The Mystery of the Floating Passage

While reading “A Song for Occupations” I have discovered, through no small amount of deductive reasoning, that the passage beginning with, “When the psalm sings instead of the singer,” and ending with, “Of them as I do of men and women like you,” moves twice. By no small amount of deductive reasoning I mean to say I read the various poems, and discovered that in the 1860 and 67 versions it has been moved from the end to near the end of the poem after the lines, “Leaves are not more shed from the trees, or trees from/ the earth, than they are shed out of you.” Then they are moved again, in the 1881 and 91 versions, back to their original positions except this time they succeed the lines, “You workwomen and workmen of these States having your own/ divine and strong life,/ And all else giving place to men and women like you.”
Why might these lines change? What is Whitman’s reason for confusing his future readers who are going over his poems? Well every preceding line to the passage is somewhat similar to the original order from 1855, “All I love America for, is contained in men and/ women like you.” The men and women he is referring to are the laborers it is a: song, carol, chant for occupations. In one way or another Whitman is admiring the working man and woman. He says they are America, or that the world is there’s and sheds its “leaves” on our their behalf, or the “States” have given them a wonderful place to live and work. Whitman sticks to that theme the idea of work and labor representing the democratic. He renames it “Chants Democratic” to further the idea that the laborer makes the democratic system. The President “Is up there in the White House for you… it is not you who are/ here for him,” throughout the poem he speaks to the laborer reminding him and her that they are all equal, and that they are the ones with power in a democracy. Still what has this got to do with the mystery of the floating passage.
Upon closer look at the passage it is one of Whitman’s famous, infamous, lists of things. These are objects replacing the laborer. For instance, “when the psalm sings instead of the singer,” Whitman says he will, “intend to reach them my hand, and make as much of/ Of them as I do of men and women like you.” Of course it’s pretty much impossible for all of these objects to actually perform any sort of task. They don’t provide the warmth, strength, or skill needed to produce themselves, but they are important to the community nonetheless. In earlier versions Whitman leaves us with a rather open ended reading of this final passage. It is up to us to decipher his secret code. Later on though he follows up by explaining himself a little more by following up with, “The sum of all known reverence I add up in you,/ whoever you are;/ The President is there in the White House for you.” But he puts it back again as though he realized he’s not singing to idiots. This all returns to the title in some way. Every time the title is changed it carries with it the significance of song. He calls it “Chants Democratic,” “To Workingmen,” then “Carol of Occupations,” and then back again to “A Song for Occupations.” He starts with song as that is what many people do when they work. They whistle, or sing, or chant, or hum it helps the work go by. He strays from that for a bit but returns, just as he returns to the passage at the end, because song is something that connects. The laborer is strong in force, and he or she is only in force when he is bound together with a common goal. Whether that worker is a preacher or blacksmith they are all working towards the advancement of America.

Bowery B'hoys

These Dashing young lads are bowery b'hoys. The bowery b'hoys, and g'hals, were symbols of the high spirited working class. They like, many youths in their individual time periods, were recognized for their sense of fashion. They were the image of hip, young, urban New Yorkers. The b'hoys themselves were recognized for their stovepipe hats, and their long sideburns known as soaplocks, a style still common among days hip, young, urban San Franciscans.



But I digress, the b'hoys and g'hals came from the working class, and had a penchant for the finer things. Things like cheap dancehalls, dime museums, billiard salons, rowdy theaters, performing animals, and boxing. These rough and rowdy characters filled the streets and like any youthful democratic generation lived life as though it were meant to be enjoyed. And like any symbol of youth he came to be mocked on stage. The bowery b'hoy and his g'hal became character types representing a commercial culture, as these characters spent there money more on wants than needs.

What then is the appeal here for Whitman. Well in short everything. Here was a man off the day who enjoyed whatever pleasure struck his fancy. Even if he was being mocked and ridiculed on stage his image was out there. It was commercialized and sold, and these were rough men who appealed to other such men and so on and so forth. To Whitman these characters were the perfect models to study if one wished to include the high and the low. They may not have been depicted in high theater, but they were on stage. They may have been from the working class, but they spent their money freely. To Whitman these would have been the bathers who gallantly showed their nakedness to whoever happened to be in the vicinity

Since I am easily confused, and not entirely sure how to find passages from the various editions, I have chosen to focus on the beginnings of each.
1855: “I celebrate myself,
And what I assume you shall assume,
For every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you”
1860: “ELEMENTAL drifts!/
O I wish I could impress others as you and the waves
have just been impressing me.”
1867: “THERE was a child went forth every day;
And the first object he look'd upon, that object he be-
came;
And that object became part of him for the day, or a
certain part of the day, or for many years, or
stretching cycles of years.”
These three opening lines, If they are indeed the edited opening lines I assume them to be address the idea of Whitman’s expansion of self in various ways. In the first is the one all of us in the class are familiar with as Whitman has rather familiarized himself with us by saying, “You settled your head athwart my hips and gently turned over upon me./ And parted the shirt from my bosom-bone, and plunged your tongue to my barestript/ heart.” He passes through the second person singular pronoun “you” and first person “I” to make the point that the two are connected as our tongues are fastened to his heart. Because he can, “know that the spirit of God is the eldest brother of my own,” then so can we. We at first are with him and experience his experience through his narrative eye.
The second edition strays a bit. Instead he introduces us to his home: the great Paumanok, Long Island, his home. The reader is then subject to his beautiful descriptions of the island where, “the sea ripples wash you Paumanok/ where they rustle up hoarse and sibilant.” Here we get a greater understanding of Whitman as our guide. He shares with us the world that molded him into the poet he became. Instead of expanding himself to us the reader he expands outward to become part of his city and surroundings.
“I perceive Nature here, in sight of the sea, is taking
advantage of me, to dart upon me, and sting me,
Because I was assuming so much,
And because I have dared to open my mouth to sing
at all.” Showing us his insolence he opens himself to criticism and scorn even from his own home. He opens himself but does not come to us. We must go to him out on his “Fish-shaped” island. He melds the elements together with such metaphors and similes. By doing so he is able to combine his surroundings into one whole. He brings himself into the mixture and towards the end attempts to convey that he is not yet complete. As he becomes closer to Paumanok, who he refers to as his father and the sea his mother, he refers to himself as we until he finally finds us, “Whoever you are—we too lie in drifts at your feet.” He surrounds us and becomes part of the landscape pointing back to the idea that we will always find him beneath our boots.
In the final edition in 1867 Whitman examines the point of view of the child. Instead of warming us up to the idea that Whitman himself surrounds us. The poet persona immediate assaults us with the concept that the child becomes one with what surrounds him. “The first object he looked upon, that object he became,” shows that the child is an empty vessel, empty and vast. Whitman uses the child to point to the simplicity with which man could accept his surroundings, but as he grows older he becomes stuck. When the child becomes his parents he takes on the duality of gender roles. The mother is kind and gentle while the father is harsh and rough. They are stuck as what they are as all objects are, but through the child they transcend beyond one simple role and are added to the many that reside within the child. Whitman steers clear of the first and second person and stays in the encompassing third that is the child. He points to the innocence of everything. Instead of expanding outward the poet persona focuses inward saying, “These became part of the child who went forth every/ day, and now goes, and will always go forth/ every day.” These lines focus on the passage of time going from day to every day. The symbol of child is present and future and all encompassing, instead of expanding outward all collapse in the self to make a whole.

The Oneida Community

The Oneida community seems to have been another one of those rather odd things to come out of the empire state. Founded in Oneida, New York by John Humphrey Noyes, and based on the theory that the community could bring about Jesus' Millennial Kingdom as well as the principles of Perfectionsim. Perfectionism is based on the idea that man could reach a state of being without sin at conversion, this mostly came from Noyes own view that he himself was sinless and therefore capable of throwing stones. The community itself followed four unorthodox, for the time, practices: Male continence, complex marriage, ascending fellowship, and mutual criticism all of which were based around sex, except for that last one. All three sexual practices were practiced to impede any chance of romantic relationships as these were considered "idolatrous," and so everyone was basically married to everyone else, if I have worked the math out right. This commingling among each other sharing bodies and experience, older women were chosen to induct virgins, would be fascinating to Whitman. This is shown in passage like the 28th bather or when he says we states the we have, "plunged your tongue to my barestript heart." But there is something else that Whitman may not have been so excited about regarding the Oneida community. The practice of mutual criticism in which all members participated in criticizing other members, pointing to their bad traits. This may not seem so bad, even somewhat democratic, but the practice was used primarily to enforce the morality of Noyes' doctrine. The critcism points that Noyes' way is the only way. I simply cannot see Whitman backing such a ridiculous idea, when such a group already goes so beautifully against normal societal constructs of sexual relationships; and then ruins that practice by stating there's is the only way.

My little captain

MY PASSION FOR FERRIES

I quite like trains. The way their wheels clack against the tracks. Their smoothed exteriors sliding by the landscape while short bursts of bells echo from their cabins. Whitman's passion for ferries in some ways dwarfs my own fondness for certain facets of public transportation. He has taken the time in his life to really know the ferries. He appreciates the aesthetic sense and inclusiveness of various images such as the "sail'd schooners" and "marvelously beautiful yachts." His words flood with good feelings and you sense that any day on a ferry is, as he puts it, "a fine day." The aspect that Whitman is a part of everything truly shows in this passage. Through the ferry he is connected to Staten island and the Hudson and the water and the boat and his old pilot friends. Public transportation pilots and drivers must have been a lot more friendly back then or perhaps Whitman is just that amicable.

Tweet-a-week: Barnum's American Museum

Barnum's American Museum was in a way an early introduction into the entertainment industry for P.T. Barnum. The museum was on the corner of Broadway and Ann Street and ran from 1841 till it burned down in 1865. He combined lowbrow and highbrow attractions in order to bring in a wider crowd of paying customers. The museum included such things as "sensational oddities" like giants, dwarfs, and albinos. It also included educational exhibits such as whales.

This relates to Whitman in a very direct sense as he at one point lived and worked in the area where the museum was housed. Surely he had visited at least once and would have seen the multitude of oddities, attractions, works of art, and educational platforms all stored in the one building. This must have interested him greatly as Whitman is all about mixing things up.

Specimen Days: THE CAPITOL BY GAS-LIGHT

This is a very brief account of Whitman wandering through the capitol. Instead of focusing on the sights or the mall or the various other things one could see in D.C. he speaks only of the house and the senate. He most likely finds them to be the most important as they are the representatives of the people and the states they. These offices are the ones with the most direct contact to the people. Whitman is giving importance to the democratic process on the level that allows for more participation by the general populace. That is why, perhaps, for him when visiting the capitol it is more important to check in on this process and show that you are a part of it.

Whitman's Flowers

Over the growing sugar, over the yellow-flower'd cotton plant

Over the western persimmon, over the long-leav'd corn, over the/ delicate blue-flower flax

Fetch stonecrop mixt with cedar and branches of lilac,

And a summit and flower there is the feeling they have for each/ other,

Calling my name from flower-beds, vines, tangled underbrush,/ Lighting on every moment of my life,

Many plants flower including ones we think wouldn’t. Corn, for instance, is a monoecious flowering fruit meaning they include both the male and female sex organs on the flower. Every other plant mentioned, except for the persimmon, is monoecious meaning they have male and female flowers on the same plant. I am unsure of Whitman’s botanical prowess but he most certainly knew that from flowers come the fruits of a season’s labor. The lines “over the yellow-flower’d cotton plant” and “over the/ delicate blue-flower flax,” are mentioned among a wide list of things Whitman sees as he travels across the land. Each of these things are extremely individualistic yet share similar properties, such as the “yellow-flower’d cotton plant” and the “blue flower flax.” These two flowers are mentioned together with the term flowers. One, the cotton, becomes a consumable product while the other is a pretty thing to look at by doing so Whitman creates equal significance between the two. One is not more important than the other simply because it can be used. And in that same line with the blue flax he places the fruit before the flower. Blending the senses of something that can be tasted and with something to see and smell. He takes these highly individualized creations of nature and spreads them throughout the world he sees, as flowers are in almost every corner of the world so is Whitman and so are we. It is in the lilac, perhaps a favored flower of the writer, that he celebrates what I as a reader did not expect to see. He celebrates science, “Hurrah for positive science! long live exact demonstration!/ Fetch stonecrop mixt with cedar and branches of lilac,” from this arises Whitman’s inner botanist. He sees the beauty in studying the every essence of the flower to come to a more in-depth understanding of it. Like poetry the scientist delves deep into the breast of nature to touch all knowledge that can be got and to see what comes from mixing flowers and trees or other such things. He celebrates science for its own goals of melding the high and the low and transmogrifying things of beauty into things of use, and things of use into things of beauty. Until we come to his lovers who call for him “from flower-beds.” These lovers being from indiscriminate beds of flowers are comingled and interwoven through their thoughts of him. He is the focal point of this natural scene. Whitman’s flowers.