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walt whitman s mystical ethics of comradeship homosexuality and the marginality of friendship at the crossroads of modernity juan a herrero brasas

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walt whitman s mystical ethics of comradeship

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walt whitman s mystical ethics of comradeship homosexuality and the marginality of friendship at the crossroads of modernity juan a herrero brasas

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published by state university of new york press albany © 2010 state university of new york all rights reserved printed in the united states of america no part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission no part of this book may be stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means including electronic electrostatic magnetic tape mechanical photocopying recording or otherwise without the prior permission in writing of the publisher for information contact state university of new york press albany ny www.sunypress.edu production by diane ganeles marketing by anne m valentine library of congress cataloging-in-publication data herrero brasas juan a walt whitman s mystical ethics of comradeship homosexuality and the marginality of friendship at the crossroads of modernity juan a herrero brasas p cm includes bibliographical references and index isbn 978-1-4384-3011-9 hardcover alk paper 1 whitman walt 1819­1892 relations with men 2 whitman walt 1819­1892 friends and associates 3 whitman walt 1819­1892 ethics 4 poets american 19th century biography 5 gay men united states biography i title ps3232.h47 2010 811 3 dc22 [b 2009021078 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

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for my mother whom i love and admire so much and for aunt pilar whose kindness and loving care will always stay with me.

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contents acknowledgments ix 1 introduction chapter on e literature as religion whitman s messianic enterprise the building of a reputation theosophy the occult and whitman s apparitions the character of whitman s religion the creed chaptert wo 7 7 18 19 29 the mystic hypothesis the strong hypothesis the weak hypothesis the denial of the hypothesis conclusion chapter three 33 35 46 49 51 a gospel of beauty the classical roots of aestheticism whitman and the platonic tradition from phrenology to aesthetic morality whitman s treatment of the ugly the kosmic vision whitman and nietzsche whitman and oscar wilde 57 58 61 64 68 71 80

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viii walt whitman s mystical ethics of comradeship ch a pt er fou r the love of comrades a messianic mission the nature of comradeship eduard bertz comradeship as veiled homosexuality mystical interpretations of comradeship ethical aspects of comradeship religious aspects of comradeship social and political aspects of comradeship whitman s comradeship and symonds s concept of greek love chapter five 83 83 87 92 95 96 102 104 109 whitman the moral reformer poetry and ethics whitman s moral concern the character of whitman s new morality an analysis of whitman s morality briggs s theory whitman s attitudes to war robert k martin s theory fucked by the earth david kuebrich s theory post-christian millennialism reynolds s theory immoral didacticism a probable synthesis nature science and evolutionary theory 117 117 120 123 125 127 130 135 141 143 151 155 156 157 159 161 163 189 199 conclusion an afterthought traubel homosexuality and the whitman myth a queer theory postscript a queer theory twist no new species whitman s disappointment and the new sexual economy queer theory confusion and its uses abbreviations and special references notes selected bibliography index

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acknowledgments would like to thank john orr don miller and bill may of the university of southern california school of religion as well as lincoln davis javier anso pilar gómez aláez and todd james and the capital group for all the ways in which at different stages they supported the preparation of this project my sincere gratitude goes also to john mason former dean of humanities at california state university northridge csun for his kind encouragement i am also indebted to linda jones of the csun religious studies department for her technological assistance which made it possible for me to submit the final draft of the manuscript in a timely manner finally i would like to express my appreciation to the huntington library of san marino california for providing the resources and environment that were vital for the completion of my book i

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introduction n their introduction to david kuebrich s minor prophecy walt whitman s new american religion 1989 catherine albanese and stephen stein complain about the total absorption of whitman s figure by the literature departments as much as about its abandonment on the part of religious scholars they point out that kuebrich is the first one to offer an extended analysis of whitman s work from the perspective of religious studies.1 the abandonment albanese and stein denounce should certainly attract our attention given that throughout his writings whitman insists on the primarily religious character and purpose of his poetry in the cluster of poems entitled starting from paumanok he says i too following many and follow d by many inaugurate a religion i descend into the arena and in all three different prefaces to leaves of grass the poet unequivocally states the fundamentally religious purpose of his work thus for example in his preface to the 1872 edition he writes that from the time he began elaborating the plan of his poems and throughout the many different shapes it took one deep purpose underlay the others and has underlain its execution ever since and that has been the religious purpose amid many changes and a formulation taking far different shape from what i had first supposed this basic purpose has never been departed from in the composition of my verses 2 whitman s literary activity resulted in the establishment of a new religion of mystical overtones which served as a source of authority and a vehicle for the implementation of his new morality the morality of comradeship religion whitman writes in democratic vistas is at the core of every worthy enterprise is there a great moral and religious civilization the only justification of a great material one 3 leaves of grass was meant to be a new gospel the sacred scripture of a new religion i will write the evangel-poem of comrades and of love know you solely to drop in the earth the germs of a greater religion the following chants each for its kind i sing 4 whitman indeed was seen by his initial and enthusiastic followers fundamentally as a religious figure as the founder of a new spirituality that of comradeship i

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2 walt whitman s mystical ethics of comradeship my comrade for you to share with me two greatnesses and a third one rising inclusive and more resplendent the greatness of love and democracy and the greatness of religion starting from paumanok 10 despite such explicit statements the fact remains that for most of the twentieth century and through the present leaves of grass has been understood by a majority of scholars and by the general reader mostly as strictly a literary exercise this is all the more surprising in light of whitman s emphatic warning that no one would understand his verses who insists upon viewing them merely as a literary performance.5 such warnings on the part of the poet have disconcerted many a literary critic paul zweig for example believes whitman made it hard for the reader to understand the meaning and purpose of his poems o]ne either `adhered to his book as his circle of fervent friends the hot little prophets as they came to be known put it during his last years in camden or one did not zweig concludes that this intense partisanship resulted in overheated minds and defensive worship.6 the hot little prophets that zweig mentions played a crucial role in advancing whitman s religious message during his lifetime and after his death through their activities and missionary writings they carried out what i will refer to as whitman s messianic project in the religion whitman inaugurated he himself played the central role he was its high priest its prophet according to roger asselineau one of whitman s most authoritative twentieth century scholars whitman dreamed himself as a prophet of a new evangel and it was in that aspect that he portrayed himself 7 whitman intended leaves of grass to be an earth-shattering book as part of his religious enterprise he was to be acknowledged as the bard america had been longing for.8 to be accepted and acknowledged that indeed was to be the unmistakable proof of his vocation as a poet he ended the preface to the first edition of leaves of grass by expressing such a conviction the proof of a poet is that his country absorbs him as affectionately as he absorbs it 9 whitman however was never fully absorbed by his country during his lifetime and it was perhaps for that reason that the above statement was deleted in later reprints of the 1855 preface during whitman s lifetime america to some extent repudiated his poetry.10 he was repeatedly accused of writing obscene literature to the point that the sixth edition of leaves of grass 1881 was suspended by the editor under the threat of a lawsuit by the district attorney who considered the book obscene in 1865 whitman was even fired from his government job when he was found to be the author of leaves of grass an indecent book according to his superior11 some parts of leaves of grass are disagreeable to say the least simply sensual thoreau wrote in a letter to h g o blake as part of

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introduction 3 an otherwise favorable comment about whitman s book to which he added he does not celebrate love at all it is as if the beasts spoke 12 emerson himself asked whitman to suppress some passages of his work which whitman refused to do in any case the message contained in leaves of grass seemed to most of the poet s contemporaries a far cry from religion whitman was well aware of this but rejected the suggestion that his poetry was wanting in religion in old age he declared to horace traubel one of his closest disciples people often speak of the leaves as wanting in religion but that is not my view of the book and i ought to know i think the leaves the most religious book among books crammed full of faith what would the leaves be without faith an empty vessel faith is its very substance.13 the character of the new religion that whitman sought to found was such that only his initiates seemed to understand the underlying message of leaves of grass we know that he attracted homosexual men to his inner circle with some of them becoming his most passionate disciples and missionaries of his gospel of comraderie interestingly however it was certain passages in sections of children of adam the cluster of poems devoted to heterosexual love which lacks the emotional intensity of calamus the homoerotic cluster that were originally the subject of attack on moral grounds at that early stage there was no charge of homosexuality or rather of sodomy as it would have been termed at that time against whitman despite the fact that homosexual love is so openly suggested in calamus the subject of homosexuality was totally sealed to the american mind in zweig s words it was as if the `calamus poems were not read as if they slipped through blanks in the minds of the readers 14 this relative cultural blindness of the mid-nineteenth century american public to the homosexual theme may help explain whitman s boldness in using homosexual imagery in his poems such blindness played in favor of whitman s proposal of a new morality of male friendship whitman s writings were to be the expression of an oracle a sacred figure leading his people as in the old testament he believed he had a religious mission but rather than demanding adherence to dogmas what he sought was a revolution in moral values and a subsequent change in people s more specifically males behavior indeed more than a systematic creed what he proposes is a new ethical system grounded on unsystematic and somewhat vague theological notions this book attempts to recuperate for today s reader the original meaning and purpose of whitman s writings also by including a review of the most relevant interpretive missionary writings by whitman s early followers as well as of the largely neglected early and mid-twentieth century scholarly criticism it is my hope that this book will be useful as a source book to students and scholars in a diversity of fields of current criticism kuebrich s work merits extended discussion in chapters 2 4 and 5 because of its exclusive focus on whitman as a religious seer,

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