Praised Be the Fathomless Universe : Banned in Boston

Transcription

1 Praised Be the Fathomless Universe : Banned in Boston Sunday, October 18, 2015 Rev. Bruce Southworth, Senior Minister The Community Church of NY Unitarian Universalist Opening Words & Chalice Lighting This-worldly, Walt Whitman declares his faith: There will never be any more perfection than there is now, Nor any more heaven or hell than there is now. You must habit yourself to the dazzle of the light and of every moment of your life. [46] Readings (1) Jerome Loving, The Song of Himself: Walt Whitman In Leaves of Grass, Whitman had challenged the current standard of decency in literature. Following Emerson the transcendentalist who said that nature was an emblem of the oversoul, or God, and that everyone was therefore divine, Whitman reasoned that everyone was not only spiritually but also politically equal. This idea eventually gave the self-proclaimed Poet of Democracy license to celebrate all aspects of nature, including human sexuality. (227) (2) Walt Whitman in his grand volume of poetry, Leaves of Grass, writes of happiness this way: When I heard at the close of day how my name had been receiv d with plaudits in the capitol, still it was not a happy night for me that follow d; And else, when I carous d, or when my plans were accomplish d, still I was not happy; But the day when I rose at dawn from the bed of perfect health, refreshed, singing, inhaling the ripe breath of autumn, When I saw the full moon in the west grow pale and disappear in the morning light,

2 When I wander d alone over the beach, and undressing, bathed, laughing with the cool waters, and saw the sun rise, And when I thought how my dear friend, my lover, was on his way coming, O then I was happy; O then each breath tasted sweeter and all that day my food nourish d me more and the beautiful day pass d well, And the next came with equal joy and with the next, as evening, came my friend; And that night, while all was still, I heard the waters roll slowly continually up the shores, I heard the hissing rustle of the liquid and sands, as directed to me, whispering, to congratulate me, For the one I love most lay sleeping by me under the same cover in the cool night, In the stillness, in the autumn moonbeams, his face was inclined toward me, And his arm lay lightly around my breast and that night I was happy. [1860] (3) Elegy for Abraham Lincoln When lilacs last in the doorway bloomed, And the great star early drooped in the western sky in the night I mourned, and yet shall mourn with ever-returning spring Come lovely and soothing death Undulate round the world, serenely arriving, arriving, In the day, in the night, to all, to each, Sooner or later delicate death. Prais d be the fathomless universe, For life and joy, and for objects and knowledge curious, And for love, sweet love but praise! praise! praise! For the sure-enwinding arms of cool-enfolding death 2

3 Prais d Be the Fathomless Universe : Banned in Boston Rev. Bruce Southworth Perhaps, like me, you were told in a high school English class that the most important, and perhaps the only, date one needs to remember in American literature is the year 1855, with the publication of Walt Whitman s Leaves of Grass. Walt Whitman, poet and great soul, as it turns out, gave us one of the first volumes of modern natural theology, humanistic, prophetic, god-intoxicated for me, cor ad cor loquitur heart speaking to heart spiritually rich and inviting still. That volume of twelve poems went through nine editions of expansion to more than 400 poems with final version 26 years later in It cements Whitman s place as the inventor of modern American poetry. (Loving xi) Whitman who celebrates Democracy and the Common Man, who offered free verse in rhythmic patterns of ordinary speech, and who dared to celebrate sexuality and the sensual, moving our poetry from images of New England villages and sentimental love to a celebration of both the body and soul. Leaves of Grass, for the most part, received scorn upon publication in 1855, and by 1882 in its final version it appeared on the District Attorney s list of obscene books, thus being banned in Boston. In 1855, Rufus Wilmot Griswold, one of the deans of poetry criticism for more than a decade prior, called Whitman s poetry a mass of stupid filth (184) A London critic (a year later) asked, Is it possible that the most prudish nation in the world will adopt a poet whose indecencies stink in the nostrils? (209) There were a few fans, most notably Whitman himself, who often wrote favorable reviews of his own work under others names. Even Ralph Waldo Emerson, who lavished praise on Whitman in 1855, also would come to remark that there were parts of the book where I hold my nose while I read. (222) For us today, to begin, I want to offer a sampler by necessity wide-ranging from Whitman s Song of Myself, which originally opened the volume and is the longest poem he included. Walt Whitman begins, I celebrate myself, and sing myself And what I assume you shall assume, For every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you. 3

4 I loafe and invite my soul, I lean and loafe at my ease observing a spear of summer grass You shall no longer take things at second or third hand, nor look through the eyes of the dead, nor feed on the spectres in books, You shall not look through my eyes either, not take things from me, You shall listen to all sides and filter them from your self. This-worldly, Walt Whitman continues, There will never be any more perfection than there is now, Nor any more heaven or hell than there is now. There is also the urge to procreate, and he says, always sex/to elaborate is no avail, learn d and unlearn d feel it is so. (10) But a bit later after lines about the comfort he gives to a runaway slave, he does elaborate, and depicts 28 young men bathing in the sea, imagining how a single woman watches them from her house, joins them and caresses them in her imagination. While they did not see her, the poet sees this woman who saw them and loved them whose unseen hand also pass d over their bodies tremblingly from their temples and ribs. (11) Expanding his vision, he declares himself a caresser of life (13) identifying with every hue and caste am I, of every rank and religion, A farmer, mechanic, artist, gentleman, sailor, quaker Prisoner, fancy-man, rowdy, lawyer, physician, priest. (16) Here is a man comfortable in his own carcass: I find no sweeter fat than sticks to my own bones. (20) Yet again he transcends the material, offering, I know I am deathless I exist as I am, that is, enough. I am the poet of the Body and am the poet of the Soul. The pleasures of heaven are with me and the pains of hell are with me. I am the poet of the woman the same as the man, And I say it is as great to be a woman as to be a man (21) Acknowledging the capacities we carry, he declared, I am not the poet of goodness only, I do not decline to be the poet of wickedness also. (22) 4

5 Then a line, one of his biographers notes, that perhaps deserved editing away: And The scent of these armpits aroma finer than prayer. This head more [divine] than church, bibles and all the creeds. (24) A bit further a creation-centered theology, we would call it our time, a very modern cosmology: I believe a leaf of grass is no less than the journey-work of the stars. a mouse is miracle enough to stagger sextillions of infidels. (31) In stanza 32 are these lines perhaps familiar to you with their identification with nature and condemnation of capitalism: I think I could turn and live with animals, they are so placid and selfcontain d, I stand and look at them long and long. They do not sweat and whine about their condition, They do not lie awake in the dark and weep for their sins, They do not make me sick discussing their duty to God, Not one is dissatisfied, not one is demented with the mania of owning things He returns to human suffering and cruelty, particularly that inflicted upon slaves, I am the hounded slave, I wince at the bite of the dogs, Whitman in his early 40s during the Civil War spent several years in Washington, D. C. as a visiting nurse to the soldiers wounded in battle, offering a kind word, some food, or money, or companionship and was forever changed. Regarding a massacre of prisoners of war, of captured soldiers, still in Song of Myself, he reports, The second First-day morning [a Quaker term for Sunday] they were brought out in squads and massacred, it was beautiful early summer, The work commenced about five o clock and was over by eight. That is the tale of the murder of the four hundred and twelve young men. (34) 5

6 So, here we are not quite two thirds of the way through this free verse poem, and what do we have? Celebrations of our humanity in its glory and cruelty; of our first-hand experience, of sex and sexuality, of unity a oneness with all persons, the muse of the material and the eternal, the sacred within ourselves and each other; images denouncing slavery, materialism of getting things and ever more things, and the cruelty of war; And celebrations of our divinity and unity with all things, with the stars and cosmos He continues with themes of religion: I do not despise you priests, all time, the world over, My faith is the greatest of faiths and the least of faiths, Enclosing worship ancient and modern and all between ancient and modern. [43] Into the mysteries he enters, I launch all men and women forward with me into the Unknown. [44] and to the vast star systems, Wider and wider they spread, expanding, always expanding, Outward and outward and forever outward. Not I, not any one else can travel that road for you, You must travel it yourself. [46] Like our spiritual wisdom that honors the Principle of the Free Mind, he declares that you must find out for yourself the answers to the questions of your life. And a challenge, You must habit yourself to the dazzle of the light and of every moment of your life. [46] I shall return to his wonderful theological conclusions near the end of this poem with just a few lines more for now: Do I contradict myself? Very well then I contradict myself, (I am large, I contain multitudes.) [51] which echoes Emerson s essay "Self Reliance:" A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines. 6

7 Just as in When Lilacs Last in the Doorway Bloomed, he affirms, me And as to you death, and you bitter hug of mortality, it is idle to try to alarm And as to you Life I reckon you are the leavings of many deaths This free verse extravaganza of Life-force, the sacred within Nature and us, vision, suffering, praise, initially focusing on human freedom foremost, but expanding too, proclaims our kinship and unity. There had been nothing quite like it although scholars today find that his free verse echoes the cadences of the King James version of the Christian Bible. The title itself draws upon several quite different images. Popular volumes had often invoked images of Leaves of nature, and trees, but Whitman by earliest training was a printer, and so would also conjure leaves as the sheets of paper upon which books were printed. And grass is also a printer s term. It refers to the odd scribblings the writings that printers would make for their own amusement between paying jobs their jottings, casual writings, a rather different understanding than the conventional one that sees only a reference to the transcendent, or transcendentalist affirmation of the sacred in the mundane, such as blades of grass. Amidst the criticism, one early advocate, however, was Ralph Waldo Emerson who indeed saw in Whitman the Transcendentalist celebration of every element of Nature, human or not, as emblematic of God, God s presence, divinity within us. Emerson wrote to Whitman: I find incomparable things said incomparably well, as they must be.... I greet you at the beginning of a great career. (189) Emerson had longed called for a distinctively American culture and literature especially, and here he found one matching his summons. What offended? Foremost the sensuality and sexuality of parts of Song of Myself and of other poems. The images of the woman watching the bathers, and of Whitman offering us her sexual desires were deemed obscene by some. The images of male bonding, of comradeship, yet without the sense of homosexuality, as we understand it a term not introduced until 1892 these seemed not to give the offense that heterosexual imagery conjured in the public mind. And, of course, other critics failed to see the art, the poetry, and the structure of these free verse lines. 7

8 This extraordinary volume grew out of all the experiences and influences upon him, and for a moment I turn to some of the details of Whitman s life. Born on May 31, 1819 near Huntington, Long Island, Whitman was the second of nine children. His father, trained as a carpenter, moved the family to Brooklyn when Walt was four, but despite the building boom, his father was impractical in business affairs, and perhaps alcoholic. The father was a radical democrat on the side of the farmer, the laborer, the small tradesman, and the people, as one biographer notes. It was in his explorations of Long Island, the woods and shores, that gave Whitman a deep aesthetic appreciation of nature, and he would return frequently for visits in the 1840s and 1850s. It may have been in 1853 or 1854, that Whitman had a mystical experience perhaps on the island that helped shape his deeper faith and spirituality. Of modest circumstances, young Walt attended the public schools with the social stigma attached to them, until age 11, and then he worked in a legal office for a year before going to a newspaper with liberal political leanings. As an apprentice compositor, he learned writing and spelling in much the way Mark Twain did. Throughout his early teens, this became his trade a printer, and he expanded into journalism as a feature writer and editor after a five-year stint back on Long Island as a teacher, which he loathed. Throughout his life, he embraced the progressive issues of the day. He o was a temperance advocate, o opposed the death penalty, o championed women s rights and suffrage, o opposed slavery, and o denounced excesses of Wall Street, as well as police mistreatment and abuse of prostitutes and orphans. He identified with the laborer and the struggles of farmers and frontiersman, and embraced the democratic ideals of equality of opportunity for all, including seeing Native Americans as among those victimized. He for the first time brought politics into poetry, as we heard in some of the excerpts from Song of Myself. At the same time, in Brooklyn and Manhattan, he enjoyed city life, the theater, and lectures and opera, and Emerson is surely one of those whom he went to hear speak. Whitman wrote, I was simmering, simmering. Emerson brought me to a boil. And thus, the volume Leaves of Grass took shape in his soul. 8

9 Controversy continued about his work, which he was to edit and expand, but there were admirers as well among British and European critics. His acclaim was slow in coming, but Whitman was confident in his gift and succeeded in helping to redefine what poetry could be, all the while being a publicist for his own work. With the 1881 version of Leaves of Grass by a major publisher, Whitman felt vindicated, even when one critic called his volume a slop bucket. But then on March 1, 1882, the Boston District Attorney said the book violated obscenity statutes, causing his publisher to withdraw after Whitman refused to accept the extensive censorship required. One of the consequences of being banned in Boston in 1882 was a new edition published in Philadelphia that quickly went though five printings of 1000 each, although banned by Wanamaker s department store. One theme I want to lift up again is his faith in democracy and the people. Whitman put it this way, If I should need to name, O Western World, your powerfulest scene and show, Twould not be you Niagara Nor you Yosemite nor Yellowstone Nor Oregon s white cones. Nor Mississippi s streams: - This seething hemisphere s humanity, as now, I d name the still small voice vibrating America s choosing day. Our day at the polls Election Day is prized over all our natural wonders! Whitman for most of the last 20 years of his life had intermittent health problems and limped from after-effects of a stroke. He never married. He had a number of close male companions, yet denied any sexual relationships with them or others. He died on March 26, 1892, age 72, at home in Camden, New Jersey where for many years he lived, first with his brother, and then on his own. His final words I turn to this morning reflect Whitman s faith, his Theology, his life s view, a radiant humanistic Naturalism, for, as he says, chants each for its kind I sing The greatness of Love and Democracy and the greatness of Religion. [Starting ] I say to mankind, Be not curious about God, For I who am curious about each am not curious about God, (No array of terms can say how much I am at peace about God and about death.) 9

10 I hear and behold God in every object, yet understand God not in the least, Nor do I understand who there can be more wonderful than myself. Why should I wish to see God better than this day? I see something of God each hour of the twenty-four, and each moment then, In the faces of men and women I see God, and in my own face in the glass, I find letters from God dropt in the street, and every one is sign d by God s name, And I leave them where they are, for I know that whereso er I go, Others will punctually come for ever and ever. So, amidst the tribalisms of our times and superstitious faiths, the cynics and narcissists, the greedy and those who are overwhelmed by burdens small and great, to the faint of heart and those almost lost, take his hand, those lonesome and those filled with comrades travel with him a moment as you grow your own soul. Walt Whitman Celebrator of Life, of Love, of the body, of all things material and all things which are equally spiritual, of Democracy so precious still in our days who gives us sustenance, hope and courage who helps us know the universe itself as a road, as many roads, as roads for traveling souls. Prais d be the fathomless universe, To this bard of the human spirit, and to us, all that we might be. praise! praise! praise! 10