Conflating, Judging, & Appreciating

Contemporary reviewers of Whitman had a difficult time avoiding conflating the poet himself with his poetry, which is always hard to avoid when reading poetry... and it is especially challenging with Whitman, given the subject matter and honest/open tone he takes on. 

And yet, it is a persona that the poet takes on when he writes; it is a performance, not a congruent reflection, as we have discussed in class.  I believe, then, the piece of writing should be evaluated on its own merits, not on judgments we make about the writer as inferred through their creation (which is dangerous as it can empower ethically rigid members of society to be the gatekeepers for art). This review goes on and on about how intricate and relevant Whitman's writing is, how well-crafted and mind-blowing, and then it turns around at the end and basically say, "even though Whitman is a master of everything ever, you should burn every copy of his book because he is a dirty sinner."  (I'm paraphrasing.)

Then again, I think Whitman might disagree with my stance here.  As we saw in "A Song for Occupations," Whitman believed the person behind the creation was the life of the creation and that we should never let the object become more alive than the human.  Which makes sense to me too.  But I believe we give life to the objects we create, and so (like a parent) there comes a time when we have to let our creation go, let it be separate from ourselves.


Many reviewers (like this one) turned their noses up at new poetic forms and new ideas; they seemed to be submitting themselves to the easy view that change is too scary, that the content is too inappropriate or too obscene, too progressive, too far of a leap for people to handle.  This may still happen now, but I think we also see the flip side emerging in poetry today: We see poets being celebrated for their outside the box approach before they really hone their craft. It's as if people realized that generations before had been too afraid of change so they reacted by going to the opposite extreme.  We see the emergence of quirkiness for quirkiness's sake, which gets in the way of artistry just as much as being closed off to new approaches in writing.

Still, reviewers aren't all off the mark by any means.  I did appreciate and enjoy the review by Fanny Fern, who, in turn, appreciated Whitman's work (and Whitman himself). As a female reviewer of Whitman's time, she may have been in a somewhat unique position (as reviewers go) of being herself both high and low (well educated but a member of a marginalized group in society).  She may have been closer to the target audience of Whitman's writing than many others who were in the position to write reviews.  Whatever the reason, she got it.  And she got him.  And I guess the two, at least in Whitman's case, cannot be completely teased apart. 

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