s like a putting the two together. It’s words worth but it’s taken so much further, so much more passionate and powerful I think. And of course, the ordinariness of the language. I celebrate myself and sing myself. Well, it’s obviously, it’s the great American expression of the self and this coming out of the enlightenment era, this is it in literature. So much of it. And of course, it’s Byronic, it’s Byron, it’s poetry. It’s so self celebratory and it’s not about war or even moral struggle. It’s about understanding what does it mean to sing a song about myself? It means I’m going to expand and live my own consciousness. That’s what it is, he has discovers in Homer. I’m going to live according to my own mind, my own consciousness, my own thoughts. Even if I struggle and to find out what they are. Oh, I’m terrified of it. I’m going to do it. Blades of grass, are they spears? Are they weapons in his ideal world? Is he too full of rapture and contemplation about himself? Or is he giving an idealistic and romantic picture of, well, at least try to live this life, which I think he is trying to. And I mean the language, my tongue, every atom of my blood on and on. It’s like going so deep into the moments of nature in the self, in one’s own body, sensuality and nature itself. And it’s that identification. Identification with that, I can find independence and freedom of spirit and freedom of mind. Not through religion of the old world and the strictures and structures of the old world. And I’m going to be proud of it, proud of where I am, proud of who I am, belong and live it. And of course, it is over romantic and it is naive to a degree, idealistic.
But it is so seductive and enchanting, and so powerful. I think it’s irresistible. And even to live that dichotomy, that tension between finding my own voice and spirit and conformity is in itself, the powerful idea in the poem and the old world traditions toast. He wants to go for the contemporary, the American idea of self-reliance no matter what. And I think that’s what she does, the soul selects her own companions, which means internal companions, and hear are the same. I choose my own identity in a way which even uses that word identity. It’s a prayer addressed to nature, not to God. And that’s a huge distinction between so many of the other writers of the old world. And it’s similar to Emily Dickinson as well. It’s addressed in nature and the nature of the self, not to God. So it is the enlightenment dream or ideal. It is the romantic ideal and dream. And I think the way of seeing it in contemporary eyes, is even if it can’t be achieved to strive for it, is in its own way enough. And the champion is, not of being of the battlefield, but the champion of these qualities which are internal instead. And Walt Whitman calls for an end to shame. The shame that society puts on through moral purity and inverted common through religion or through other aspects of conformity. The shame of sexual desire, the shame of the body, the shame of attitudes towards death or other things. And idealistically, is saying to hell with it. And of course, the shame of injustice and bigotry and prejudice as well. All of it, sweep it away. And he’s against the 19th century genteel cult of sentiment, of pretty precious verse and pretty precious morals and thoughts and ideas, and ways to dress. There’s the dresses. She talks about the dresses, the clothing, the everything to find something else. Yes, naive. Yes, idealistic and romantic. But as I said, it’s in the striving that I think the poem lies. And I think he really gets it. He does see it in the end.
And in Ginsburg, and he’s obviously hugely influenced by Walt Whitman and so many others. He’s trying to find his own sanity in that poem. How? Given the insanity of what he sees of the times that he’s living his own sanity, his own freedom, his own mind as well. So much of it is there. Whoever degrades another, degrades me in the poem. Well, that’s obviously against slavery, against prejudice and other things. I speak the password primaeval. I give the sign of democracy. I mean, he is trying to liberate language and put ordinary language of newspapers and what’s in the zeitgeist into poetry itself which goes way back to older times where this distinction between, sort of elite poetry and popular was not really that well, it wasn’t such a strict boundary at all in a way. In fact, the poet had to be an entertainer, usually sing or write their play pieces and get audiences and get a few bucks out of it and live with that pretty different. It’s the ultimate enlightenment vision. And these are the moments of vision for me of Walt Whitman and Emily Dickinson in such different ways. And this is what the human right is, this is what the constitution and democratic right is ultimately for, and the greatness and brilliance of America, which I think, yeah. I think he banishes the very concept of sin and he lost his job. Let’s remember the guy, he worked for, I forget the department, but I’ll get it in a moment in Washington and kicked him out of his job once his poem was published. So, he risked a lot. She came from a wealthy family, but he risked a lot.
And he loses his job because you do feel that the concept of sin is banished and that nothing is really that sinful or he at least questions the received wisdom of what is a sin and what isn’t a sin. Let’s look at the phrase, population is no more ranked to me than death is. Well, harking back to Hamlet, of course, the word rank. It’s all about Denmark in Hamlet or the father, the dictatorship. The population isn’t more rank than death. And in other words, this is all nature. It’s all part of life and living, copulation, death, what is rank and what isn’t, is a different story. So to put sin there is questionable, to put it mildly. And it is a reverence and celebration of nature which replaces the strictures of society and religion, which is what I think she does as well. And even can be linked to her literal and a metaphorical seclusion from life so much. Ultimately, of course, it’s a romantic plea to live a life of a body, of sensuality, of a free mind and so on. And of course, it’s not realistic, none of it is. But what I think they give us in this ultimately romantic way that he does in her ways, she’s much more ironic and much more contemporary because I think she’s so ironic, because I think we live in a very ironic time. Where X means Y and Y means Z, and so on. But at heart, there’s a similar hunger for a way to live, even if one can’t be satisfied with, when can’t satisfy that hunger, when can at least partly do it. Just want to play one more, if we can go on to this one, “O Captain! My Captain!” Which of course, is about- As you know, this is about Lincoln. Can we go on to the next slide please? “The Open Road.”
[Narrator 5] Afoot and light hearted, I take to the open road. Healthy, free, the world before me. The long brown path before me leading wherever I choose.
Can we freeze it there?
[Narrator 5] Henceforth-
Thanks, son. Wack go, wherever I choose, “The Open Road.” He’s the first to write this kind of poetry and it’s an extraordinary influence in America and globally and obviously, in the English language cultures around the world. I will choose my road, the road less travelled, whichever. It’s this idea of the road. We come onto Kerouac, we come onto so many of later, the influence is so huge. But the sense of travel, the sense of journey, of the road, and of course, it’s all metaphorical. It’s an internal journey that I’m going to follow. And this is the idealistic and supremely romantic dream of Walt Whitman and his times, I think, and in their very different ways. But I will follow. And it’s an open road, which means that I will call it what I want, I will do with it what I want, whether it destroys me or creates me or both. And I want to end with the poem of the slide before, please. And this is obviously a call for Abraham Lincoln and about Lincoln, but I think it’s so resonant for today, “O Captain! My Captain!” It’s a plea for a leader of that quality, of a society which maybe even offers even 10% of these idealistic and enlightenment romantic dreams.
[Narrator 6] O Captain! My Captain! Our fearful trip is done. The ship has weathered every rack, the prize we sought is won. The port is near, the bells I hear. The people all exulting while follow eyes, the steady keel. The vessel grim and daring. But oh, heart, heart, heart. O the bleeding drops of red where on the deck my captain lies, fallen cold and dead. O captain, my captain rise up and hear the bells, rise up for you, the flag is flung. For you the bugle trills, for you bouquets and ribboned wreaths, for you the shores are crowding, for you they call the swaying mass, their ego faces turning. Here, captain, dear father, this arm beneath your head, it is some dream that on the deck you’ve fallen cold and dead.
If we can hold it there please, Lauren.
[Narrator 6] My captain-
Thank you. Finally, I wanted to end with this because obviously, Civil War and the death of Lincoln and we imagine a mass anxiety questioning what is going to happen next, which way not only will America, but will the society go, the worlds that have been created, the massive end of slavery through the war, the devastation of that war. What’s next? What’s coming? Captain, we need you. You brought us, you’ve taken us thus far. What next? Where and how? The plea not only for Abraham Lincoln, I think literally, but I think on the metaphorical level, leadership of some note, leadership that understands the world, the society, the conflicting tensions of his own era and how to find another captain or somebody imbued with similar values that that captain had. Idealistic, romantic, full of enlightenment, dream, yes. Worth striving for, yes. I think that’s what Whitman ultimately is in a way about and in her own very different way in an independence of spirit, where she determined to make herself the captain of her own ship, Emily Dickinson. Okay, thank you. And we can go into questions.
Q&A and Comments:
Ah, Carol. Oh, thank you. Yeah, I know. You’ve put it so well to ease some of the pain of a troubled world. And I think, it does help. If reading a little bit of this, of Emily Dickinson or Walt Whitman or Shakespeare or whoever, can help us with a little bit of the darkness of the trouble of our world and the pain as you say, maybe it can help a little bit.
Gail, thanks. Yeah.
“Because I could not stop for death.” I think it’s a remarkable poem and I agree with you, Gail. And I see it in this very individual way. And yeah, I know it’s obviously a very contemporary way of looking at it, but I think it’s valid. Ivan is surely a lonely, beautiful lady, maybe lesbian, maybe, don’t know. All the speculation as you say about her sexuality, about her health, mental, physical health, all of that is I think ultimately speculation, but it’s what she does with the words and the poetry in the end.
Q: Ruth, what do you think of the film about her, about Emily? Did she and Whitman have any relationship?
A: Not as far as I know, not directly. The film, whoa, that’s another whole long talk if you have to get into Ruth, but thank you.
Myrna, reminds me of the Aires. That’s interesting. Yeah. Interesting connection. Dennis, hope is a thing with feathers in tribute. Yeah, I know the Woody Allen phrase. I know and I was not sure whether to bring in the Woody Allen, but that could’ve taken us on a different journey. And that phrase is so well known that I purposely chose to hold back from it for today. Exactly when Woody Allen titles his book of essays, that one book of his without feathers, hope is a thing without feathers. It’s not a bird with feathers, which is going to visit.
Exactly. And that’s his ironic comic way of commenting on her, obviously. Exactly. Rita, I will get the name of the narrator, I’ll get it. And it’s an extraordinary voice and it’s actually filled with that kind of Whitman feeling that’s deep sonorous. I think the Welsh voice gets close to it as well, like Richard Burton and others, but it’s not Richard Burton, obviously. Yeah. He did, Rita. He had I think amazing eyes and presence.
Q: Elliot, wasn’t this about Nelson?
A: Yeah, it might’ve been. From what the research I’ve done, it’s been more about, it was LinkedIn, I think. Research.
I can hear the late great Robin Williams citing “O Captain! My Captain!” Yes, in Dead Poet Society. Absolutely. And I think the death poem keeps coming around at different times as we live in the era of increasing pain and suffering, and darkness and fascism. That hunger, that yearning keeps coming round.
Rita, thank you. Carrie, thank you. Janice, thank you all very kind. Everyone.
Yeah. The author- If you want to email me through Lockdown University email address, please with pleasure. For me, it’s one of the most brilliant thinkers of our times. Camille Paglia, P-A-G-L-I-A. And she wrote a lot of books, but this is one of it, which is on specific poems and poets. And the book is called “Break, Blow, Burn.” And it’s looking at a number of poems by this brilliant American scholar, Camille Puglia. Josie, thank you.
O Captain reminds Wordsworth. Yeah. I think there’s a lot of references to Wordsworth and Blake. Also, even nobody. And I think, Emily Dickinson would’ve known Blake, known of his work anyway. “The Chimney Sweeper” and others there, there’s a lot of phrases which seem similar in echo. And as one of my professors at Columbia, when I studied this, one said to me, originality is lack of information. So it’s all about, I’m sure that these two, Emily Dickinson and Walt Whitman, they stole from Wordsworth and Blake who stole from others. And being a writer is being a part-time thief, of course.
Barbara, thank you. That’s very kind of you, thank you. Carol, thank you. That’s great. Josie, Milton now should be living at this hour. Yeah. It’s a similar call, a cry. It’s a great point. It’s a great thought, thank you. Carol, yeah. Nothing new under the sun. Yep.
Okay. So thank you very much everybody, and hope everyone has a great rest of the weekend and sees the Albert Camus line, “The invincible summer of the heart.” I’m filled with poetry today. Thank you everybody. And Lauren, thank you so much. Take care.