The Poet as Mediator Between Life and Death
(Option Number Four)
Patrick Mooney
English 130C, section 102
October 19, 2001
Whitman tends to refer to individual pieces of his poetry in Drum-Taps as "songs." Indeed, his emphasis is on the spoken, rather than written, word throughout this collection. Whitman's references to the written word -- there are few of them, compared to his references to the spoken word -- associate the written word with destruction and with disruption of a normal process of life, even with death. This undermines the legitimacy of written poetry itself and emphasizes the historically prior, spoken nature of poems; ultimately, it provides Whitman with a way to legitimize poetry as an effort at mediation between this dangerous written word and vital spoken language.
Only four[1] of the forty-three poems in the Drum-Taps collection in the "death-bed" edition of Leaves of Grass even use words that unambiguously refer to a written document of any kind. (There are words which may refer to written texts, such as the "works" of line 8 in "To a Certain Civilian," but there are also very few of these.) Of these four works, two -- "Come Up from the Fields Father" and "As Toilsome I Wander'd Virginia's Woods" -- are primarily concerned with the written document itself and with the roles it plays. An analysis of these two poems shows that Whitman's conception of the written word in Drum-Taps is that of something associated with destruction and death.
The association of written documents with disruption and death is most easily seen in "As Toilsome I Wander'd Virginia's Woods." Both written documents in that poem are associated with death both metaphorically and metonymically. This can been seen from the narrative unfolding of the events in the poem, from the examination of a fact of the poem's setting, and from certain structural elements in the poem.
The first written text to appear in the poem, the gravestone itself, is metaphorically associated with by the fact that it marks the place where a dead body lies. It is also associated with death by its physical proximity to the soldier's body. The second written text, a sign on a tree near a grave, is metaphorically associated with death by the fact that it refers to characteristics ("bold, cautions, true, and my loving comrade") that had been possessed by a dead man while he was living. ("As Toilsome" 7, 12)[2] (That is, the words are an abstract representation of an aspect of the dead man.) Like the gravestone (although less so, due to the increased distance), it is also metonymically associated with death by its proximity to the body.
The disruption of the normal process of life is seen in the effect that the documents have on the way in which the narrator's life progresses: "Yet at times through changeful season and scene, abrupt, alone, or in the crowded street," the narrator says, "Comes before me the unknown soldier's grave, comes the inscription rude in Virginia's woods." That is to say, the narrator is interrupted repeatedly and in different situations by the written documents of concern in the poem -- they interrupt the course of his thoughts, over and over, in an "abrupt" manner. (10-11)
The poem is also set in autumn, a time traditionally associated with the dying of the old year. (2) (This might, by itself, be regarded as coincidental, but the likelihood of this is strongly decreased by the fact that it is also true in "Come Up from the Fields Father.")
The written document of concern in "Come Up from the Fields Father" is even more closely associated with disruption and death. This document is a letter that informs a family of their son's wounding in a battle. The letter's connection with a disruption of the normal process of life is emphasized by the text in several ways: by the effect it as on the family, though the setting of the poem in autumn (and the poem specifically juxtaposes different aspects of the traditional view of the season to do this).
There are several elements in this poem that connect the written document with death in the same way that "As Toilsome I Wander'd Virginia's Woods." The most noticeable, perhaps, is that the document again arrives in autumn. ("Come Up" 3) The early lines of "Come Up" emphasize the aspect of autumn in which it is seen as the time of harvest, when crops come to fruition: Ripe apples and grapes are mentioned; the bees are also preparing honey. (6-8) The narrator also says twice that the farm "prospers well." (10, 11) The shift in focus from autumn to the action surrounding the contents of the letter signals a shift in the poem's tone: Descriptions of agricultural prosperity drop out completely, except for one reference in line 23, after line 11. Instead, the language consists of menacing words and phrases that denote confusion and disorder -- for instance, adjectives and adverbs connoting alienation ("strange," "stricken," "black," "broken," "speechless," "fitfully") become common. (18, 19, 20, 27, 34) In contrast to this prosperous harvest aspect of autumn, however, Pete's death reflects another aspect of autumn's traditional association, that of death.
As before, the document's contents also indicate a close association with death: They carry the news that a young man, who would likely be a farmer (as his parents are) in the absence of war, is instead lying wounded in a hospital. In fact, as the narrator informs the reader, the young man is already dead. ("Come Up" 30) Thus, the letter is a premonition to the family that a normal order of events, in which parents perish before their children, has been inverted by the war. (And, of course, there is even a strong -- although implied -- parallel to "As Toilsome," which relates to the disruption of normal life: That news of a young man's death would disrupt the normal structure of events in the courses of his family members' lives, perhaps even more strongly than memories of an unknown soldier's grave, is likely to be apparent to those who read both poems.)
The letter, in informing Pete's family that he "will soon be better," also misrepresents the actual situation -- that is to say, it disrupts the normal operation of language, which functions to allow people to communicate with each other. (21, 28) It is also worth noting that the written document's arrival interrupts the normal labor of the family: The father stops work in the fields, and the mother stops her household labor, when the written document makes its appearance. (1-2) Also interesting is that fact that the "little sisters" are rendered "speechless" by the letter -- the written document crowds out the possibility of the historically prior, more natural method of communication, speech. (27)
It is also worthwhile to note that the Declaration of Independence in "The Centenarian's Story" is at least somewhat associated with death. This can be seen from the fact that the reading of this primarily written document coincides with the arrival of the English war-ships and precipitates the battle remembered by the centenarian. "Centenarian's Story" 40-46)
This constant association of written language with death is surprising for a poet; after all, Drum-Taps presents itself, at least physically, as a written collection of poems. This leaves a critical reader with the difficult question of how she is to take the printed poems in this collection.
The primary indication of how the poems are to be taken comes from an examination of the poems themselves. In both of the poems so far examined, the written word is closely associated with death; Whitman provides a hint as to his motivation in "Song of the Banner at Daybreak," where he says that "book-words" are "words no more"; that is, language which exists primarily as written language lacks the vitality of spoken language. The central complaint about written language seems to be this vital lack: Whitman explains, in "Over the Carnage Rose Prophetic a Voice," that "nor the world, nor any living thing, will ... cohere" simply because it is "held together" by (among other ineffective attempts to hold the world and living things together) "an agreement on a paper." ("Over" 20-22)
Given this close association of the written word with death, it is not really surprising that Whitman emphasizes his poetry as a spoken form of communication; half again as many instances of the words "sing" and "song" occur in the eleven-line "From Paumanok Starting I Fly Like a Bird" as there are written documents in all of Drum-Taps, for instance. ("From Paumanok" 2, 3, 5, 6, 7, 9, 11) There is other emphasis on spoken language throughout Drum-Taps: "Song of the Banner at Daybreak" takes the form of a conversation; "The Centenarian's Story" is a transcription of a story told orally; a mysterious but authoritative voice speaks over a battlefield in "Over the Carnage Rose Prophetic a Voice"; "As I Lay With My Head in Your Lap Camerado" is in the form of a monologue; and there are numerous choices of words in almost every poem that reflect in some way this strong association of poetry with spoken language.
This emphasis on the spoken word over the written word is not, however, a complete denial of the written word, and this is what makes Drum-Taps possible as a collection of poetry. Whitman works to legitimize the written word in several places in Drum-Taps; the clearest of these is in "The Centenarian's Story," which is primarily a transcription of a story told by a Revolutionary War veteran. This transcribed poem is the primary instance in Drum-Taps of a written text not associated in some way with death; in fact, the narrator says of the poem that he "must copy the story, and send it eastward and westward" -- that is, the travels of the poem itself resemble those of the narrator in "From Paumanok Starting I Fly Like a Bird." Although the centenarian is old, there is no close association of him with death; he seems rather a vital character -- he has survived a dangerous battle and lived to a great age. This poem itself -- the transcription of the centenarian's story -- is the only example in Drum-Taps of a written text not associated with death or disorder; it is also the only example of a written text in the collection that existed primarily and primordially as a spoken text. Given that the analysis of every other written text in the collection associates it with death or disorder, or both, and that the poet otherwise emphasizes the spoken word with such vehemence throughout the collection, this conjunction of two unusual characteristics surrounding a single text can hardly be a coincidence: Whitman is acting here to legitimize written language solely in the case where it exists more primarily as spoken language, when it is not mere "book-words."
This is what legitimizes poetry, as well: an emphasis on the primary character of spoken language. If the narrator of "The Centenarian's Story" is to be taken as a model -- and the exceptional nature of the text suggests that he is -- then the role of the poet is that of mediator between the natural spoken and the dangerous written text. This conception of the poet -- as mediator between written and spoken, vitality and death -- is what underlies the possibility of poetic expression in Drum-Taps.
Works Cited
Whitman, Walt. "As Toilsome I Wander'd Virginia's Woods" in Whitman, W., Leaves of Grass. New York: The Modern Library, 2001.[3]
Whitman, Walt. "The Centenarian's Story" in Whitman, W., Leaves of Grass. New York: The Modern Library, 2001.
Whitman, Walt. "Come Up From the Fields Father" in Whitman, W., Leaves of Grass. New York: The Modern Library, 2001.
Whitman, Walt. "From Paumanok Starting I Fly Like a Bird" in Whitman, W., Leaves of Grass. New York: The Modern Library, 2001.
Whitman, Walt. "Over the Carnage Rose Prophetic a Voice" in Whitman, W., Leaves of Grass. New York: The Modern Library, 2001.
Whitman, Walt. "To a Certain Civilian" in Whitman, W., Leaves of Grass. New York: The Modern Library, 2001.
Footnotes
[1] These written texts are the copy of the centenarian's story on ll. 101-2 in "The Centenarian's Story" and the Declaration of Independence on l. 39 of that poem, the letter to which the various voices refer throughout "Come Up From the Fields Father," the sign and the grave to which the narrator refers in "As Toilsome I Wander'd Virginia's Woods," and the written agreement on l. 21 of "Over the Carnage Rose Prophetic a Voice."
[2] Full bibliographic information for all works cited may be found at the end of the essay. All numeric references after the abbreviated version of a poem's title refer to line numbers, not page numbers.
[3] Whitman's titles are presented all in upper-case letters, and all of the titles of poems in Drum-Taps end with a period, except for "Beat! Beat! Drums!"; for ease of reading, I have normalized the capitalization of the titles, so that Whitman's titles are capitalized in the same way that the titles of most works are capitalized; I have also removed the period in all cases except those where the title of a poem coincides with the end of a sentence.
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