Leaves of Grass: The First (1855) Edition (Penguin Classics)
by Walt Whitman
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Book Summary Information
Author: Walt WhitmanEdition: Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 1961-07-10
ISBN: 0140421998
Number of pages: 192
Publisher: Penguin Classics
Book Reviews of Leaves of Grass: The First (1855) Edition (Penguin Classics)
Book Review: Cowley's Introduction
Summary: 5 Stars
Please note that I am reviewing the Penguin Classics printing of The First (1855) Edition.
I trust that I need say nothing about Leaves of Grass itself. It is, alongside the poems of Hart Crane, Rimbaud, Lautreamont, Blake, Lawrence, Emily Dickinson and St John Perse, a totally singular experience. I have never read anything like "Song Of Myself" and "The Sleepers", and I am certain that you will love them just as much.
I do, however, have certain reservations about Malcolm Cowley's introduction. It is well-intentioned enough, but I would like to issue a few words of warning, as it is certainly a very confused affair, one that will no doubt perplex many Whitman neophytes. For Cowley, the task of Whitman interpretation couldn't be simpler, one need only look towards Indian Vedic philosophy and Buddhist scripture for an all-purpose key. While this certainly seems attractive and convenient- a lazy expedient for phlegmatic types- Cowley himself realizes that it is totally incongruous with certain aspects of Whitman:
"Most of Whitman's doctrines, though by no means all of them, belong to the mainstream of Indian philosophy. In some respects he went against the stream. Unlike most of the Indian sages, for example, he was not a thoroughgoing idealist. He did not believe that the whole world of the senses, of desires, of birth and death, was only maya, illusion, nor did he hold that it was a sort of purgatory; instead he praised the world as real and joyful. He did not despise the body, but proclaimed that it was as miraculous as the soul."
Having meandered into a cul-de-sac, Cowley's attempt at escape is characteristically sloppy:
"...it must be remembered that Indian philosophy or theology is not such a unified structure as it appears to us from a distance. Whitman might have found Indian sages or gurus and even whole sects that agreed with one or another of his heterodoxies (perhaps excepting his belief in material progress). One is tempted to say that instead of being a Christian heretic, he was an Indian rebel and sectarian. Sometimes he seems to be a Mahayana Buddhist..."
Pedants are like spiders- they love cocooning themselves in their own contradictions. All of the difficulties that Cowley encounters here stem from his insufferable compulsion to categorise, and hence domesticate, Whitman. I take issue with this preposterous statement:
"One is tempted to say..."
No, Mr Cowley, YOU are tempted to make these conclusions, any sober reader is willing to meet Whitman on his own terms, to delight in his incomparable vigor. Further on, we find the following:
"Since the Indian mystical philosophies are elaborate structures, based on conceptions that have been shaped and defined by centuries of discussion, they help to explain Whitman's ideas at points in the first edition whre he seems at first glance to be vague or self-contradictory. There is, for example, his UNUSUAL combination of realism- sometimes brutal realism- and serene optimism."
Unusual, perhaps, if you insist on translating the poem into Vedic terms. It is a little depressing that scholars are so blind to the revelatory miracles of Leaves Of Grass. Here was a poet attempting to forge new forms of expression commensurate to his time, a capacious, all-enveloping style that would sing the songs of democracy. To thank him for his troubles, scholars do the only thing they are capable of, dragging Whitman into the malodorous mire of comparison. This line is redolent of Plato, this one reeks of Vimalakirti, this shadowy section can be illuminated with the torch of the Gita, all of it is regurgitated thought, relics coated in new varnish.
What makes matters worse is Cowley's admission that Whitman had read none of the cited works in 1852. Yet, the empirical evidence admits no contestation- the symptoms of Whitman's mystical paroxysm are largely identical with prior examples. "Leaves Of Grass", we are told, is another manifestation of the 'perennial philosophy'- for all of its ornate embellishments and flourishes, it is, in fact, not very revolutionary at all. Once you master the rudiments of said philosophy, the swelling surge of Whitman's writing is easily navigable. Here we see Cowley defeated by his own epistemological suppositions. Cowley's method, after all, is that of a good Platonist. Poetry, for him, marks a poet's gradual emergence from anamnesia, a rapturous remembrance of eternal truths.
In actuality, the introduction is not really about "Leaves Of Grass" at all. It is about the scholar's will to power, his inexorable urge to subordinate every literary text to precedent. In reducing "Song Of Myself" to yet another incarnation of Hindu absorption, Cowley does a severe injustice to a great American poem. He would have us believe that "Song Of Myself" is little better than a journal entry in verse, a haphazard approximation of a subjective mystical experience that has been repeated throughout history. To further substantiate his claim, Cowley compares a stanza in "Leaves Of Grass" to a Vedic text, noting their thematic and stylistic similarities. Does this not consolidate Whitman's unflinching faith in metempsychosis? In "Song Of Myself", Whitman effects the transmigration of souls, channelling the voice of the Vedas. The complacence and self-contentment of Cowley is, for this reader at least, truly vulgar.
I am not disputing the notion that Whitman has a consistent doctrine beneath all of his creative output, but the system must be sought WITHIN his texts and NOT without. This is the thought that courses throughout all of Whitman's writing, that of pure immanence. To those approaching Whitman for the first time, I hope you have the good sense to treat Cowley's introduction with the bemusement that it deserves.
Summary of Leaves of Grass: The First (1855) Edition (Penguin Classics)
As Malcolm Cowley says in his introduction, the first edition of "Leaves of Grass" 'might be called the buried masterpiece of American writing', for it exhibits 'Whitman at his best, Whitman at his freshest in vision and boldest in language, Whitman transformed by a new experience.' Mr Cowley has taken the first edition from its narrow circulation among scholars, faithfully edited it, added his own introduction and Whitman's original introduction (which never appeared in any other edition during Whitman's life), and returned it to the common readership to whom the great poet really speaks.Criticism & Theory Books
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