The Continuing Presence of Walt Whitman - The Walt Whitman Archive

282 Pages·2002·14.27 MB·English

The Continuing
Presence of
Walt Whitman

The
Continuing
Presence
Walt
of
The Life after the Life
Edited by Robert K. Martin
1m
University of Iowa Press Iowa City
University of Iowa Press, Iowa City 52242
Copyright © 1992 by the University of Iowa Press
All rights reserved
Printed in the United States of America
Design by Richard Hendel
No part of this book may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any
means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and recording,
without permission in writing from the publisher.
The following essays have been previously published, in somewhat
different form, and are reprinted here with permission:
Thorn Gunn, "Freedom for All," Times Literary Supplement, January 5-11,
1990, pp. 3-4; Maurice Kenny, "Whitman's Indifference to Indians,"
Greenfield Review 14 (Summer/Fall1987): 99-113; Michael Lynch, "The
Lover of His Fellows and the Hot Little Prophets: Walt Whitman in
Ontario," Body Politic 67 (October 1980): 29-31; Ned Rorem, "A Postscript
on Whitman," © 1969 by Ned Rorem, published in Rorem, Settling the Score
(New York: Harcourt Brace, 1988), pp. 311-313. Ronald Johnson's poems
first appeared in Valley of the Many-Colored Grasses (New York: Norton,
1969), pp. 89-98.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
The Continuing presence of Walt Whitman: the life after the life I
edited by Robert K. Martin.-1st ed.
p. em.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN o-87745-366-7 (cloth: alk. paper)
1. Whitman, Walt, 1819-1892-Criticism and interpretation.
2. Authors and readers-United States. 3· Reader-response
criticism. I. Martin, Robert K., 1941-
PS3238.c59 1992
811'. 3-dc20 CIP
96 95 94 93 92 c 1 2 3 4 5
TO MICHAEL LYNCH, 1944-1991

Contents
Acknowledgments ix
Introduction xi
READING THE NATION
Reading Gay America: Walt Whitman, 3
Henry James, and the Politics of Reception
Eric Savoy
Langston Hughes and the "Other" Whitman 16
George B. Hutchinson
Whitman's Indifference to Indians 28
Maurice Kenny
Tropes of Selfhood: Whitman's 39
"Expressive Individualism"
M. Jimmie Killingsworth
Rereading Whitman under Pressure of AIDS: 53
His Sex Radicalism and Ours
Michael Moon
II SOME READERS
A Serpent in the Grass: Reading Walt Whitman 69
and Frank O'Hara
David Eberly
Whispering Whitman to the Ears of Others: 82
Ronald Johnson's Recipe for Leaves of Grass
Ed Folsom
Free Verse in Whitman and Ginsberg: The Body 93
and the Simulacrum
Amitai Avi-ram
Fetishizing America: David Hackney 114
and Thorn Gunn
Robert K. Martin
viii Contents
III BEYOND THE BORDERS
"Still on My Lips": Walt Whitman in Britain 129
Gregory Woods
Walt Whitman in Ontario 141
Michael Lynch
Atlantic Poets: "Discovery" as Metaphor and 152
Ideology
Maria Irena Ramalho de Sousa Santos
Pessoa and Whitman: Brothers in the Universe 167
Susan Margaret Brown
IV THE POETS RESPOND
Whitman's "Live Oak with Moss" 185
Alan Helms
Forays against the Republic 206
Thorn Gunn
A Postscript on Whitman 213
Ned Rorem
Loving Walt Whitman and the Problem of 217
America
Alicia Ostriker
Letters to Walt Whitman 232
Ronald Johnson
Notes on Contributors 241
Selected Bibliography 245
Index to Whitman Poems Cited 257
Acknowledgments
Support has been provided by Concordia University. I
am particularly grateful for the expert services of two
research assistants, Lazer Lederhendler and Frances
Slingerland. Lazer provided valuable editing skills, and
Fran was a scrupulous reader of drafts and checker of
facts with a keen eye for the details that I tend to miss.
Both of them made this project more enjoyable.
All unspecified references to Whitman's poetry are
from the Comprehensive Reader's Edition; citations are by
line number.