Reviewing the Reviewers

Does Walt Look Like He Cares What They Say?

Okay, understanding that the last two posts were epic in length i intend to try and keep this one short(er). I read five reviews in total, two bad, two good, and one that seemed to be on the fence. It was just as beneficial to see how Whitman received negative comments as good. A full view of the spectrum of reviews allows us the scope to understand Whitman as the circle of critics viewed him.

Starting with bad, here are some lines that really stuck out.

"As to the volume itself, we have only to remark, that it strongly fortifies the doctrines of the Metempsychosists, for it is impossible to imagine how any man's fancy could have conceived such a mass of stupid filth, unless he were possessed of the soul of a sentimental donkey that had died of disappointed love. This poet (?) without wit, but with a certain vagrant wildness, just serves to show the energy which natural imbecility is occasionally capable of under strong excitement" -Rufus Griswold

""We have glanced through this book with disgust and astonishment;—astonishment that anyone can be found who would dare to print such a farrago of rubbish,—lucubrations more like the ravings of a drunkard, or one half crazy, than anything which a man in his senses could think it fit to offer to the consideration of his fellow men. Where these bald, confused, disjointed, caricatures of blank verse have any meaning, it is generally indecent; several times execrably profane." - Henry Bagshawe

Wow. Right? Wow. Scathing really. Scathing. Over the top certainly, however understandable given the knowledge of Victorian sensibilities.

Griswold is extremely reactionary and extremely subjective. Despite the logical fallacies he commits (such as attacking Whitman directly) he actually does not quote any of what he finds displeasing about "Leaves". We know, in fields literary, that when you don't quote, yo shit don't float. His knee jerk reactionary stance that only expounds how vile he thought the poetry was betrays a sense of not having read past maybe the first few pages of "Song of Myself". Yet his abhorrence helps us understand a fact that made Walt so revolutionary. Walt was the first Punk. Walt was Pete Townshend smashing his guitar on stage. Walt was "The Lizard King" so high on acid he couldn't finish a concert. Walt was Zappa (I said it!) telling us to not eat the yellow snow. The poetry was raw and egdgey, and that is exactly why it elicited the response it did.

Bagshawe at least comments on things he doesn't like about the poetry itself. He points towards Walt's blank verse. That's at least something objective yes? But once again he merely talks about how profane the poetry is, and attacks Whitman. And, strangely, nay even suspiciously, he doesn't quote Walt either. Now i understand that, if profanity is the issue, why quote? Well at least censor whats offensive or quote parts that were disliked yet not profane. The reality of these negative reviews is that they are so upset about what they found offensive in the poetry they most likely forgot to correctly analyze it. That's a problem. Some of the best works of art have been profane and profound so, even though we may recoil in horror, to be good critics we must remain at least a bit objective. That is the problem shown by these two of Walt's contemporaries.

So here is the quote of the on-the-fence review.

"A curious title; but the book itself is a hundred times more curious. It is like no other book that ever was written, and therefore, the language usually employed in notices of new publications is unavailable in describing it."-Anonymous

The rest of the review is similar. On the fence, merely stating certain facts about the book and saying that, though strange, the book can provide pleasure to people who are " fond of new and peculiar things". This person has read the book, and thus is capable of reviewing it. Though the review is very ambiguous it is, no the less decent, merely stating that the book is new and strange. This gives people who would read it the idea that, if they are strict traditionalists, they may not care for it, and if they like things new and different, they will find pleasure in it.

Now for the positive reviews.

"In glancing rapidly over the "Leaves of Grass" you are puzzled whether to set the author down as a madman or an opium eater; when you have studied them you recognize a poet of extraordinary vigor, nay even beauty of thought, beneath the most fantastic possible garments of diction. If Hamlet had gone mad, in Ophelia's way, as well as in his own, and in addition to his own vein of madness, he might, when transported to our own age and country, have talked thus." -Anonymous, Our Book Table

This is a review from someone who understands a bit more about Whitman and perhaps America. While they praise Whitman they acknowledge that he is doing something never done before. Whitman is challanging the current conception of poetry in 1855. Though they equate him with Shakespeare (or rather a character of Shakespeare's) the understand Whitman's "roots" or at least the influences that effect him. They call him "Walt Whitman the b'hoy poet". As in bowery b'hoy. As in they know something about Whitman. This intimacy with the culture current in America is perhaps what keeps away the knee jerk reaction to some of the more profane parts of Walt's poetry.

The second Review:

"Walt Whitman, the world needed a "Native American" of thorough, out and out breed—enamored of women not ladies, men not gentlemen; something beside a mere Catholic-hating Know-Nothing; it needed a man who dared speak out his strong, honest thoughts, in the face of pusillanimous, toadeying, republican aristocracy; dictionary-men, hypocrites, cliques and creeds; it needed a large-hearted, untainted,self-reliant, fearless son of the Stars and Stripes, who disdains to sell his birthright for a mess of pottage"-Fanny Fern

I love Fanny Fern. No Joke yo. She hits the nail on the head of how people should have felt about Walt's poetry. He embraces everything and sets everything equal. Though she is very excited by "Leaves" she still reads Walt well, in our terms. She understands the reasoning Walt was apparently trying to get and she poets to him as a thoroughly American poet. She may even purpose my thieving bastardization of a statement from "The Dark Knight"

"Walt Whitman is the poet America needs, but not the one it deserves"

Walt had a vision of an America i wish i could be a part of, a vision of an America that Fanny agrees with and it is that vision that the negative reviewers were afraid of. Progressive and accepting. Refusing the old outdated modes of aristocracy and judgement.

GO WALT GO!

Sorry this wasn't short.