Revisions and Speech

When people i have known have said that sometimes authors just put words on a page without thinking about it I point them to Walt Whitman. Like Professor Hanley at SFSU has pointed out, Whitman's leaves of grass wasn't so much of a final edition, but instead was a constant work in progress with new editions coming out nearly annually. There is not a single word in Leaves of Grass that Whitman didn't intend to belong there. It's true as hell!!! Look at the revisions in the blue book. Look at them! Witness someone who, despite speaking words that cut to the core of me, revised those words constantly to find the perfect meaning.

"Speech is the twin of my vision....it is unequal to measure itself" (pg.19 1855)

Speech for Whitman was always unequal to his vision, and thus his revisions. Who could blame him? I'm not saying that the 1855 version of Leaves of Grass isn't beautiful and literary by itself, but i am understanding that Whitman revised his work to try to make it closer to his intent, to his vision.

For me, page 19 of the 1855 version of Leaves speaks to me. I have already written about it multiple times but when a certain part of a poem speaks to you, you have to respond. I will look at the revisions of this page, or rather this section of the poem.

Walt turns understand to contain in the line " Walt you understand enough....why don't you let it out then?"

Walt also changes it into italics. But first we must discuss the word change. Contain versus understand. Contain supposes that Walt had been filled with understanding, he had been filled with experience. Understand implies that Whitman may not have experienced the parts of life that speech contains, but instead realizes them conceptually. So we can see how contain takes a different position in the poem.

Another large change is the addition of "O Speech" in the line "Do you not know, O Speech, how the buds beneath you are folded". The issue with this is that, in the 1855 version, this part was not directly talking to speech, or rather, the act of speech. But with the updated version we understand more thoroughly that Whitman is specifically talking about the inadequacy of speech. By adding "O speech" we understand that Whitman is directing all of his verse upon the topic of speech.

There are more changes that occur even within his page. There are too many changes for us to track them down on just one blog post. But the reality of it is this. That Whitman was always looking to make his intent more concise. Whitman does not even condone a single word in Leaves of Grass without his complete acceptance of that word belonging in the poem. Perhaps Whitman's poetry is one of the texts that we, as literary critics, can pull out the most authorial intent from.