2.02.2005
"a book a week" number two: walt whitman's america
i cheated. i've been reading this for over a month. but i did finish the final 225 or so pages this week...
david s. reynolds' walt whitman's america: a cultural biography is exactly what it purports to be-- a cultural biography. i wish most biographies were "cultural," actually... i'm personally less interested in the nuts and bolts of a figure's life than i am in how he/she relates to, differs from, contributes to, and is affected by their culture/environment. reynolds recognizes the value in this direction of inquiry, and stretches his "biography" into a 600 page investigation of 19th century american culture.
whitman is at the core of it, of course, but some of the most interesting passages occur when he is little more than a catalyst. with whitman's experience as his guiding light, reynolds immerses himself deep within whitman's universe, colliding (eventually) with such topics as fourierism and related socialist/populist/spiritual movements of the time (my favorite section), the culture of oratory (and its effect on whitman's artistic practice), the notion of male-on-male affection (cast in a light that surprised my victorian expectations), theatre, music, and-- of course-- the civil war. walt whitman's america is a history lesson recast as personal narrative, and carries with it the quality of a novel in third person. it effectively translates historical data into flavors of a time long gone, and thereby justifies its occasionally challenging length (the blurps on the inside of the book are full of adjectives like "exhaustive" and "comprehensive"-- i guess i'm not the only one who needed the occasional coffee break from this one).
and then there's whitman... i've always preferred the "earthly" whitman (of song of myself, for example) to the later, more spiritual whitman. having read this bio, i'm as affectionate towards him as ever. which isn't to say there isn't plenty to reject: "whitman the essayist" was reactionary and occasionally curmudgeonly, he avoided alignment with abolitionism throughout his life and occasionally spoke out against it, he was a bit of an opportunist, he grew increasingly conservative in his old age... the list goes on. but in his finest poetry, you get a sense that he has fine-tuned his own desires. it's as if he has sculpted his ideal self. and that self is one of radical optimism. an optimism that is almost terrifying if you consider it in its complexity.
david s. reynolds' walt whitman's america: a cultural biography is exactly what it purports to be-- a cultural biography. i wish most biographies were "cultural," actually... i'm personally less interested in the nuts and bolts of a figure's life than i am in how he/she relates to, differs from, contributes to, and is affected by their culture/environment. reynolds recognizes the value in this direction of inquiry, and stretches his "biography" into a 600 page investigation of 19th century american culture.
whitman is at the core of it, of course, but some of the most interesting passages occur when he is little more than a catalyst. with whitman's experience as his guiding light, reynolds immerses himself deep within whitman's universe, colliding (eventually) with such topics as fourierism and related socialist/populist/spiritual movements of the time (my favorite section), the culture of oratory (and its effect on whitman's artistic practice), the notion of male-on-male affection (cast in a light that surprised my victorian expectations), theatre, music, and-- of course-- the civil war. walt whitman's america is a history lesson recast as personal narrative, and carries with it the quality of a novel in third person. it effectively translates historical data into flavors of a time long gone, and thereby justifies its occasionally challenging length (the blurps on the inside of the book are full of adjectives like "exhaustive" and "comprehensive"-- i guess i'm not the only one who needed the occasional coffee break from this one).
and then there's whitman... i've always preferred the "earthly" whitman (of song of myself, for example) to the later, more spiritual whitman. having read this bio, i'm as affectionate towards him as ever. which isn't to say there isn't plenty to reject: "whitman the essayist" was reactionary and occasionally curmudgeonly, he avoided alignment with abolitionism throughout his life and occasionally spoke out against it, he was a bit of an opportunist, he grew increasingly conservative in his old age... the list goes on. but in his finest poetry, you get a sense that he has fine-tuned his own desires. it's as if he has sculpted his ideal self. and that self is one of radical optimism. an optimism that is almost terrifying if you consider it in its complexity.
