It's clearly the case that Emily Dickinson and Walt Whitman are both breaking conventions. They're both leading us to the experimentation of modernist poetry. So they're really both proto-moderns and fundamental to our discussions. But they're taking very different approaches. I just thought for instructive purposes it might be fun to see who is really at heart a Whitmanian. And see if you can make the Whitmanian argument as a matter of content or form, with special focus on form. And see who the Dickonsonians are naturally, and see what are the distinctions and differences. I don't recommend that we try this at home. I don't think that we should set these two people in opposite. We clearly have them both in American poetry, and we love them both and want them both. But there's some basic differences. So let's talk about those differences. So Anna, so you folks on this side are the Whitmanians. And you folks are the Dickinsonians and I'm sitting in the middle, I'm not revealing really where my heart lies. So Anna, what's your first volley as a Whitmanian. >> I love both of them, but what I love most about Whitman is that he's so fearless, and that he breaks up everything. He breaks convention, he doesn't rhyme anything, he messes with sentences, he messes with verbs. And you talked about how he turns subordinate clauses into just like this big catalog, and makes it all equally important. It's not so much as like his politics that I love versus Dickinson's, it's more just that he's so fearless in his expression, which is what I love about him. >> Okay, so how do you Dickensonians respond to that? >> I don't know, I guess I'm not incredibly stimulated, or interested, by his fearlessness. And there's something I found slightly abrasive about his attempt to sort of establish by virtue of declaring that we're all on equal footing, it's almost like, it feels to some extent, patronizing. I'm not sure if I can justify that, but what I like about Emily Dickinson is rather than just telling you that her readers are her equals, by writing poems that are in a sense less accessible. It creates this complicity between the reader and the author such that we do the work to know that we're equal, rather than having to take at face value her pronouncements that we are. >> How do you Whitmanians respond to that? I mean, Ally it's hard to respond to Emily, because she finds it maybe a little tedious, maybe a little obvious. >> Well, I think one of the things that's most attractive about Whitman is that I don't think he would necessarily care about Emily's response. >> But he would care about Emily. >> No, he would care so much about Emily. >> [LAUGH] >> But he's a very unapologetic poet. And I think both of them are. But it's called, this thing that we're concentrating on is called song of myself. And he's unapologetic about himself. So even if that's true, even if at times it can be maybe a little abrasive, he doesn't, there isn't really a consequence, because he doesn't take himself 100% seriously. And I think, when he says the blab of the pavement, he knows that he's passing, he's liminal, and so therefore, he can be, he can contradict himself. >> Isn't there something a little naive, well we've used that word a lot, theoretically naive, in Walt's assumption, that he can reproduce the world? It's almost as if he doesn't realize sometimes that this is actually words. Christine what were you going to say? >> Yeah I mean, he's assuming that all of his word are taken at face value, to an extent that they're basic, that they mean what they mean. >> And that they're easy. >> And that they're easy, but Emily is telling us that, Emily Dickinson not this Emily, although this Emily agrees with Emily Dickinson, is telling us that each word hold possibilities. Endless possibilities. >> Yeah, so how do you respond to that? The openness of the Dickensonian mode of signification, it's open. >> It's not a true openness, because it requires work to get there. >> You don't like work? >> There's nothing wrong with work, but it creates a feeling of pretension that it's an intellectual elite area to get into. Where the thing I like about Walt is he is against that type of construct. He thinks it should be more egalitarian. >> Well I think it's also important to remember when you think about these two in opposition that Walt is really writing for, he's writing as a teacher. And he wants to like impart something to people, whereas Emily, I mean, she asked her sister to burn every single poem she ever wrote after she died. She didn't want people to read this stuff, I don't think. >> Of course, it's more complicated than that biographically, but okay, we'll just stipulate that. Maurice? >> I want to respond to some points. I didn't feel that Whitman was patronizing at all, because he's not attempting to include all of America in its detail in his poem, rather he's saying that not only had he taken a very non-authoritative approach. And he's privileging and putting forth that the individual primary experience is the one that should be justified and should be trusted. And rather, it's Emily who's saying, rather, that she can create an entire world in her consciousness, in remaining within that state of, she was reclusive, she was alone, solitary. She said in one of her lines, I believe, the soul selects its own society. So she was mostly interested with a confrontation with the self, whereas, Walt Whitman was interested in a confrontation with the world in all its detail. Even its areas of mediocrity and its poverty, he seemed a much more democratic poet. >> The soul selects its own society, and with me in response would be selection. Why select? Let's include all. But the problem is Dickensonians, that it's impossible to include all, is it not? Selection is either admitted, one has to be selective, unless the poem is infinitely long. What do you think of that? Does that help your side, at all? >> It does, it seems like every act of representation is an act of selection. >> So there. >> All types of description, it's some type of metonymy. Every novel is a representation of all experience through one particular experience. And so I just don't buy Whitman's attempt at inclusion, even that long sort of exciting list that ultimately ends. And at the end of the day, I'll just always prefer, her aesthetic seems more successful and somehow more honest to the conditions of literature as a whole. >> More honest though, and being more abstract and generalizing, because I don't believe that in listing, he's attempting to be representative in the sense of generalizing. He's just giving examples that are vivid and evocative, of that sensory physical experience that he finds so important to life and to poetry. >> Just to kind of get back to your sensory experience. The reason I choose Whitman is visceral >> I choose Whitman, how convenient. >> [LAUGH] >> You're right, I didn't mean to do that. It's visceral, as opposed to intellectual, I think, and I do have to say that I sometimes enjoy Dickinson's poems as a whole more, but they're just certain moments in Whitman's poetry. A child said, what is the grass, bringing it to me in full hands. That might be slightly misquoted. It just opens, it's such an immediate joy, and just freedom. Whereas, I think in order to reach that moment, and that sense, that feeling, that sentiment sometimes through Dickinson, you really have to work, and you don't necessarily get there until 15 minutes into it. >> Dave, do you hear anything from the Dickinsonians that you identify with? >> Well, I don't think having to work for something is inherently wrong at all. And I think, the things I like about Whitman are, his viscerality, his ability to tap into the lowest common denominator. But the problem that I have is it also produces something that is the lowest common denominator. And poetry, reading-wise, I do like the cleverness of Emily Dickinson's poetry. Although I like the inclusiveness of Walt Whitman, so. >> So you're not sure, are you? >> I'm sort of on the fence with both of them. I love what Walt Whitman has done and how he challenged puritanical norms, but if I had to pick something to read and enjoy, it might be Emily. >> So does this mean you're moving to the other side? >> I think it does. >> So there he goes, off to the other side. As soon as you get there, we'll figure out why that happened. May I ask the remaining Whitmanians. >> [LAUGH] >> Is there an equivalent in Whitman's poetry of Emily's for occupation, this? >> I think it's on myself as the word now. >> How so? >> Because if Emily's talking about this being our occupation, this being what I, or we, the dwellers of the house need to be doing. Whitman's this, is like right now. There's never any more inception than there is now, never anymore perfection than there is right now. >> So it self-referential, satisfies your modernistic impulses, your notion that poems should always, to some degree, be conscious of themselves as poems. Not necessarily like an art is poetic sense, but in the sense that, poetry accomplishes something. >> So Whitman has the poetics and that we can discern the poetics from the writing, is a fact. But for Dickenson, am I right Dickensonians plus Dave, Dickenson makes almost a whole arc out of that self-consciousness. Whereas for Walt, he needs to remind us of it every so often. But there are whole sections where he wants us to forget that we're reading a poem, and try to imagine that we are living in the world. >> I think there's a difference between the Dickensonsonian self consciousness, because she is very interested in the self and her self. >> She's almost exclusively interested in it. >> Yeah, and not in a bad way. >> You're okay with it. >> I'm totally okay with it. I'm totally okay with her using her poems to get at some notion of self. But I think Walt is interested in the self, and in the collective self, and in the collective consciousness. >> The self as it's expressed or articulated in the mass. >> Sure. >> And Emily Dickenson's subject matter is not that at all, I don't think. Dave Poplar. >> I try to read Emily Dickenson as being more inclusive, as saying, this is open to everybody if you're willing to do the work. All you have to do is do the work, and then you're invited into my house. But you have to do the work. And I don't think she's saying only certain people, even if you do the work, are going to be excluded. So I'm trying to read Dickenson in a Whitmanian sort of sense. >> I would say that, going back to Al's metaphor of the cup, I appreciate that Emily Dickinson's poem is that cup that I can then fill up the specificity of my own experience. And I think that both poets are equally admirable in the courage of the journey that they're taking. Emily's one would obviously be internal, whereas his would be external. But one can't exist without the other, so I guess what I'm feeling mostly is that I appreciate Whitman's willingness and brashness, maybe, of going out there and getting the messy, gritty detail of everyday life. >> [LAUGH] >> I've been retreating perhaps, but Dickenson just seems so too introspective, if I can make that accusation. >> Well I think Whitman implicitly makes that accusation by saying that he wants to go outdoors. He wants to tramp around the country. He wants to have first hand experience. Emily- >> Where she talks about her friggets being books. >> The metaphor works in reverse for her, right? So everything out in the world becomes a metaphor for the life of the self. And in Walt, things of the self become metaphors for the way things work in the world, and ultimately that's the subject matter. Whereas for Dickinson, ultimately, what the subject matter is, is the way the mind thinks. And the way the self acts in solitude. So let's wrap up by inviting ourselves to use Whitmanian locution. I invite myself to predict, not really knowing where this course is going yet, to predict some of the things that we've found in these two poets that might lead to 20th Century and 21st Century poetry. Just toss it out. And if I think you're completely wrong-headed about this, I'll say so. But I think you'd probably be pretty good at it. So, Dave, starting with you, what do you think, what does this predict? Where are we going with some of this stuff? >> I think one of the innovations of these two poets is how form itself can also become content. >> Form and content, and that's not completely new in poetry at this time. But it's the emphasis on form, particularly in Dickenson that's going to be really important. Okay, good. And form content jiving, yeah. Do you have any thoughts about where this is going towards modernism? Max? >> I think we're going to see, moments of great brevity and economy, like we see in Dickenson. And then moments of absolute, ecstatic plenitude like we see in Whitman. I think that's going to be two modes that we encounter over the course of the course. >> Anna? >> I think, too, that in the same way that painting has this trajectory of, in Renaissance Painters are painting epic scenes and historic scenes, and portraits of great people. You have those and the slowly you move towards painting scenes of ordinary life like genre scenes. >> That would be Walt and in Dickinson, abstraction. Painting about painting, art about art. So I think self referentiality is crucial, moving from reference to self reference. >> Meaning you come to a point where a painting is no longer supposed to be a window into another world. It's supposed to be a painting is two dimensional. This is paint on canvas, this is what it is. >> It is what it is. So I would add to that, that self-consciousness, that language is language. That poems are words, words, words, words, to the end of them, as William Carlos Williams would say. Poems are words, not thoughts, not beautiful thoughts, they're words. And then, of course, there is the dwelling on this, the presence of the writing itself and the consciousness of the writing itself. Any other thoughts about where this is going? Kristen? >> Well maybe the Whitmanian idea of primary experience is reflected in no ideas, but in things in the future. We'll get to that later. >> Say a little more about that. >> So for Whitman, it's all about being there and representing it as it is. And I think that comes in more when you get to imagism. >> It's like privileging the order in everyday, and moving towards the rhythm of the poets breath that musicality that the voice brings. >> Well modern poets, particularly early modern poets, are going to say they're going to stipulate that anything can be the subject matter of poetry. Certainly this is a hallmark of William Carlos Williams. There is nothing too low to be subject matter. >> Well that's where they intersect right, with Williams- >> Whitman and Dickinson. >> And if you think about a poem like The Red Wheelbarrow having so much depend upon a red wheelbarrow. >> Glazed with rainwater, beside the white chickens >> You know, it's like a very Dickinsonian >> And, like Mac said, the economy of language with the very base Whitmanian idea. >> So Williams stands really nicely between these two proto-modernists. We think of Williams as really in the Whitmanian tradition. Because you go from Whitman, to Williams, to Ginsberg, for instance. But as you just pointed out, the imagist Williams, the Williams of precision and economy and focus. >> As in Between Walls. >> As in the poem Between Walls, is really in a lot of ways Dickinsonian. So what we're going to do next is look at some Whitmanians and some Dickinsonians from the 20th century, and in one case the 21st century. To see where these two lineages go before we break out of the Whitman and Dickinson mold and go directly to modernism. So that's what we'll do next. We'll look at some Whitmanians and some Dickinsonians. Okay, we will keep this false Byronism going a little bit longer. >> [LAUGH]
