So Long! Walt Whitman’s Poetry of Death HAROLD ASPIZ So Long! Walt Whitman’s Poetry of Death So Long! Walt Whitman’s Poetry of Death HAROLD ASPIZ THE UNIVERSITY OF ALABAMA PRESS Tuscaloosa and London Copyright © 2004 The University of Alabama Press Tuscaloosa, Alabama 35487-0380 All rights reserved Manufactured in the United States of America Typeface: ACaslon ∞ The paper on which this book is printed meets the minimum requirements of American National Standard for Information Science–Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI Z39.48 1984. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Aspiz, Harold So long! Walt Whitman’s poetry of death / Harold Aspiz. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0-8173-1377-X (cloth : alk. paper) 1. Whitman, Walt, 1819–1892—Criticism and interpretation. 2. Death in literature. 3. Whitman, Walt, 1819–1892. Leaves of grass. 4. Whitman, Walt, 1819–1892—Prose. I. Title. PS3242.D35 A87 2004 811′.3—dc21 2003010210 British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data available “In the future of these States must arise poets immenser far, and make great poems of death.”—Democratic Vistas Contents Preface ix Introduction: “Great Poems of Death” 1 1. “Triumphal Drums for the Dead”: “Song of Myself,” 1855 33 2. “Great Is Death”: Leaves of Grass Poems, 1855 77 3. “The Progress of Souls”: Leaves of Grass, 1856 98 4. “So Long!”: Leaves of Grass, 1860 126 5. “Come Sweet Death!”: The Drum-Taps Poems, 1865–1866 161 6. “Sweet, Peaceful, Welcome Death”: Leaves of Grass, 1867–1892 206 Notes 245 Bibliography 277 Index 289 Preface The theme of death pervades the text and the subtext of Leaves of Grass. Although some of his contemporaries hailed Whitman as America’s in- spired poet of death and many of his death-saturated poems have earned critical acclaim and popular affection, this is the ¤rst book-length study to examine his treatment of death by considering the entire range of his poetry and the way his attitudes toward death de¤ne his career as an intellectual, a poet, and a person. This is also the ¤rst full-scale study to relate his developing views of death and his literary treatment of death to his social and intellectual milieu and to the wide-ranging contemporary debate about the meaning of death. We can fully appreciate Whitman’s poetry of the material world or his poetry of the soul only when we com- prehend how vitally these themes are entwined in his emotional and philosophical engagement with death. Neither an orthodox believer, a skeptic, or a philosopher, Whitman generally interprets death in terms of his experience and his intuitions, so his death-oriented poems tend to be personal and poignant. Although he treats death imaginatively and with a certain latitude, he will not view it as a total cessation of personal iden- tity; rather, he interprets it as a momentous forward leap in the cycle of human advancement. Nor does he forget that his splendid body (about which he boasts in prose and verse) carries the seed of death; an un®ag- ging awareness of death colors his treatment of all phases of life. Death is a vital component of his gospel of universal brotherhood and sister- hood, of his luminous vision of the progressive unfolding of the human race (particularly its American component), and of his profound spiritu- ality. And it is a vital element in the yearning for love that permeates the poems. Although he was acquainted with many of the scienti¤c and religious movements of the age, Whitman could not accept the prevailing secular