This piece from specimen days was nostalgic. That was the sense I got from it any way. He is looking back as he says, "The Yellow-birds, the Red-birds, the original Broadway, the Fourth avenue, the Knickerbocker, and a dozen others of twenty or thirty years ago, are all gone." From there the writing has that very nostalgic feeling and all the positive memories that go with it. I myself have met a rare handful of bus drivers that I have liked, but Whitman loves them all in this passage. He loves them for their half true stories or carnal desires as he ponders on the conversations he has had with them.
He then puts them in the context of great writers like Cervantes Homer and Shakespeare, claiming they would be great subjects for such artists. The driver as subject with his stories and character provides more of that Whitmanian tradition of celebrating the low and the high together. The driver provides subject matter and becomes a muse for great art, and in turn great art is created for and around the driver.
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Judging by the timestamp on this post, you managed to get this done before the Medieval Lit class this morning... very impressive. :)
ReplyDeleteThanks for pointing out Whitman's propensity to mix "the low and the high together", and his ability to create something that readers can relate to and invest in emotionally.
Yes, very nice. Guess he never got the chance to ride MUNI.
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