Difference between revisions of "Jonathan Ned Katz: "Comrades and Lovers," Act I"
(31 intermediate revisions by the same user not shown) | |||
Line 1: | Line 1: | ||
− | + | Back to: [http://www.outhistory.org/wiki/Jonathan_Ned_Katz:_%22Comrades_and_Lovers%22 Jonathan Ned Katz: "Comrades and Lovers"] | |
− | |||
− | |||
− | :: | + | :::'''ACT I''' |
+ | :::LIGHTS OFF; WHITMAN'S FIRST WORDS ARE HEARD IN THE DARK. | ||
− | |||
− | + | WHITMAN: | |
+ | :::Love thoughts | ||
− | |||
− | SPEAKER | + | SPEAKER 1 |
+ | :::love-juice, | ||
− | |||
− | + | SPEAKER 2: | |
+ | :::love-odor, | ||
− | |||
− | SPEAKER | + | SPEAKER 3: |
+ | :::love-yielding, | ||
− | |||
− | SPEAKER 4: | + | SPEAKER 4: |
+ | :::love-climbers, | ||
− | |||
+ | WHITMAN: | ||
+ | :::and the climbing sap, | ||
− | |||
− | |||
− | |||
− | :: | + | SPEAKER 1: |
+ | :::arms and hands of love, | ||
+ | |||
+ | SPEAKER 2: | ||
+ | :::lips of love, | ||
+ | |||
+ | |||
+ | SPEAKER 3: | ||
+ | :::phallic thumb of love, | ||
+ | |||
+ | |||
+ | SPEAKER 4: | ||
+ | :::breasts of love, | ||
+ | |||
+ | |||
+ | WHITMAN: | ||
+ | :::bellies pressed and glued together with love. | ||
+ | |||
+ | |||
+ | :::LIGHTS ON, NIGHT | ||
+ | |||
+ | :::SCENE TITLE, PROJECTED: | ||
+ | |||
+ | :::1 Walt Whitman, "Love-thoughts" | ||
+ | |||
+ | |||
+ | :::[[Image:WW3.75dpi.jpeg|150px]] | ||
+ | |||
+ | |||
+ | :::THROUGHOUT THIS PIECE, PHOTOS OF THE CHARACTERS MAY BE PROJECTED. | ||
+ | |||
+ | |||
+ | :::WHITMAN AND A "BOY" MOVE CLOSE TOGETHER, ADDRESS EACH OTHER: | ||
+ | |||
+ | |||
+ | BOY: | ||
+ | :::The wet of woods through the early hours. | ||
+ | |||
+ | |||
+ | WHITMAN: | ||
+ | :::Two sleepers at night lying close together as they sleep, | ||
+ | |||
+ | |||
+ | BOY: | ||
+ | :::One with an arm slanting down across and below the waist of the other. | ||
+ | |||
+ | |||
+ | WHITMAN: | ||
+ | :::The smell of apples, | ||
+ | |||
+ | |||
+ | BOY: | ||
+ | :::aromas from crushed sage plant, | ||
+ | |||
+ | |||
+ | WHITMAN: | ||
+ | :::mint, | ||
+ | |||
+ | |||
+ | BOY: | ||
+ | :::birch bark. | ||
+ | |||
+ | |||
+ | WHITMAN: | ||
+ | :::The boy's longings, | ||
+ | :::the glow and pressure | ||
+ | :::as he confides to me | ||
+ | :::what he was dreaming. | ||
+ | |||
+ | |||
+ | BOY: | ||
+ | :::The dead leaf falling its spiral whirl, | ||
+ | :::falling still and content to the ground. | ||
+ | |||
+ | |||
+ | WHITMAN: | ||
+ | :::The sensitive, orbic, underlapped brothers, | ||
+ | :::that only privileged feelers | ||
+ | :::may be intimate where they are. | ||
+ | |||
+ | |||
+ | BOY: | ||
+ | :::The mystic amorous night. | ||
+ | |||
+ | |||
+ | WHITMAN: | ||
+ | :::The curious roamer the hand, | ||
+ | :::roaming all over the body, | ||
+ | |||
+ | |||
+ | BOY: | ||
+ | :::the bashful withdrawing of flesh | ||
+ | :::where the fingers soothingly pause | ||
+ | :::and edge themselves. | ||
+ | |||
+ | |||
+ | WHITMAN: | ||
+ | :::The limpid liquid within the young man, | ||
+ | |||
+ | |||
+ | BOY: | ||
+ | ::: the vex'd corrosion | ||
+ | :::so pensive and painful, | ||
+ | |||
+ | |||
+ | WHITMAN: | ||
+ | :::the torment, | ||
+ | |||
+ | |||
+ | BOY: | ||
+ | :::the irritable tide | ||
+ | :::that will not be at rest, | ||
+ | |||
+ | |||
+ | WHITMAN: | ||
+ | :::the like of the same I feel, | ||
+ | :::the like of the same in others. | ||
+ | |||
+ | |||
+ | :::SCENE TITLE: 2 Rufus Griswold, "Once licentiousness" | ||
+ | |||
+ | |||
+ | :::[[Image:Griswold.jpeg|200px]] | ||
+ | |||
+ | |||
+ | :::RESPONDING TO THE EARLIER VERSE, GRISWOLD APPEARS WITH ''LEAVES OF GRASS'', SPEAKS TO WHITMAN: | ||
+ | |||
+ | |||
+ | GRISWOLD: | ||
+ | :::Once licentiousness | ||
+ | :::shunned the light; | ||
+ | :::now it writes books | ||
+ | :::showing how grand and pure it is, | ||
+ | :::and prophecies | ||
+ | :::its own ultimate triumph. | ||
+ | |||
+ | |||
+ | :::TO AUDIENCE, HOLDING UP ''LEAVES OF GRASS''. | ||
+ | |||
+ | |||
+ | :::It is impossible to imagine | ||
+ | :::how any man's fancy | ||
+ | :::could have conceived | ||
+ | :::such a mass of stupid filth. | ||
+ | :::We leave this gathering of muck | ||
+ | :::to the laws | ||
+ | :::which have power to suppress | ||
+ | :::such gross obscenity. | ||
+ | |||
+ | |||
+ | :::FIRE AND BRIMSTONE PROPHECY | ||
+ | |||
+ | |||
+ | :::"Peccatum illud horribile, | ||
+ | :::inter Christianos non nominandum." | ||
+ | |||
+ | |||
+ | :::WHISPERS, THREATENINGLY, TO WHITMAN | ||
+ | |||
+ | |||
+ | :::(That vile sin among Christians not to be named.) | ||
+ | |||
+ | |||
+ | :::WHITMAN AND SPEAKERS RESPOND TO GRISWOLD. | ||
+ | |||
+ | |||
+ | :::SCENE TITLE: 3 Walt Whitman, "Through me" | ||
+ | |||
+ | |||
+ | :::[[Image:WW4cropped.jpeg]] | ||
+ | |||
+ | |||
+ | WHITMAN: | ||
+ | :::Through me many long dumb voices, | ||
+ | |||
+ | |||
+ | SPEAKER 1: | ||
+ | :::voices of the interminable generations of slaves, | ||
+ | |||
+ | |||
+ | SPEAKER 2: | ||
+ | :::voices of prostitutes and deformed persons, | ||
+ | |||
+ | |||
+ | SPEAKER 3: | ||
+ | :::voices of the diseased and despairing, | ||
+ | |||
+ | |||
+ | SPEAKER 4: | ||
+ | :::voices of wombs and the fatherstuff, | ||
+ | |||
+ | |||
+ | SPEAKER 1: | ||
+ | :::voices of the rights of them the others are down upon. | ||
+ | |||
+ | |||
+ | WHITMAN: | ||
+ | :::Through me forbidden voices, | ||
+ | |||
+ | |||
+ | SPEAKER 2: | ||
+ | :::voices of sexes and lusts, | ||
+ | |||
+ | |||
+ | SPEAKER 3: | ||
+ | :::voices veiled | ||
+ | :::and I remove the veil, | ||
+ | |||
+ | |||
+ | SPEAKER 4: | ||
+ | :::voices indecent | ||
+ | :::by me clarified and transfigured. | ||
+ | |||
+ | |||
+ | WHITMAN: | ||
+ | :::I do not press my finger across my mouth! | ||
+ | |||
+ | |||
+ | SPEAKER 1: | ||
+ | :::I keep as delicate around the bowels | ||
+ | :::as around the head and heart, | ||
+ | |||
+ | |||
+ | SPEAKER 2: | ||
+ | :::copulation is no more rank to me than death is. | ||
+ | |||
+ | |||
+ | SPEAKER 3: | ||
+ | :::I believe in the flesh and the appetites, | ||
+ | |||
+ | |||
+ | SPEAKER 4: | ||
+ | :::seeing, hearing, and feeling are miracles, | ||
+ | :::and each part and tag of me is a miracle. | ||
+ | |||
+ | |||
+ | WHITMAN: | ||
+ | :::TO BRONSON ALCOTT AND HENRY DAVID THOREAU, WHO APPEAR IN THE NEXT SCENE: | ||
+ | |||
+ | :::If I worship any particular thing | ||
+ | :::it shall be some of the spread of my body; | ||
+ | |||
+ | |||
+ | SPEAKER 1: | ||
+ | :::You my rich blood, | ||
+ | :::your milky stream pale strippings of my life; | ||
+ | |||
+ | |||
+ | SPEAKER 2: | ||
+ | :::Breast that presses against other breasts | ||
+ | :::it shall be you, | ||
− | |||
− | WHITMAN: | + | SPEAKER 3: |
+ | :::Root of washed sweet-flag, | ||
+ | :::timorous pond-snipe, | ||
+ | :::nest of guarded duplicate eggs, | ||
+ | :::it shall be you, | ||
+ | |||
+ | |||
+ | SPEAKER 4: | ||
+ | :::Mixed tussled hay of head and beard and brawn | ||
+ | :::it shall be you, | ||
+ | |||
+ | |||
+ | WHITMAN: | ||
+ | :::TO BRONSON ALCOTT AND HENRY DAVID THOREAU, WHO APPEAR IN THE NEXT SCENE: | ||
+ | :::Trickling sap of maple, | ||
+ | :::fibre of manly wheat, | ||
+ | :::it shall be you; | ||
+ | |||
+ | |||
+ | SPEAKER 1: | ||
+ | :::Winds | ||
+ | :::whose soft-tickling genitals rub against me | ||
+ | :::it shall be you, | ||
+ | |||
+ | |||
+ | SPEAKER 2: | ||
+ | :::Broad muscular fields, | ||
+ | |||
+ | |||
+ | SPEAKER 3: | ||
+ | :::branches of liveoak, | ||
− | |||
− | + | SPEAKER 4: | |
+ | ::: loving lounger in my winding paths, | ||
+ | :::it shall be you, | ||
− | |||
− | WHITMAN: | + | WHITMAN: |
+ | :::TO BRONSON ALCOTT AND HENRY DAVID THOREAU, WHO APPEAR IN THE NEXT SCENE | ||
+ | :::Hands I have taken, | ||
+ | :::face I have kissed, | ||
+ | :::mortal I have ever touched, | ||
+ | :::it shall be you. | ||
+ | |||
− | + | :::ALCOTT AND HENRY DAVID THOREAU RESPOND TO WHITMAN. | |
− | |||
− | + | :::SCENE TITLE: 4 Bronson Alcott: "This morning with Henry David Thoreau" | |
+ | |||
+ | |||
+ | :::[[Image:ABAlcott.jpeg|125px]] [[Image:Thoreau.jpeg|140px]] | ||
+ | |||
+ | |||
+ | :::ALCOTT ADDRESSES AUDIENCE; THOREAU ACCOMPANIES HIM, FOCUSING ON WHITMAN | ||
+ | |||
+ | |||
+ | ALCOTT: | ||
+ | :::This morning | ||
+ | :::with Henry David Thoreau to Brooklyn, | ||
+ | :::to see Walt Whitman. | ||
+ | |||
+ | :::I find this Whitman | ||
+ | :::likely to make his mark on Young America | ||
+ | :::he affirming himself | ||
+ | :::to be its representative man and poet. | ||
+ | |||
+ | |||
+ | :::WHITMAN AND THOREAU EYE EACH OTHER SUSPICIOUSLY; ALCOTT OBSERVES. | ||
+ | |||
+ | |||
+ | :::Thoreau and Whitman | ||
+ | :::each seemed planted fast in reserve, | ||
+ | :::surveying the other curiously, | ||
+ | :::like two beasts, | ||
+ | :::each wondering | ||
+ | :::what the other would do, | ||
+ | :::whether to snap | ||
+ | :::or run. | ||
+ | |||
+ | |||
+ | THOREAU: | ||
+ | :::TO ALCOTT, INDICATING WHITMAN | ||
+ | |||
+ | :::There are two or three pieces | ||
+ | :::in his book | ||
+ | :::which are disagreeable | ||
+ | :::to say the least, | ||
+ | :::simply sensual. | ||
+ | :::He does not celebrate love at all. | ||
+ | :::It is as if | ||
+ | :::the beasts spoke. | ||
+ | :::Men have been ashamed of themselves | ||
+ | :::with reason. | ||
+ | :::I do not wish | ||
+ | :::his poems' sensual parts | ||
+ | :::were not written | ||
+ | :::but that men and women | ||
+ | :::were so pure | ||
+ | :::they could read them | ||
+ | :::without harm, | ||
+ | :::that is, | ||
+ | :::without understanding them. | ||
+ | |||
+ | |||
+ | :::TO HIMSELF; A NEW THOUGHT | ||
+ | |||
+ | |||
+ | :::Of course, | ||
+ | :::if we are shocked, | ||
+ | :::whose experience are we reminded of? | ||
+ | |||
+ | |||
+ | :::SCENE TITLE: 5 Walt Whitman, "By silence" | ||
+ | |||
+ | |||
+ | :::WHITMAN RESPONDS TO THOREAU | ||
+ | |||
− | WHITMAN: | + | WHITMAN: |
+ | :::By silence | ||
+ | :::the pens of poets | ||
+ | :::have long connived | ||
+ | :::at the filthy law | ||
+ | :::that sex, | ||
+ | :::desires, | ||
+ | :::lusts, | ||
+ | :::organs, | ||
+ | :::acts | ||
+ | :::are unmentionable, | ||
+ | :::to be ashamed of, | ||
+ | :::driven to skulk out of literature. | ||
+ | |||
+ | |||
+ | SPEAKER 1: | ||
+ | :::This filthy law | ||
+ | :::has to be repealed | ||
+ | :::it stands in the way | ||
+ | :::of great reforms. | ||
+ | |||
+ | |||
+ | SPEAKER 2: | ||
+ | :::It is in the interest of women | ||
+ | :::as well as men | ||
+ | :::that there should be | ||
+ | :::no infidelism about sex, | ||
+ | :::but perfect faith. | ||
+ | |||
− | + | SPEAKER 3: | |
+ | :::The present diluted deferential love | ||
+ | :::is enough to make a man vomit; | ||
− | |||
− | + | SPEAKER 4: | |
+ | :::as to manly friendship, | ||
+ | :::everywhere observed in the states, | ||
+ | :::there is not the first breath of it | ||
+ | :::to be observed in print. | ||
− | WHITMAN: The | + | |
+ | WHITMAN: | ||
+ | :::The body of a man or women | ||
+ | :::is so far quite unexpressed in poems; | ||
+ | |||
+ | |||
+ | SPEAKER 1: | ||
+ | :::that body is to be expressed, | ||
+ | :::and sex is. | ||
+ | |||
+ | |||
+ | WHITMAN: | ||
+ | :::TO JOHN ADDINGTON SYMONDS, WHO APPEARS IN NEXT SCENE | ||
− | + | :::All theories stagnate in their vitals, | |
+ | :::cowardly and rotten, | ||
+ | :::if they cannot publicly accept, and publicly name, | ||
+ | ::: with specific words, | ||
+ | :::the things on which all decency, | ||
+ | :::all that is worth being here for | ||
+ | :::depend. | ||
− | WHITMAN | + | |
+ | :::SYMONDS, INSPIRED BY WHITMAN'S WORDS, STEPS INTO THE LIGHT. | ||
− | |||
− | + | :::SCENE TITLE: 6 John Addington Symonds, "Is it not strange?" | |
− | :: | + | :::[[Image:WW12.JAS.jpeg|200px]] |
− | |||
+ | :::HERE, SYMONDS IS TWENTYSEVEN; HE HAS BEEN MARRIED THREE YEARS AND HAS TWO DAUGHTERS; HE'S WELL-EDUCATED, AND COMES FROM AN OLD, ENGLISH, ARISTOCRATIC FAMILY, BUT HE MUST WRITE LITERARY AND ART CRITICISM TO SUPPLEMENT HIS INHERITED INCOME | ||
− | |||
− | + | :::HE INTRODUCES HIMSELF TO THE AUDIENCE AS A CLOSE CONFIDANT, FULL OF INNER PASSION | |
− | |||
− | + | SYMONDS: | |
+ | :::Is it not strange I should have read | ||
+ | :::Whitman's ''Leaves of Grass'' only this week? | ||
+ | :::If I had read it years ago, | ||
+ | :::and if I had understood, | ||
+ | :::I should have been | ||
+ | :::a braver, better, different man now. | ||
− | |||
− | + | :::The ''Leaves'' is not a book. | |
+ | :::It is a man, | ||
+ | :::miraculous in his vigour, | ||
+ | :::and love, | ||
+ | :::and omniscience, | ||
+ | :::and animalism. | ||
+ | :::and omnivorous humanity. | ||
+ | |||
+ | :::ELATED AT HIS RECENT DISCOVERY OF WHITMAN'S CELEBRATION OF LOVE BETWEEN MEN | ||
− | |||
+ | :::His Calamus poems | ||
+ | :::treat the whole matter newly. | ||
+ | :::This man has said | ||
+ | :::what I have burned to say; | ||
+ | :::what I should have done | ||
+ | :::if opinion and authority | ||
+ | :::and the contamination of vile lewdness | ||
+ | :::had not ended in muddling my brain. | ||
− | + | ||
+ | :::WITH SLIGHT SELF-MOCKERY | ||
− | |||
− | + | :::Yet even with these bruised wings and faded petals | |
+ | :::it is good to know | ||
+ | :::that we bear in our breast | ||
+ | :::the Psyche and Flower | ||
+ | :::of the noblest | ||
+ | :::most masculine Democracy. | ||
− | + | ||
+ | :::RAISING HIS ARM TO INTRODUCE THE WHITMAN POEM THAT FOLLOWS | ||
− | |||
− | + | :::Behold! | |
+ | :::A light has risen | ||
+ | :::which may not be denied. | ||
− | |||
− | + | ==Continued at: [[Jonathan Ned Katz: "Comrades and Lovers," Act I, Part II]]== |
Latest revision as of 23:06, 6 December 2012
Back to: Jonathan Ned Katz: "Comrades and Lovers"
- ACT I
- LIGHTS OFF; WHITMAN'S FIRST WORDS ARE HEARD IN THE DARK.
WHITMAN:
- Love thoughts
SPEAKER 1
- love-juice,
SPEAKER 2:
- love-odor,
SPEAKER 3:
- love-yielding,
SPEAKER 4:
- love-climbers,
WHITMAN:
- and the climbing sap,
SPEAKER 1:
- arms and hands of love,
SPEAKER 2:
- lips of love,
SPEAKER 3:
- phallic thumb of love,
SPEAKER 4:
- breasts of love,
WHITMAN:
- bellies pressed and glued together with love.
- LIGHTS ON, NIGHT
- SCENE TITLE, PROJECTED:
- 1 Walt Whitman, "Love-thoughts"
- THROUGHOUT THIS PIECE, PHOTOS OF THE CHARACTERS MAY BE PROJECTED.
- WHITMAN AND A "BOY" MOVE CLOSE TOGETHER, ADDRESS EACH OTHER:
BOY:
- The wet of woods through the early hours.
WHITMAN:
- Two sleepers at night lying close together as they sleep,
BOY:
- One with an arm slanting down across and below the waist of the other.
WHITMAN:
- The smell of apples,
BOY:
- aromas from crushed sage plant,
WHITMAN:
- mint,
BOY:
- birch bark.
WHITMAN:
- The boy's longings,
- the glow and pressure
- as he confides to me
- what he was dreaming.
BOY:
- The dead leaf falling its spiral whirl,
- falling still and content to the ground.
WHITMAN:
- The sensitive, orbic, underlapped brothers,
- that only privileged feelers
- may be intimate where they are.
BOY:
- The mystic amorous night.
WHITMAN:
- The curious roamer the hand,
- roaming all over the body,
BOY:
- the bashful withdrawing of flesh
- where the fingers soothingly pause
- and edge themselves.
WHITMAN:
- The limpid liquid within the young man,
BOY:
- the vex'd corrosion
- so pensive and painful,
WHITMAN:
- the torment,
BOY:
- the irritable tide
- that will not be at rest,
WHITMAN:
- the like of the same I feel,
- the like of the same in others.
- SCENE TITLE: 2 Rufus Griswold, "Once licentiousness"
- RESPONDING TO THE EARLIER VERSE, GRISWOLD APPEARS WITH LEAVES OF GRASS, SPEAKS TO WHITMAN:
GRISWOLD:
- Once licentiousness
- shunned the light;
- now it writes books
- showing how grand and pure it is,
- and prophecies
- its own ultimate triumph.
- TO AUDIENCE, HOLDING UP LEAVES OF GRASS.
- It is impossible to imagine
- how any man's fancy
- could have conceived
- such a mass of stupid filth.
- We leave this gathering of muck
- to the laws
- which have power to suppress
- such gross obscenity.
- FIRE AND BRIMSTONE PROPHECY
- "Peccatum illud horribile,
- inter Christianos non nominandum."
- WHISPERS, THREATENINGLY, TO WHITMAN
- (That vile sin among Christians not to be named.)
- WHITMAN AND SPEAKERS RESPOND TO GRISWOLD.
- SCENE TITLE: 3 Walt Whitman, "Through me"
WHITMAN:
- Through me many long dumb voices,
SPEAKER 1:
- voices of the interminable generations of slaves,
SPEAKER 2:
- voices of prostitutes and deformed persons,
SPEAKER 3:
- voices of the diseased and despairing,
SPEAKER 4:
- voices of wombs and the fatherstuff,
SPEAKER 1:
- voices of the rights of them the others are down upon.
WHITMAN:
- Through me forbidden voices,
SPEAKER 2:
- voices of sexes and lusts,
SPEAKER 3:
- voices veiled
- and I remove the veil,
SPEAKER 4:
- voices indecent
- by me clarified and transfigured.
WHITMAN:
- I do not press my finger across my mouth!
SPEAKER 1:
- I keep as delicate around the bowels
- as around the head and heart,
SPEAKER 2:
- copulation is no more rank to me than death is.
SPEAKER 3:
- I believe in the flesh and the appetites,
SPEAKER 4:
- seeing, hearing, and feeling are miracles,
- and each part and tag of me is a miracle.
WHITMAN:
- TO BRONSON ALCOTT AND HENRY DAVID THOREAU, WHO APPEAR IN THE NEXT SCENE:
- If I worship any particular thing
- it shall be some of the spread of my body;
SPEAKER 1:
- You my rich blood,
- your milky stream pale strippings of my life;
SPEAKER 2:
- Breast that presses against other breasts
- it shall be you,
SPEAKER 3:
- Root of washed sweet-flag,
- timorous pond-snipe,
- nest of guarded duplicate eggs,
- it shall be you,
SPEAKER 4:
- Mixed tussled hay of head and beard and brawn
- it shall be you,
WHITMAN:
- TO BRONSON ALCOTT AND HENRY DAVID THOREAU, WHO APPEAR IN THE NEXT SCENE:
- Trickling sap of maple,
- fibre of manly wheat,
- it shall be you;
SPEAKER 1:
- Winds
- whose soft-tickling genitals rub against me
- it shall be you,
SPEAKER 2:
- Broad muscular fields,
SPEAKER 3:
- branches of liveoak,
SPEAKER 4:
- loving lounger in my winding paths,
- it shall be you,
WHITMAN:
- TO BRONSON ALCOTT AND HENRY DAVID THOREAU, WHO APPEAR IN THE NEXT SCENE
- Hands I have taken,
- face I have kissed,
- mortal I have ever touched,
- it shall be you.
- ALCOTT AND HENRY DAVID THOREAU RESPOND TO WHITMAN.
- SCENE TITLE: 4 Bronson Alcott: "This morning with Henry David Thoreau"
- ALCOTT ADDRESSES AUDIENCE; THOREAU ACCOMPANIES HIM, FOCUSING ON WHITMAN
ALCOTT:
- This morning
- with Henry David Thoreau to Brooklyn,
- to see Walt Whitman.
- I find this Whitman
- likely to make his mark on Young America
- he affirming himself
- to be its representative man and poet.
- WHITMAN AND THOREAU EYE EACH OTHER SUSPICIOUSLY; ALCOTT OBSERVES.
- Thoreau and Whitman
- each seemed planted fast in reserve,
- surveying the other curiously,
- like two beasts,
- each wondering
- what the other would do,
- whether to snap
- or run.
THOREAU:
- TO ALCOTT, INDICATING WHITMAN
- There are two or three pieces
- in his book
- which are disagreeable
- to say the least,
- simply sensual.
- He does not celebrate love at all.
- It is as if
- the beasts spoke.
- Men have been ashamed of themselves
- with reason.
- I do not wish
- his poems' sensual parts
- were not written
- but that men and women
- were so pure
- they could read them
- without harm,
- that is,
- without understanding them.
- TO HIMSELF; A NEW THOUGHT
- Of course,
- if we are shocked,
- whose experience are we reminded of?
- SCENE TITLE: 5 Walt Whitman, "By silence"
- WHITMAN RESPONDS TO THOREAU
WHITMAN:
- By silence
- the pens of poets
- have long connived
- at the filthy law
- that sex,
- desires,
- lusts,
- organs,
- acts
- are unmentionable,
- to be ashamed of,
- driven to skulk out of literature.
SPEAKER 1:
- This filthy law
- has to be repealed
- it stands in the way
- of great reforms.
SPEAKER 2:
- It is in the interest of women
- as well as men
- that there should be
- no infidelism about sex,
- but perfect faith.
SPEAKER 3:
- The present diluted deferential love
- is enough to make a man vomit;
SPEAKER 4:
- as to manly friendship,
- everywhere observed in the states,
- there is not the first breath of it
- to be observed in print.
WHITMAN:
- The body of a man or women
- is so far quite unexpressed in poems;
SPEAKER 1:
- that body is to be expressed,
- and sex is.
WHITMAN:
- TO JOHN ADDINGTON SYMONDS, WHO APPEARS IN NEXT SCENE
- All theories stagnate in their vitals,
- cowardly and rotten,
- if they cannot publicly accept, and publicly name,
- with specific words,
- the things on which all decency,
- all that is worth being here for
- depend.
- SYMONDS, INSPIRED BY WHITMAN'S WORDS, STEPS INTO THE LIGHT.
- SCENE TITLE: 6 John Addington Symonds, "Is it not strange?"
- HERE, SYMONDS IS TWENTYSEVEN; HE HAS BEEN MARRIED THREE YEARS AND HAS TWO DAUGHTERS; HE'S WELL-EDUCATED, AND COMES FROM AN OLD, ENGLISH, ARISTOCRATIC FAMILY, BUT HE MUST WRITE LITERARY AND ART CRITICISM TO SUPPLEMENT HIS INHERITED INCOME
- HE INTRODUCES HIMSELF TO THE AUDIENCE AS A CLOSE CONFIDANT, FULL OF INNER PASSION
SYMONDS:
- Is it not strange I should have read
- Whitman's Leaves of Grass only this week?
- If I had read it years ago,
- and if I had understood,
- I should have been
- a braver, better, different man now.
- The Leaves is not a book.
- It is a man,
- miraculous in his vigour,
- and love,
- and omniscience,
- and animalism.
- and omnivorous humanity.
- ELATED AT HIS RECENT DISCOVERY OF WHITMAN'S CELEBRATION OF LOVE BETWEEN MEN
- His Calamus poems
- treat the whole matter newly.
- This man has said
- what I have burned to say;
- what I should have done
- if opinion and authority
- and the contamination of vile lewdness
- had not ended in muddling my brain.
- WITH SLIGHT SELF-MOCKERY
- Yet even with these bruised wings and faded petals
- it is good to know
- that we bear in our breast
- the Psyche and Flower
- of the noblest
- most masculine Democracy.
- RAISING HIS ARM TO INTRODUCE THE WHITMAN POEM THAT FOLLOWS
- Behold!
- A light has risen
- which may not be denied.