Chapter III
Individual and Common Man in Whitman’s Democracy
Importance of the Individual
The importance that Whitman gives to the worth of individual is
the guiding force behind his principle of democracy. Whitman, the poet-prophet
of democracy is convinced that democracy can be justified only on the basis of
the infinite worth of the individual. Whitman gives a religious significance to
this concept of the individual. He projects himself as a citizen of the ideal
democracy where individual shall be accepted with all his imperfections and
limitations. It is a society in which the individual is above every law. In fact it is
a society whose law is love. It is based on this law of love that Whitman sings of
equality and fraternity in “Song of Myself” as if in the light of a mystical
experience:
And I know that the hand of God is the
promise of my own,
And I know that the spirit of God is the
brother of my own,
And that all the men ever born are also my
brothers, and the women my sisters and lovers,
And that the kelson of the creation is love (LG 27).
It may be noted that his rebuke of the idea of preference or denial was
complementary to his idea of individuality. In the poem “By Blue Ontario’s
Shore” he says:
Underneath all, individuals,
I swear nothing is good to me now that
ignores individuals,
The American compact is altogether with
individuals,
The only government is that which makes
a minute of individuals,
The whole theory of the universe is
directed unerringly to one single
individual—namely to You (LG 278).
In “Democratic Vistas” Whitman makes a vigorous attempt to
project the importance of the individual in society. He argues that it is the
individual, male or female, that gives at least some sort of stability to all the
fluctuations in society and strengthens the movements of politics of the nations.
Underneath the fluctuations of the expressions in society, as
well as the movements of the politics of the leadings
nations of the world, we see steadily pressing ahead and
strengthening itself, even in the midst of immense
tendencies toward aggregation, this image of completeness
in separation, of individual personal dignity, of a single
person, either male or female (LG 471).
He makes it explicit that individuals constitute society and
that society exists for individuals. Here he tries to reconcile and unite the two
themes of Leaves of Grass: the ‘I’ and the ‘masses’. He was hopeful that in the
course of time democracy would promote the merging of the individual with the
totality of his country in a patriotic spirit. It was with this conviction of the
solidarity of the individual with the totality of a great aggregate nation that he
expressed his hope in the immense potential of the idea of perfect individualism.
In “A Backward Glance” he says: “While the ambitious thought of my song is to
help the forming of a great aggregate Nation, it is, perhaps, altogether through
the forming of myriads of fully develop’d and enclosing individuals” (LG 555).
A number of principles which Whitman had affirmed for a long time are grouped
around this central doctrine and thus acquire a new significance. Among these is
his instinctive individualism. Whitman asserted over and over again that each
individual is an end in himself or herself; only individuals really matter. He
believed that “An individual is as superb as a nation when he has the qualities
which make a superb nation” (LG 459).
Whitman accepted the theory of evolution and expressed his
conviction that the body of each man is the supreme out come of the evolution of
the universe for thousands of years. He who attributed divinity to every
individual, found no reason why he should leave out anyone from his song of
universal divinity. In “Our Old Feuillage” he asks: “Whoever you are! How can I
but offer you divine leaves, that you also be eligible as I am? / How can I but as
here chanting, invite you for yourself to collect bouquets of the incomparable
feuillage of these States?” (LG 141).
Though Whitman spoke vehemently about the importance of the
individual in democracy, he did not give undue importance to either the
individual or to democracy. The idea of superman or supreme individual was
never a programme in his agenda. It was only with the idea of making the
individual self reliant that he promoted the need to be independent. He did not
want the individual to stand apart from the mass but to merge into the mass and
become a part of the en-masse. For this the most suited political philosophy,
according to him, was democracy with a stress on American individuality.
Whitman wrote his poems to make America a great nation of great individuals:
I have allow’d the stress of my poems from beginning to end to
bear upon American individuality and to assist it–not only because
that is a great lesson in Nature, amid all her generalizing laws, but
as counterpoise to the leveling tendencies of Democracy–and for
other reasons. … While the ambitious thought of my song is to
help the forming of great aggregate Nation, it is, perhaps,
altogether through the forming of myriads of fully develop’d and
enclosing in the individual (LG 555).
Whitman, who gave importance to the individual and the common
man, made it a habit to visit places and to identify himself with every person and
to share with them their joys and sorrows. Even in his poems, more than
insisting on any philosophy, Whitman, who is always faithful to the conviction
that living is joyful, makes a joyful journey over the world and establishes
identity with all kinds of people. As John Bailey comments on “Song of
Myself”:
The poem insists less on any philosophy than on its joyous
journey over the world. It cannot be analysed, it must be read. The
poet goes everywhere, and identifies himself with every person
and every action, good or bad, every joy and every pain. The baby,
the youngsters, the stickman, the suicide, the boat man, the
trapper, the slave, the bride, the prostitute, the old husband
sleeping by his wife, the birds and the oxen, the land and the sea
(Bailey 143 ).
The importance that Whitman gives to the individual has definitely contributed
to the making of his sensibilities.
The Divine Average
In keeping with the Freudian concept of the individual, Whitman
believed in the inseparable relationship between body and mind. This concept of
the union between the body and soul magnifies the divine nature of the
individual. The body, Whitman believed, attained a divinity as a result of the
union with soul. He believed that the soul of every man is individual and unique,
separate and distinct, becoming a self, a person. In the poem “Children of
Adam” he asks: “And if the body does not do fully as much as the soul, / And if
the body were not the soul, what is the soul?” (LG 78).
Whitman believed that the best illustration of the modern man may be
found in the democratic comradeship of the everyday American. His “Song of
Myself” is just as well a ‘song of yourself’. Throughout the poem his object is
to picture a typical American, a ‘divine average humanity’. He considers the
average man divine because “the poet has come to see, in the simplest of lives, a
timeless grandeur of body and soul” (Foerster 851). In section five Whitman
explains how this grandeur became clear to him. This experience of revelation
seems to have transformed the whole world to him in a new perspective.
Thereafter he is capable of addressing his readers with the zeal of an evangelist
and he gives a theological dimension to his sense of equality of man stretching it
as far as to the concept of the fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of man:
And I know that the hand of God is the
promise of my own,
And I know that the spirit of God is the
brother of my own,
And that all the men ever born are also my
brothers, and the women my sisters …
And that a kelson of the creation is love (LG 27).
The divinity that Whitman attributed to the individual prompted
him to place individuality over against equality or democracy. Whitman’s
individual personal self has a universal dimension. As Briggs remarks: “This
individual personal self has a cosmic extent. It has a potential power such as
Nature does not have in itself. It gives Nature meaning. It gives God and
immortality meaning also; without the individual man the self, the person, they
too are nothing” (Briggs 66).
Whitman, who always glorified the importance of the individual, wanted
society to recognize the infinite worth of the individual. His ideal society is one
where the individual has a divine character. A significant factor in Whitman’s
political philosophy is the glorification of the individual and a belief in the
fundamental divine character of the individual. One can easily assume that his
concept of social equality emerged from this belief. He believed that the mere
fact of living conferred a divine character even upon the most despicable being.
He knew that social equality could be established only by accepting the divine
nature of the individual.
If Whitman could sing, without distinction, of the blacksmith, the Negro
tea master, the butcher, the farmer, the soldier, the prostitute and a hundred
others, it was because he was inspired by the notion of the infinite worth of the
individual and was guided by the cardinal principles of democracy, equality,
fraternity and liberty. Thus, by 1860 Whitman quite naturally arrived at the
notion of ‘average man’ and of ‘divine average’. These terms were used by
Whitman to signify the importance of the common man. He believed that
divinity always dwelled more with the common folk than with the people who
lived in the higher strata of society. Therefore, Whitman wished to address the
common men as ‘divine average’ and was ready to declare his earnest desire to
make them his friends and comrades. He liked to be in their company and to
walk with them hand in hand. In “Song of the Open Road” he sings:
Comerado, I give you my hand!
I give you my love more precious than
money,
I give you myself before preaching or law;
Will you give me yourself? Will you come,
travel with me?
Shall we stick by each other as long as we
live? (LG 127).
From then onwards the idea of the average man was everywhere present in
his Leaves of Grass.
In “Good- bye My Fancy” he has underlined its
importance:
I chant my nation’s crucial stage, (America’s
haply humanity’s) -the trial great, the
victory great,
A strange eclaircissement of all the masses
past, the eastern world, the ancient,
medieval,
Here, here from wanderings, strayings,
lessons, wars, defeats-here at the west a
voice triumphant–justifying all,
A gladsome pealing cry-a song for once of
utmost pride and satisfaction;
I chant from it the common bulk, the
general average … (LG 417).
Discussing man’s duties and relations in society and the role of
laws in governing, in “Democratic Vistas” Whitman makes it clear that the
divine nature of man places him above any rule, authority or even religion:
For after the rest is said—after the many time-honour’d and really
true things for subordination, experience, rights of property, &c.,
have been listened to and acquiesced in—after the valuable and
well-settled statement of our duties and relations in society is
thoroughly conn’d over and exhausted—it remains to bring
forward and modify every thing else with the idea of that
something a man is, (last precious consolation of the drudging
poor,) standing apart from all else, divine in his own right, and a
woman in hers, sole and untouchable by any canons of authority,
or any rule derived from precedent, state-safety, the acts of
legislatures, or even from what is called religion, modesty or art
(LG 471).
It is this divine nature of man that makes him immortal. Whitman
exulted in the joyful companionship with the immortal divine average man. In
“Song of Myself” he declared in clear terms: “I am the mate and companion of
people, all just as immortal and fathomless as myself, / (They do not know how
immortal, but I know (LG 29).
To his fold of human fraternity Whitman did not deny admission
to any one. The thieves, drunkards and prostitutes have within them the divine
nature. He believed that given chance, they would be as refined as any other
honourable gentleman. They were as immortal and great as the president
himself. In his “Song of Occupations” he sings:
Why what have you thought of yourself?
Is it you then that thought yourself less?
Is it you that thought the President greater
than you?
Or the rich better off than you? Or the
educated wiser than you?
(Because you are greasy or pimpled, or
were once drunk, or a thief,
Or that you are diseas’d, or rheumatic, or a
prostitute,
Or from frivolity or impotence, or that you
are no scholar and never saw your
name in print, Do you give in that you
are any less immortal?) (LG 170).
Whitman’s faith in the divine average made him consistent in his
effort to argue in favour of social equality and to embrace the good and bad alike
on all occasions. So he repeatedly celebrates every one and all that belongs to
them: “Good or bad I never question you–I love all–I do not condemn any thing,
/ I chant and celebrate all that is yours–yet peace no more,” (LG 234).
It was Whitman’s conviction that a true democracy should
stand for liberty and equality of the individual. A democracy that could not unite
the citizens was not conceivable to him. Often the poet worried about such social
problems as inequality and poverty. He was constantly disturbed by the
scandalous anomaly of the poverty question in a democratic society. He did not
fail to address the children of the poor and the ignorant, the young and old
workers who often did not get a decent reward for their hard labour. In “A Song
of Occupations” he sings:
Offspring of ignorant and poor, boys
apprenticed to trades,
Young fellows working on farms and old
fellows on farms,
Sailor-men, merchant-men, coasters,
immigrants,
All these I see, but nigher and farther the
same I see,
None shall escape me and none shall wish
to escape me. (LG 170).
Whitman’s concept of the importance of the common man is
closely linked with his political philosophy inherent in his concept of democracy
—that of mutual support and dependence among the members of a democratic
society. In keeping with the spirit of a democrat Whitman believes in the dignity
and equality of all men. It is from the stand point of this conviction that he
argues for equal opportunities of self development for every human being. It is
this stand that makes him the champion of the poor, the downtrodden and the
oppressed. His social sensibility extends to their cause and he is ever ready to
stand up for those whose rights have been trampled upon. To be the voice of the
underprivileged and to be the supporter and to be in the company of the
underprivileged is Whitman’s style of action. In section fourteen of “Song of
Myself” we get an interesting example of many such instances in which
Whitman merges his sensibility with that of the common labourers who live with
the sweat of their brow:
I am enamour’d of growing out-doors,
Of men that live among cattle or taste of the
ocean or woods,
Of the builders and steers of ships and
wielders of axes and mauls, and the
drivers of horses,
I can eat and sleep with them week in and
week out (LG 34).
It was Whitman’s conviction that no human creature could be
rejected or scorned by anybody or any system. Such was the principle of his
democracy which always upheld the dignity of each individual. Every kind of
human being, every variety of race and nation, every kind of culture is
acceptable and admirable to him. He is the comrade of everyone, high and low,
weak and strong. “His admiration of a strong, healthy, and beautiful body, or a
strong, healthy, and beautiful soul, is great when he sees it in a statesman or
servant; it is precisely as great when he sees it in the ploughman or the smith”
(Marx 65).
With his sense of equality Whitman did not confine his
egalitarianism to any social or political doctrine. He was against any hierarchy in
society that divided it into different classes and strata. If Whitman has been
acclaimed as the poet of America and the poet of democracy, his inspiring theme
is the unity of America based on the concept of equality. The major theme for
both his poetry and prose is American democracy built on the principle of
equality. The Leaves of Grass is a symbol of this democratic spirit. He believes
that it is the duty of a poet to bring about this unity strongly built upon the
concept of democracy. It is his strong belief that of all mankind the poet is the
equable man. In the poem “By Blue Ontario’s Shore” he says:
Of these States the poet is the equable man,
Not in him but off from him things are
grotesque, eccentric, fail of their full
returns,
Nothing out of its place is good, nothing in
its place is bad (LG 273).
In fact, it is the word ‘equable’ that best sums up, to a great extent,
the temper of Whitman. As a poet and democrat, Whitman believed in equality
and was a strong advocate of the law of equality. In the Preface to 1855 poems,
he says in strong terms that the poet is an ‘equalizer and seer’ who sees others as
good as himself. There is an inner order in the manner in which the poet in
Whitman equalizes the young and the old, presidents and prostitutes, the foolish
and the wise and breathes grandeur into the trivial. He claims:
The greatest poet hardly knows pettiness or triviality. If he
breathes into any thing that was before thought small it dilates
with the grandeur and life of the universe. He is a seer…. The
others are as good as he, only he sees it and they do not … he is
the president of regulation (LG 445).
Whitman, whose democracy acknowledged the idea of
equality, regarded the average man as a real blessing to every country. In his
ideal society there is no inequality and social injustice. Every one is equal. He
makes no difference between the rich and the poor. In fact, in his democracy
there is a predilection for the under privileged. In his famous lyric “I Hear
America Singing” Whitman celebrates the mechanics, the carpenter, the mason,
the boatman, the deckhand, the shoe-maker, the woodcutter and the plough boy:
I hear America singing, the varied carols
I hear,
Those of mechanics, each one singing his as
it should be blithe and strong,
The carpenter singing his as he measures
his plank or beam,
The mason singing his as he makes ready
for work, or leaves off work,
The boatman singing what belongs to him
in his boat, the deckhand singing on
the steamboat deck,
The shoemaker singing as he sits on his
bench, the hatter singing as he stands,
The wood-cutter’s song, the ploughboy’s on
his way in the morning, or at noon
intermission or at sundown,
The delicious singing of the mother, or of
the young wife at work, or of the girl
sewing or washing,
Each singing what belongs to him or her
and to none else,
The day what belongs to the day–at night
the party of young fellows, robust,
friendly, Singing with open mouths
their strong melodious song (LG 11).
Whitman’s social doctrine of equality goes hand in hand with his
idea of the poet as an equable man. In his poem “For You O Democracy”
Whitman gives us the quintessence of his spirit of democracy and fraternity built
on equality:
I will plant companionship thick as trees
along all the rivers of America,
and along the shores of the great lakes,
and all over the prairies,
I will make inseparable cities with their
arms about each other’s necks,
By the love of comrades (LG 96).
Individual and Liberty
Whitman realizes the fact that while equality befits the
mass, freedom promotes the concept of individual personality of the divine
average. For a proper understanding of Whitman, we need to take into
consideration how he wanted the poets to take it as their mission to carry the
great idea of perfect and free individuals integrating the concepts of freedom and
equality. In the poem “By Blue Ontario’s Shore” he makes it clear:
For the great Idea, the idea of perfect and
free individuals,
For that the bard walks in advance,
leader of leaders,
The attitude of him cheers up slaves and
horrifies foreign despots,
Without extinction is Liberty, without
retrograde is Equality,
They live in the feeling of young men and
best women,
(Nothing for nothing have the indomitable
heads of the earth been always ready
to fall for Liberty) (LG 274).
These words of Whitman tell us how much, as a true democrat, he was
concerned about the liberty of the individual. He deliberately uses the capital
letter for the word ‘Idea’ to express his regard for the idea of “perfect and free
individuals” and to stress the fact that to give proper respect to the divine
character of the individual, liberty was an indispensable condition. Roger
Asselineau in his book The Evolution of Walt Whitman makes an apt remark:
“Individual liberty seemed to him the indispensable condition of democracy”
(Asselineau II, 149). It is from this philosophical concept of the individual that
Whitman asserted that the governors are only delegates of the governed. They
are in power to serve the people, not the other way round. His arresting words in
“Preface, 1855”— the President taking off his hat to them and not they to him—
capture our attention and take us along with him. As Bradley says: “… they take
us with him to his poems that safeguard the rights of the individual” (Bradley
454).
Whitman’s concept of individuality was based strongly on his
sense of democracy. It was built on the idea of egalitarianism. He strongly
believed that society can progress only on the basis of its individual’s progress.
Commenting on this conviction of Whitman, Roger Asselineau remarks: “He
had realized that human nature could not be changed by decree and that progress
could be made only as a result of slow and gradual evolution, depending not on a
reform of society but on the moral improvement of individuals.” (Asselineau
98). He believed that if democracy could produce great individuals, all the rest
would follow. As editor and writer he came close to all categories of people.
“But whether among the lowly or the mighty, it was a miracle of human
personality that he sought to observe. Individualism was the root and branch of
his democracy” (Bradley x).
His prose work, “Democratic Vistas” is an eloquent document of the ideal
of liberal democracy and its fundamental principles. In it he stresses the need for
observing the principle of freedom and liberty with a strong sense of
responsibility. Whitman had a clear idea of democracy. To him democracy meant
a self governing society of free and responsible individuals. Though he pointed
out the short comings of democratic practices and the political corruption
prevalent in his day, he often asserted his faith in democracy. Of course, he
stressed the fact that the hope for the reform and improvement of democracy lay
in the self-reform of the individual and in personal integrity.
The purpose of democracy … is to illustrate, at all hazards, this
doctrine or theory that man, properly trained in sanest, highest
freedom, may and must become a law, and series of laws, unto
himself, surrounding and providing for, not only his own personal
control, but all his relations to other individuals, and to the State;
and that …this, as matters now stand in our civilized world, is the
only scheme worth working from, as warranting results like those
of Nature’s laws, reliable, when once established, to carry on
themselves (LG 471-472).
Whitman emphatically affirmed that a true democracy stood for
liberty and equality of the individual. He believed that it was one of the prime
concerns of a democracy to keep the citizens united. A democratic society, he
asserted, should protect personalism and safeguard the rights of the individual.
Whitman’s Philosophy of Personalism and the Culture of Democracy
Whitman, who announces the two themes, one, the word ‘EnMasse’, and the other, ‘One’s-Self – a simple separate person,’ later in his
reflections on democracy in “Democratic Vistas” embraces a philosophy of
personalism. He believed that it was the espoused mission of democracy to raise
all men to the highest possible level by fostering the individual. As a means of
promoting the individual, he developed and presented his theory of personalism.
Whitman, who shared with Rousseau a strong distaste for the
conception of a decadent aristocratic culture which has only a semblance of all
the virtues, recommended a democratic culture that promotes even a kind of
aristocracy that fosters individualism.
He based his political theory on the
recognition that there is a natural relationship between democracy and radical
form of individualism. It is not an aristocracy of the conventional type that
promotes a democratic leveling in the name of equality, but the one that will
inspire men to be more autonomous and impersonal to a large extent. This notion
of Whitman about radical individualism is not against the principle of equality. It
only encourages and strengthens the democratic principle of freedom to permit
men to grow up to be autonomous and independent so that they can maintain
their individuality. As Goldhammer points out: “Whitman’s political theory thus
revolves around the reconciliation of the tension between the autonomy of the
individual and the connectedness and uniformity of the community”
(Goldhammer 35).
Such an idea of radical individualism countervails the argument
that the poet who adheres to radical individualism has no reason to believe in the
merits of equality in democracy. Whitman, who combined democracy with the
concept of the average man, gave equal importance to the principles of equality
as well as to that of individuality and personalism.
Whitman viewed democracy not only as a political theory, but also
as a cultural idea. He was, therefore, against the principle of conformity. He was
concerned that a culture such as this would prevent Americans from achieving
the literary greatness that was needed for the development of the kind of
democracy that he envisioned Hence Whitman declared that every form of
democracy need not suffer the social effects of conformity. He regretted that the
America that he knew had yet to attain the most developed form of democracy.
Only a harmonious blending of the activities of a new group of leaders and
individuals with a different kind of social dimension in the back drop of a new
culture can usher a democracy in America to redeem its individuals from the
stifling effects of conformity. Whitman called this new kind of individualism,
“Personalism,” and claimed that it would serve as an effective remedy against
conformity which he considered to be one of America’s most problematic social
diseases. He looked forward to a democracy in America that would promote the
literary greatness needed to foster personalism. He chooses poets (not
philosophers) for creating an atmosphere of spiritual democracy in America that
will encourage personalism. He believed more in the power of poetic and
imaginative vision than in reason or knowledge in bringing about a
transformation in politics. In Song of the Open Road he writes:
Here is the test of wisdom,
Wisdom is not finally tested in schools,
Wisdom cannot be pass’d from one having it
to another not having it,
Wisdom is of the soul, is not susceptible of
proof, is its own proof (LG 121).
Whitman the poet was convinced that the nursery teacher of
personalism is the literature of the highest order produced by men of high
literary calibre. His poets have a functional role to play in society as teachers.
They can, through their great literary works, give moral as well as aesthetic
guidance to the masses and prepare them for spiritual democracy. His notion of
democratic culture encourages the creation of great literary works by great
writers whom he liked to call divine literatus. He hoped that only a new race of
such writers and native literature of America would teach the nation to have a
comprehensive outlook on the personalism of the ‘divine average’ and thus,
‘reweave’ the fabric of American culture. Thus, Whitman wanted the poets to
wield enough cultural power through literature that would have more influence
on the people than political power. He considered himself the harbinger of the
divine literatus who would do more to shape the destiny of America than any
politician, preacher, or teacher. In the “Inscription” he wrote:
POETS to come! Orators, singers,
musicians to come!
Not to-day is to justify me and answer what I
am for But you, a new brood, native,
athletic, continental, greater than before
known,
Arouse! For you must justify me (LG 12).
By the term personalism Whitman does not mean individualism in an
ordinary sense. He has never defined the term, but what he seems to understand
by the term is a transcendent form of individualism. Whitman’s personalism
demands the active participation and involvement of the individual in all the
endeavours of human activity. The individual is, at once, a separate identity and
an inevitable part of the whole concept of humanity. This highly metaphysical
concept readily admits the idea that each man or woman is at the same time a
human personality separate from all others and a citizen, an inseparable member
of a certain society. He believed that this ideal of a healthy average personalism
could flourish only in an atmosphere of true democracy and that personalism
transforms average American men and women into the ideal citizens of spiritual
democracy.
From Individual to the Common Man—the Divine Average
Whitman’s notion of the perfect and free individual and his
favourite concept of personalism agree perfectly with his regard and esteem for
the common man whom he calls the ‘divine average’. By 1860 Whitman quite
naturally arrived at the notion of “average man” and of “divine average” which
from then onwards was everywhere present in Leaves of Grass. Whitman liked
to acknowledge his companionship with the immortal divine average man. In
“Song of Myself” he declared in clear terms: “I am the mate and companion of
people, all just as immortal and fathomless as my self” (LG 29).
It is his strong adherence to the principle of democracy that makes
Whitman the poet of the common man. He is a great singer of the greatness of
the common man. He identifies himself with the common man and believes that
poetry should be written for and about the common man. Hence he writes in a
style and language of the common man. His genius to a large degree consists of
his purity of utterance resulting from his passionate love for the average man and
his identification is usually with the slaves, the suffering and the downtrodden.
For instance, in section thirty-three of “Song of Myself” he sings :
I am the hounded slave … I wince at the
bite of the dogs,
Hell and despair are upon me, crack and
again crack the marksmen,
……………………………………………
I do not ask the wounded person how he
feels, I myself become the wounded
person,
My hurts turn livid upon me as I lean on a
cane and observe (LG 55–56).
Whitman’s instinctive empathy with the poor and the
downtrodden seems to have been the driving force behind “Democratic Vistas”.
As Clark remarks:
Democratic Vistas was, then, Whitman’s attempt to outline
systematically his concept of the common man and the America to
come. Democracy was to be a moral force as well as a political
force, and the average man was to be taught his own divinity and
lifted to new levels of greatness. The future should see an America
peopled by superlative men and women, parents of a yet greater
generation to come, all having come about under the guidance of
the divine literatus (Clark 131).
Whitman achieves a balance or synthesis of democracy which
includes both equality and freedom and reconciles the concepts of the common
man and the divine average individual. He puts his trust in the infinitely
expanding individual who is always on the process of becoming. It is this
infinite potential of the individual that gives direction to Whitman’s concept of
the common man. In his poetry Whitman makes a consistent effort to show that
the American common man, the democratic average man of America, has
infinite potential and was eligible to the grandest and the best. In “Democratic
Vistas” he says: “The average man of a land at last is important. He, in these
States, remains immortal owner and boss, deriving good uses somehow, out of
any sort of servant in office, even the basest”(LG 482). The very expressions,
‘divine’ and ‘the democratic average,’ are a key to his notion of the place of the
common man in Leaves of Grass.
Whitman stood for the average man of the nineteenth century
America and his songs were the songs of every man. From the beginning of his
career Whitman praised the glories of Democracy as a new political ideal. He
constantly remarked that the common man and woman should take the place of
the traditional romantic heroes and heroines. “Whitman includes the ideas of
Equality in his Democracy, and regards the average man as the real asset to
every country in the world” (Dhavele 70).
The importance that Whitman gives to the individual and the
divine average man of America has definitely contributed to the making of his
sensibilities. His regard for the common man, his concept of the divine average
and his concern for the suffering humanity have enhanced his social sensibility
that turned him into a great prophet of democracy.
Leaves of Grass—the Symbol of the Common Man
The Title ‘Leaves of Grass’ is one of the finest inspirations of the
poet. One of his biographers observes that the title is the outcome of a mystical
experience the poet had one mid–summer morning after his return from New
Orleans. It is definite that the title was a spontaneous outcome of the poet’s inner
convictions and faith in the common people. It was perhaps a deliberate attempt
from the part of the poet to contrast the common or rather, humble leaves with
the rare or rather glittering flowers. It could be even an attempt from the part of
Whitman, the poet of cosmos to identify himself with the leaves of grass that
represented the common man. Whitman wanted to identify himself, as Bradley
remarks:
With the leaves which are, as it is here, the
common people of the vegetable world than with the flowers
which are its rare ornaments and glories. So certainly he must
have liked taking ‘grass’ for the name of his poems: grass, the
humblest, the most universal, the least noticed, the most
downtrodden of plants; grass which feeds the beasts and men who
trample it under their feet; grass which has little form and no
stiffness or rigidity at all, but yields and bows itself to every
passing gust of wind; which leaves best in the shade, loves
obscurity and shuns the blaze of the midday sun (Bailey 130).
Moreover, grass, like the common man, is found every where. The
plight of the grass is similar to the plight of the common man. To Whitman, who
always was concerned with the plight of the common man, the plight of the
grass, which is rooted out often as weeds, must have been an added reason to
choose it as the symbol of his poems. Though rooted out continually, like the
poor common people they appear and reappear anywhere and everywhere
whether they are wanted or not: “This is the grass that grows wherever the land
is and the water is, / This is the common air that bathes the globe.” (LG 38).
Whitman was struck by the simplicity, universality and vitality of the grass
which he observed in the common man as well. In fact, it is this very simplicity
and the unsophisticated nature of the common man that the poet adopted for the
style of his poetry too.
Love of Comrades
Whitman’s attitude towards social democracy was built on his
conception of comrades: “I say democracy infers such loving comradeship, as its
most inevitable twin or counterpart, without which it will be incomplete, in vain,
and incapable of perpetuating itself” (LG 505). He preferred to express his very
deep sense of human brotherhood in terms of comradeship. His repeated
declaration in “Song of Myself” that he is the comrade of all kinds of people is
only one among the many instances of his use of the word ‘Comrade’ to suggest
ties of friendship and love:
Comrade of Californians, comrade of free
North-Westerners,(loving their big
proportions,)
Comrade of rafts men and coalmen, comrade
of all who shake hands and welcome to
drink and meat (LG 37).
Whitman expresses most eloquently his concept of the true basis
of democratic society in the phrase “love of comrades”. Perhaps Whitman
frequently used the word comrade to show his dislike for the terms fraternity and
brotherhood which were used exclusively without much of sincerity by the
church of his days.
As the poet of America and the poet of democracy, Whitman
introduced the spirit of comradeship often in his writings.
The very title,
“Leaves of Grass” is a symbol of the democratic spirit, the spirit of the ‘equable
man’, a phrase so dear to Whitman. He imbibed the British liberal thought of his
contemporaries, Carlyle, Arnold, Ruskin and Morris. He seemed to combine all
their influences, and bring forth something radically new. He became a prophet
and a political seer to the liberals by singing rhapsodic praises of democracy and
the love of comrades. In the poem, “For You O Democracy” he sings:
Come, I will make the continent indissoluble,
I will make the most splendid race the sun
ever shone upon,
I will make divine magnetic lands,
With the love of comrades,
With the life-long love of comrades (LG 96).
Whitman’s views on common man and his love of comrades were
moulded by his theory of spiritual democracy. Even as early as his journalistic
days he had started to voice the views of the average common man. After 1855
he concentrated much of his time on both prose and verse offering to the world
his theory of spiritual democracy. Guided by this spiritual theory, Whitman often
showed a cosmic outlook in his concept of man. His common man was therefore
not of America alone but of all nations. The lines “Camerado, this is no book, /
Who touches this touches a man,” (LG 391) are a condensed form of his
expressed role to be a lover of mankind. This lover of mankind always
entertained a great belief in the oneness of man, a belief that gave a strong unity
to his Leaves of Grass:
The Whitman of Leaves of Grass contained all, comprehended all
and was willing to accept all. … The fulcrum was to be the dear
love of Comrades which would bind together that great array of
superb individuals who constitute the divine average, the great,
native, American man (Clark 113).
Thus, imbued with a humanistic spirit, Whitman’s dream of
democracy had an overtone of friendship of an all encompassing kind. To set an
example of friendship or comradeship, Whitman was ready to give himself to
others; and what he wanted in return was the other man as fully as he had given
himself:
Comerado, I give you my hand!
I give you my love more precious than
money,
I give you myself before preaching or law;
Will you give me yourself?
Will you come, travel with me?
Shall we stick by each other as long as we
live? (LG 127).
He knew that only this kind of friendship of complete surrender would last long,
as long as life itself.
Whitman’s Identity with the American People
Inspired by his strong sense of equality, Whitman achieved
complete identity with the American people. He became their spokesman. He
wanted to be a singer of American states united in spirit as equals with no one
subjected to another. In the poem “Starting from Paumanok” he sings:
I will make a song for these States that no
one State may under any circumstances
be subjected to another State,
And I will make a song that there shall
be comity by day and by
night between all the States, and
between any two of them,
………………………………………
I will acknowledge contemporary lands,
I will trail the whole geography of the
globe and salute courteously every city
large and small,
……………………………………
And I will report all heroism from
American point of view (LG 15-16).
Just as Whitman took pride in being one with the people of
America, he also took pride in his country, its physical vastness and its infinite
natural riches. Thus his poetry evinces his strong desire to celebrate man and to
celebrate his country. In “Preface, 1855” he celebrates the poetical nature of his
country as well as its people: “The Americans of all nations at any time upon the
earth have probably the fullest poetical nature. The United States themselves are
essentially the greatest poem” (LG 441). His poetry sings of democracy, of the
average man, of the en-masse. It contains many pictures of American people and
their way of life. All kinds of people, especially the working class men move
through his poems in a procession full of life and vitality. Whitman, a singer and
bard of American life, a true spokesman of America and its democracy, will
accept only what others can also have on the same terms. His identification with
others is total and in keeping with the spirit of true democracy.
Whitman, a true representative and spokesman of America, wrote
several poems which contain many things characteristically American. For
example, the “Wound Dresser” and “Come up from the Field Father” describe
the horrors of the civil war. If the war had a cause to justify, Whitman finds no
justification for the human damage even if the cause is for democracy. The
greatest damage caused by the after-effects of war is the death of Abraham
Lincoln.
Whitman’s social sensibility and his sentimental attachment to the
nation is best expressed in his feelings towards the American President. The
death of Lincoln was a heavy blow to the American sentiment. It was more than
a shock to Whitman. He was strongly influenced by Lincoln’s regard for the
people of America and the principles of democracy. Therefore, it would be
unjust to avoid Whitman’s regard for Lincoln in any discussion of his regard for
democracy and the people of America. He has vividly brought out his feelings
and the feelings of the people of America in his two elegiac poems: “O Captain
My Captain” and “When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom’d”.
Whitman the poet of democracy admired Lincoln, the Captain of
American democracy, because of the president’s strong regard for the principles
of democracy. He was taken up by the role of Lincoln in the civil war. He
considered Lincoln to be the embodiment of democracy and the grandest figure
on the canvas of nineteenth century democracy. Whitman’s appreciation for
Lincoln developed as a result of their common love for and dedication to the
cause of American democracy.
It would make an interesting study to note certain common factors
that went into the making of the sensibilities of these two staunch supporters of
American democracy. Both, Lincoln and Whitman, had a heart large enough to
contain a nation and showed a strong will to stand for the cause of the poor and
the oppressed. Both stood firm and courageous when it came to serving their
country.
Both of them came from plain people and had very little formal
education. Both had a strong inclination to suffer for the freedom of the slaves
and the cause of the Negroes. Above all, both displayed an unshakable faith in
democracy. Hence it was only natural that the two men came to be regarded as
the representative voices of America.
Today, Lincoln is known as “The Man of the People” and
Whitman as “The Poet of the People.” Whitman’s admiration of Lincoln
sprouted from his love of democracy. What was so common in both of them was
their social sensibility. While Whitman extended his sensibility to the common
man and the average citizens of America, Lincoln, as the president of America
focused his attention and devoted his social sensibility for the cause of the
slaves.
Though Whitman never published any praise of Lincoln while the
president lived, he almost immortalized Lincoln in the famous poem, “O
Captain! My Captain!”. The poem begins with a celebration of the victory of the
cause for which he shared with Lincoln the same sensibility and feeling:
O CAPTAIN! My Captain! Our fearful trip is
done,
The ship has weather’d every rack, the prize
we sought is won,
The port is near, the bells I hear, the people
all exulting,
While follow eyes the steady keel, the vessel
grim and daring (LG 266).
The prize that both Lincoln and Whitman sought was the same. It
was the abolition of slavery. In a truly democratic spirit Whitman praises
Lincoln who captained the struggle for the freedom of the slaves.
The poet of democracy then mourns deeply the assassination of a
president who best exemplified the principles of American democracy. He
considered the assassination as a personal bereavement and memorialized the
tragedy in the great elegy, “When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom’d”. The
poem expressed to the world in heart-felt words how similar and thoughtful their
sensibilities had been about the cause of the suffering Negroes and how, even
after Lincoln’s death, Whitman nostalgically reflected on their common feelings.
O western orb sailing the heaven,
Now I know what you must have meant as a
month since I walk’d
As I walk’d in silence the transparent
shadowy night,
As I saw you had something to tell as bent to
me night after night,
…………………………………………
As my soul in its trouble dissatisfied sank, as
where you sad orb;
Concluded, dropt in the night, and was gone
(LG 261).
Whitman identified his thoughts and dreams with those of
America and went about with a very great vision of the future of America. The
poems, “One’s Self I Sing”, “Turn O Liberated Pioneers, O Pioneers” etc are
songs dealing with the future of America.. In “Thou Mother with Thy Equal
Brood”, the poet makes a prophetic expression of the future wealth and
civilization of America:
Thee in thy own musicians, singers, artists,
unborn yet, but certain,
Thee in thy moral wealth and civilization,
……………………………………
Thee in thy pinnacles, intellect, thought, thy
topmost rational joys,
Thy love and godlike aspiration,
In thy resplendent coming literati, thy fulllung’d orators, thy sacerdotal bards,
kosmic savans
These! these in thee, (certain to come, ) today I prophesy (LG 357).
Whitman’s hope in the divine average man and his dreams of
America are closely linked. In the poem “I Dream’d in a Dream” he sings:
I DREAM’D in a dream I saw a city
invincible to the attacks of the whole of
the rest of the earth,
I dream’d that was the new city of Friends,
Nothing was greater there than the quality
of robust love, it led the rest,
It was seen every hour in the actions of
men of that city,
And in all their looks and words (LG 107).
The Role of the Divine Literatus
Whitman believed that the divine literatus has a great role to play
in bringing about all kinds of changes in the society and in influencing the
course of civilization. He can shape events and mould men and women in ‘a
thousand effective ways’. It is only a divine literatus who can create and
announce a mentally conducive programme to the development of a civilization
heralding the equality of all men in its spiritual as well as political perspective.
Whitman’s concern was for the society of the present not of the
past or far off future. His programme of equality and freedom was for an
immediate social democracy and social effectiveness. He believed that the poet
has a duty, without waiting for the future to bring together the disjoined present ,
past and future and to integrate them for the benefit of the people: “Past and
present and future are not disjoined but joined. The greatest poet forms the
consistence of what is to be from what has been and is” (LG 448). Whitman had
great hope for the future of America and the common man of America. He
looked forward to an America peopled with excellent men and women, to be
formed under the guidance of the divine literatus, who could give such a divine
message to the people that they would all be put on equal terms and feel
supreme. In “Preface, 1855” he says:
The message of great poets to each men and women are, Come
to us on equal terms, Only then can you understand us, we are no
better than you, … Did you suppose there could be only one
supreme? We affirm there can be unnumbered Supremes, and that
one does not countervail another any more than one eye sight
countervails another… and that men can be good or grand only of
the consciousness of their supremacy within them (LG 449).
Whitman has expressed his idea on the coming of the divine
literatus and his function in shaping the destiny of the United States and the
common people.
He is a seer…he is individual…he is complete in himself …. the
others are good as he, only he sees it as they do not. He is not one
of the choruses…. he does not stop for any regulation…he is the
president of regulation. What the eyesight does to the rest he does
to the rest (LG 445).
The divine literatus should take it as their mission to produce such
literature which will instill a sense of self respect and dignity in the common
man who should wake up to be proud, divine and upright. A single thought of a
writer can some times effect a greater change than a war. Whitman wrote:
…a single new thought, imagination, abstract principle, even
literary style, fit for the time, put in shape by some great literatus,
and projected among mankind, may duly cause changes, growths,
removals, greater than the longest and bloodiest war, or the most
stupendous merely political, dynastic, or commercial overturn
(LG 464).
It may be noted, however, that Whitman the poet did very little to
fulfil the role of a divine literatus. He only pointed the way for the divine
literatus. And declaimed poets like Tennyson and Shakespeare unsuitable for
America and drew the guide lines for the divine literatus. How then did he play
his role as a poet? One of his attempts in “Democratic Vistas” was to express his
ideas on the concept of the common man and his dreams about the future of
America. He wanted the average man to know more and more of his divine
identity and be lifted to the level of being great. He wanted America to be a
nation of the divine average guided by the divine literatus. He loved to be in the
company of the common man. But Whitman’s friends among the common
people did not know that he was a poet. He probably shared his dream with them
orally. It was his dream that man could be great. Commenting on his faith Clark
points out:
Man could be great, man should be great, man must reach his
greatest in America, man is divine – these were Whitman’s
dreams, and he expected these dreams to be romantically
achieved. Rather than re-educate the existing man and attempt to
resolve existing differences of opinion arising out of different
racial, social, religious or economic backgrounds, Whitman chose
to proclaim the new man to come…the divine average would just
happen (Clark 129).
Whitman wanted democracy to be a moral force as well as a
political force that would soon realize his dreams about America where men
would look at each other as bothers and sisters and would be ready to sit together
at the same table of brotherhood.