Whitmans Masculinity and Femininity in Song of Myself Essays

Whitmans Masculinity and Femininity in Song of Myself Essays Whitmans Masculinity and Femininity in Song of Myself Paper Whitmans Masculinity and Femininity in Song of Myself Paper Essay Topic: Leaves Of Grass Poetry The Poetry of Dh Lawrence All Whitmans poems, not merely the Children of Adam poems and the Calamus poems, are love poems of blatant sexuality and amativeness, which was frightening to some of those who read and liked him and was a real bugbear to those who charged him with writing filthi without bothering to read them. However, sex, this rejuvenation or rebirth or new life is taken by Whitman as a proof of the affirmative and ascending nature of Gods world and of humanity itself. Sex is not something debasing or something to be whispered about behind the hand, but deserving the highest celebration. In Song of Myself, masculinity and femininity, the two components of sex, are chanted by Whitman; and whats further, Whitman brings together these two seemingly polar opposites and synthesizes them to form a new wholeness at a higher level where he unlocks his own inner reality and truth. As a start, it is essential to list some of the apparently opposite concepts that are such an integral part of all the poetry of Whitman. Group 1: arrogant, activity, day, sun, life, body and adhesiveness; group 2: docility, passivity, night, moon, death, soul and amativeness. All of the words in group 1 relate to masculinity and those in group 2 to femininity. Strangely, the words in the two groups are not opposite at all in Whitmans poetry, as they would be with most poets; instead, they are dual aspects of a new cosmic self. Whitman is attracted to energy-drawn by its glorious, magnetic charge, which is evidenced in all his poetry. Since reproduction is the prime energizing force in the universe, it would be impossible for Whitman to neglect its power. In Song of Myself, masculinity is explicitly depicted: it was the sweating, muscular laborers, not the pale bank clerk that hold Whitmans attention and love. He sings for the carpenter, the pilot, the blacksmith; sings for their strong arms, grimy and heavy chest and their sexual bodies. As well, masculine heroism can find its great expression in Song of Myself: Whitman imagines himself as a mashed fireman, exhausted but not so unhappy; as old artillerist against the attacking cannons, mortars, and howitzers. And further research will reveal that, all these masculine and aggressive elements within Whitmans descriptions relate to Whitmans own image. It was Whitman himself in his unsigned review of Leaves of Grass who depicted its author as one of the roughs, large, proud, affectionate, eating, drinking, and breeding. Clearly, in all these masculinities, there was always a bit of dandy in Whitman and a rather formidable streak of Narcissismiii. Actually, Whitman was in love with the masculine image of himself; and it is the feminine elements of his being, at the very core of his making-up, hold this love. Moreover, penetrating into these masculine physique and vitality, it exposes that Whitmans inner nature is primarily passive and feminine, which might explain why he becomes ecstatic when he describes the masculinity of energetic men, typically, in Section 12 of Song of Myself where the poet is describing the blacksmiths: The lithe sheer of their waists plays even with their massive arms. Besides the firm masculinity and heroism, there are also many instances in Song of Myself where Whitman tends to view himself as Christ. In section 10, the poet is sheltering a run-away slave and showing his democratic (Christ like) brotherly love: Though the swung half-door of the kitchen I saw him limps and weak,/And went where he sat on a log, and led him in and assured him,/ And brought water and filled a tub for his sweated body and bruised feet /I had him sit next to me at table-my firelock leaned in his corner. In section 48, he declares, In the faces of men and women, I see God, and in my own face in the glass. Whereas Christ was masculine in his courage, in his rebellion against the established order, and in his stoical attitude at his crucifixion, Whitman is also feminine in his passive humility, in his tender compassion and love for others and in his ability to calm and to take care of others. A third expression of masculinity is his boastful tone and his masculine outflo w of his innermost feeling. When Whitman speaks in Song of Myself as the cosmic I, as distinct from the personal I, he seldom writes, I said or I think or I state. Like Emerson, he does not qualify and hedge in his statements. He asserts. Few poets who have written in the English language have used the active, concrete verbs with such boldness and artistic excellence. The assertions of Whitman are far too grandiose to be contained by the standard verse forms of his day or to be restrained by rhyme or regular meter. And because Whitman is a spontaneous me rather than an intellectualized me, he must sing, or chant, or carol, as he rises and falls from peaks of ecstasy. His message is not intellectual; it is anti-intellectual; it is not moral; it flows beyond and beneath morality into a beautiful and loving amorality. It springs from a feeling, a fusion, and an accompanying certitude that is at the very core of his being. It is made possible because he is the reconciler of apparent opposites (masculinity and femininity), which are, when properly understood, not opposite at all. iv Therefore, in this stage, it is safe to conclude that, behind all the masculinities he chants in his muscularly assertive tone, Whitmans inner nature is primarily passive and feminine. Because He is an absorber, who receives and accepts all into himself. He is a Cosmic Eye who searches out and seizes all, a Cosmic Sponge who absorbs and contains all. v And after the process of absorption, the poet becomes a translator, I wish I could translate the hints about the dead young men and women. What occurs in Whitmans translation is that he accepts the peculiar and concrete as symbolic or representative-a gigantic beauty of a stallion-and then quickly fuses the particular into a cosmic view where it is elevated and submerged in deeper meanings far beyond its own limitations. vi While the masculine elements Whitman extols, explores and glorifies in Song of Myself is in a variety of its implications-firm muscularity, heroism, and the democratic (Christ like) concept of brotherly love, femininity in this poem is of a very special kind. Women of the ultra feminine, dainty and charming type are totally absent in Whitmans verse. Instead, women in Whitmans poetry are glorified for their masculine strength rather than their feminine delicacy; they are mostly down-trodden and among the laboring classes: females he sings for in Song of Myself are the prostitute draggling her shawl, her bonnet bobs on her tipsy and pimpled neck. and the clean-haired Yankee girl working with her sewing-machine, or in the factory or mill. Another female image in Whitmans poetry is mothers and mothers of mothers. Whitman obviously has an enduring and tremendous respect and praise for them. His deification of motherhood is apparently in section 21 of Song of Myself, And I say there is nothing greater than the mother of men. This veneration for motherhood is understandable, because Whitman owns warm feelings for his own mother and motherhood is the visible evidence of procreation-the force that is vital to life and to his poetry. Such unordinary femininity, for one reason, may be a result of Whitmans widely known homosexuality: as is deduced from his relationships with Sergeant Thomas P. Sawyer and Peter Doyle, Whitman was homosexual and played a passive and dependent role in his unusual instances. Thus, torn apart by these deeply felt emotional attachments, Whitman always appreciates the masculinity of women and is naturally afraid of these very feminine women, because they are rivals for his subconscious love objects. However, a further examination within a wider social background will show Whitmans homosexuality is only a superficial reason for this particular femininity. The decades of the 1850s was the most creative period in Whitmans life and it was also the highlights of the national movement of womens rights. Whitman felt great sympathy, affection, and admiration for the feminists, such as Chilton and Menken; he encouraged them to struggle for womens equal rights to men. Thus, it can be understood that, by depicting women in such a masculine image, Whitman, does not mean to represent them as D. W. Lawrence commented on Leaves of Grasses: muscles and wombs, they need not have had face at all; rather, it is a cosmic or leveling effect Whitman achieves by not making distinction; the masculine image of women actually is a reference which holds the women just as great as the men; and the mother the melodious character of the earth, the finish beyond which philosophy cannot go and does not wish to go. vii To sum up, in Song of Myself, Whitman deals with both the active masculinity and passive femininity and unites them to unveil his cosmic self. The reason that this fusion, the wellspring of his poetry is so complete, so candid, and so persistently exciting is that both the passive (feminine) and the active (masculine) components were blended and united within Whitman. It was his total acceptance and emotional extension of his own identity, with his joyous pride in its inclusiveness that gave America the miraculous volume. In addition to the joining together of body and soul, it was a synthesis of the masculine and feminine within Whitman, which caused the mystical vision and inspired his poetry. viii His poetry can be viewed as a child of this blending; therefore, its rhythms are necessarily sexual, since the fusion itself is emotional, subjective, and sensual rather than logical. Therefore, only by accepting the fact that all things, while still retaining individual identity and dignity, are in a deeper sense symbolic representatives of the same things, and that all things contains not only themselves but their apparent op posites, can the reader lose and then find himself in full freedom of Whitmans cosmic version. Only when we realize that Whitman is not a conscious and deliberate rebel, nor a mere chauvinist, nor a naive optimist, nor a discursive egotist-only when we grasp the wholeness of man and his love and vision-can we finally learn to feel him aright. For Whitmans poetry ranges beyond all studies and analyses; it is to be read aloud, to be sensed, to be absorbed, to be fused with-just as the poet fused the diverse elements of life and the contending elements of his own personality, accepting them in such a way as to create the most remarkable volume of poetry in 19th century in America. Finally it is necessary to be clearly aware that there is really no duality of paradox or ambiguity or opposites in the representation of the various masculine and feminine elements in Whitmans poetry, which has been demonstrated in Song of Myself. Day-man-life is not really separated from night-woman-death. x They all merge to become a whole; all are of equal value; and all lead to new birth and a higher level of a Cosmic self. xi As Whitman himself affirms, Out of the dimness opposite equals advance, always substance and increase, always sex. Or again, the ultimate affirmation: All goes onward and outward, nothing collapses.