Tweet-a-Week: Wilmot Proviso

A proviso is "an article or clause (as in a contract) that introduces a condition" as defined by the Merriam-Webster dictionary online. David Wilmot, who writer of Wilmot Proviso, was a politician who aimed to ban slavery from being established in the lands that were taken after the Mexican-American War. Whitman, was a supporter of the Wilmot Proviso.

A quick search led me to David S. Reynold's Article "Politics and Poetry: Whitman's Leaves of Grass and the Social Crisis of the 1850s". This article essentially explains that Whitman was supportive of the Wilmot Proviso, which was against the desires of President Polk, a man that Whitman had earlier followed. However, the article explains that "Whitman was an antiextensionist: one opposed to the extension of slavery into the western territories. As was true with most antiextensionists, his main concern in 1847 was not the slaves themselves but rather the disruptions of American institutions posed by the South's apparent effort to put its own interests above those of the nation." More than anything, Whitman opposed the dissolution of the nation and was fiercely critical of the Abolitionist.

This information is surprising, considering Whitman's position in "Leaves of Grass" when he housed and aided a runaway slave. Why is it then, that a man who desires to help gain freedom for slaves also be against the abolitionist movement? The article compares Whitman to Abraham Lincoln in the sense that both were more interested in keeping the union together over the actual emancipation of slaves.

"One can only guess what his racial opinions were in childhood, although the vibrant presence of African Americans in Brooklyn in the 1820s and his long-remembered friendship with an ex-slave named Mose suggests an openness to African American culture. The rise of abolitionism in the 1830s seems to have pushed him, like others, to a fearful conservatism."

Whitman was not entirely unaffected by the tense atmosphere of his time. Although it seems that Whitman was respectful of African Americans, the article suggests that Whitman was conservative on his views on slavery. However, it seems that when he wrote "Leaves of Grass" he had taken a more progressive and liberal view on the subject.

SD: A Silent Night's Ramble

A SILENT NIGHT RAMBLE

"October 20th.

-- To-night, after leaving the hospital at 10 o'clock, (I had been on self-imposed duty some five hours, pretty closely confined,) I wander'd a long time around Washington. The night was sweet, very clear, sufficiently cool, a voluptuous half-moon, slightly golden, the space near it of a transparent blue-gray tinge. I walk'd up Pennsylvania avenue, and then to Seventh street, and a long while around the Patent-office. Somehow it look'd rebukefully strong, majestic, there in the delicate moonlight. The sky, the planets, the constellations all so bright, so calm, so expressively silent, so soothing, after those hospital scenes. I wander'd to and fro till the moist moon set, long after midnight."

I chose this excerpt from Whitman's A Specimen's Days for no particular reason except that I suspected that it might be an obvious one to write on. After all, "silent night" (or nature in general) coupled with "rambling" seem to be two relatively important keywords in "Leaves of Grass" even though the two together is a bit of an oxymoron (which is the icing on the cake in this case).

However, what struck me about this entry is how Whitman describes the effects of the night and the moon. Whitman, after spending five hours at the hospital, is almost immediately rejuvenated when he wanders the night-time landscape. Night has an effect of defamiliarizing a familiar world. This concept is immensely important for at least my understanding of Whitman's "Leaves of Grass". Not to point out the obvious, but night makes the world dark. It distances you from your immediate surroundings and your focus is immediately drawn to the moon and the stars. And more importantly, the hectic noise of activity dims and everything becomes quiet. One can almost believe that they are the last person on Earth or maybe something even more meta than that; one could believe that they were a part of the night itself. As Whitman's last line, "I wander'd to and fro till the moist moon set, long after midnight" suggests, one can actually lose themselves within the night. As suggested in the poem, the boundary between the self and the world can easily be blurred.

Night makes a frequent appearance in "Songs of Myself" as well.

I am he that walks with the tender and growing night;

I call to the earth and sea half-held by the night.

Press close barebosomed night! Press close magnetic nourishing night!

Night of the south winds! Night of the large few stars!

Still nodding night! Mad naked summer night! (15)

In these lines, night is personified, but also, almost indistinguishable from Whitman himself. He embraces it as if he wants to merge and become one with it. In a sense, Whitman asks the reader to do the same with his poetry, or at the very least, it is what the Whitman wishes to do to the reader (although he argues in the beginning that we are already one and the same). I understand why he would want to present this ideal. If everyone is the same, we all belong to each other and if that were true, there would be no more fighting, no more useless competition and people will finally be able to learn to share and care for and with one another. However, in the end, night is but a veil that only momentarily distorts and covers up the realities of the day.

"Song of Myself" - Favorite Lines

I loafe and invite my soul,

I lean and loafe at my ease....observing a spear of summer grass.

Loafing, as suggested in class, is the opposite of productivity. It is the cringe on the parent's brow as they watch you waste your life away in a near vegetative comatose state in front of a television or computer screen. In fact, one could probably argue that these zombified youths have no souls, especially not after a few hours of Jersey Shore. However, Whitman probably did not have this type of loafing in mind when he wrote his poem. Spring breezes and Summer skies, Whitman is describing a type of loafing that most people of my generation would find odd to do. Lying out in the sun, observing "a spear of summer grass" is most likely a pastime that people have only partaken in sparingly in their busy, productive-orientated domesticated lives. True loafing is freedom, a concept that we think we're familiar with, but are disastrously wrong in thinking so. Even our so-called "loafing" in front of the computer is simply procrastination and a futile struggle against the inevitable strings that pull us towards being functioning members in society. So what is the loafer's freedom and what in the world does the soul have to do with it?

"I loafe and invite my soul", Whitman writes, chants, sings, oozes. From this line, we can conclude that the soul and loafing are interconnected (probably two New Age college kids holding hands and groping each other's spiritual energy). But what in the world is the soul and how does one invite it by loafing? The "soul" is the essence of the self and as Socrates enjoys suggesting: "know thyself". To peel away the demands, commands and expectations the world has piled onto you from the day you were born is the only way to really get to know the soul. Loafing, in this case is stop everything you are doing and simply focus on the feeling of "existing". To return to such a basic mode of living and perception, it is no wonder that Whitman is absorbed in "observing a spear of summer grass". If one can appreciate a blade of grass, one can appreciate the multifaceted complexities of human beings. After all, the blade of grass is metaphorically the common denominator to all life, hence "Leaves of Grass" (even leaves are made of grass!). This is a direly important message during Whitman's time where tension in the air is thick between the North and the South. Freedom is not the power to do whatever you desire, but to remove the influences of the external and simply see, feel, sense as yourself.

The reason I really picked these two lines is because I have actually loafed around in a park once and simply stared at the sky and the grass for a few hours without a care in the world. I believe it is important to spend time alone with one's self in order to really understand and feel the essence of your being. The feeling one gets when discovering the bare bones of one's existence is a wonderful revelation that is nearly impossible to explain. Language becomes more and more inaccurate at describing the farther down the hierarchical ladder of senses it needs to go. Though, I suppose if one could explain profundity with something as crude as language, it wouldn't be very profound to start with. As Whitman suggests, it's better to just strip naked and run off into the woods and feel it yourself.