A House Divided and Restored (1860-1890) From Romanticism to Realism

The most important literary and historical features of this period are the shift from Romanticism to Realism, the local-colour movement, and the Civil War. Literature in this period turned from human potentialities and aspirations to the actualities of existence in America. By 1865, the New England Renaissance had run its course. Only Walt Whitman provided a connection between the romantic idealism of the 1850s and the changed realities of the post-war period.

Walt Whitman (1819-1892)

Walt Whitman was born on Long Island and spent his early life there, in Brooklyn and in New York. His farther, a large silent man, was a carpenter, and his mother had no formal education, never learnt to spell, and was simply bewildered by Walt’s poetry. Walt Whitman attended the public schools of Brooklyn, read omnivorously, and went to church regularly. He was a Quaker. He received his “education” on the roads and rivers of America. Other early experiences included working in printing offices and teaching in country schools (with legendary incompetence). Besides, he was feverishly occupied with creating “Leaves of Grass” (1855 – first version, 1892 - final version, 8 revisions). The publisher was Whitman himself who had printed it at his own expense. But the book brought him neither money nor fame. It was only later on, that it was recognized as one of the masterpieces of world literature.

Walt Whitman was not a soldier in the Civil War, but he served as a volunteer nurse and surgical assistant in the hospitals. In 1864 he was ill with hospital malaria from the effects of which he never fully recovered. In 1873 he had a paralytic stroke, and he continued a partial invalid during the remaining 19 years of his life. He lived with his brother in New Jersey.

There he constantly revisited his volume. “Leaves of Grass” became his life-long occupation, as he added the poems reflecting his most essential experiences. Among the sources of new poems were his hospital experiences and his reaction to the assassination of President Lincoln. For Walt the highest ideals of American Democracy were embodied in Lincoln, a wise man of the common people, who rose to moral leadership of his nation. (Walt’s poem “When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom’d” is a masterwork, the finest of the many poems on Lincoln).

Walt Whitman’s poetry was original, revolutionary and indisputably American. He broke with the conventions and traditions of English verse. He employed free rhythms, which are comparable with those of the Old Testament. Walt Whitman discarded traditional metrical patterns in favour of free verse, a technical liberation that matched American intellectual independence. His poems seemed equally free in content. He thought that poetry must embrace every aspect of life, and he wrote on subjects that had previously been excluded from poetry as ugly or shameful. The language of his poetry was vivid and exciting, shifting from vast abstractions to intimate personal revelations. He not only inserted his personality into his poems, but insisted on its presence. His verse had a certain magnetic force and a passionate quality that excited imagination and earned either strong enthusiasm or strong dislike.

His Major Literary Works:

• Poetry

1855-1892 – “Leaves of Grass”

1865 – “Drum-Taps”

1865-1866 – “Sequel to Drum-Taps”

• Essays

1871 – “Democratic Vistas”

• Autobiography

1882 – “Specimen Days and Collect”

Whitman was America’s first critical realist. “I Hear America Singing!” - these words, the title of one of his poems, may serve as a motto for all his works. Four themes – the themes of brotherhood, equality, human worth and progress – constitute the key-note of his poetry. Whitman was a convinced abolitionist; he condemned the enslavement of Negroes as the evil of all evils on earth.

Whitman’s poetry exercised a great influence on many poets of the 20^th century throughout the world. One of the first interpreters of Whitman into Russian was Ivan Turgenev. Besides, a lot of his works were translated by Kornei Tchukovsky and Konstantin Balmont.

LECTURE VIII