Whitman, Symonds, Carpenter: "In paths untrodden," 1859-1924

Walt Whitman

by Jonathan Ned Katz. Copyright (c) by Jonathan Ned Katz. All rights protected.

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Although Whitman scholars have customarily deemphasized the celebratory character of his poems of male-male love and dismissed his sexual politics as totally deluded, in the perspective of homosexual emancipation history, Whitman emerges as a founding father, Besides his importance as a poet, the evidence demonstrates Whitman's direct and powerful influence on the work of the two major, early English political philosophers of homosexual liberation, John Addington Symonds and Edward Carpenter-evidence presented in parallel chronological surveys. Whitman's place within Gay history, especially as an influence on the early homosexual emancipation movement, has not been carefully explored. When the many biographical and analytical works on the American poet are finally surveyed in this historical perspective and in detail; their truly scandalous suppression or bigoted interpretation of Whitman's homosexuality will emerge with startling clarity and force. Until then, the following survey of some major documents is intended to suggest the initiatory, pivotal role of Whitman, despite his own evasions and even outright disavowal, as a pioneer in the history of the homosexual resistance.

Happily for the history of Gay liberation, Walt Whitman precisely dates his resolution '70 celebrate the need of comrades": on "afternoon" in September 1859. The poem recording this resolution first appears in the 1860 edition of Leaves of Grass, as number 1 in the new “Calamus" section, whose theme is male-male love:

IN paths untrodden, In the growth by margins of pond-waters, Escaped from the life that exhibits itself, From all the standards hitherto published-horn the pleasures, profits, conformities, Which too long I was offering to feed to my Soul; Clear to me now, standards not yet published-dear to me that my Soul, That the Soul of the man X speak for, feeds, rejoices only in comrades; Here, by myself, away from the clank of the world, Tallying and talked to here by tongues aromatic, No longer abashed-for in this secluded spot I can respond as I would not dare elsewhere, Strong upon me the life that does not exhibit itself, yet contains all the rest, Resolved to sing no songs to-day but those of manly attachment, Projecting them along that substantial life, Bequeathing, hence, types of athletic love, Afternoon, this delicious Ninth Month, in my forty-first year, I proceed, for all who are, or have been, young men, To tell the secret of my nights and days, To celebrate the need of comrades.1

Poem number 4 of the same edition unequivocally identifies the symbolic meaning of thalamus, o grass- or rushlike plant growing around the edges of ponds. "Henceforth," me.”2 Whitman, this calamus plant shall "be the token of comrades," because at such a pond "I last saw him that tenderly loves me-and returns again, never to separate from me. "In the first edition of Leaves of Grass (1855), Whitman also refers to calamus or "sweet-flag" (another common name for the same plant), using it explicitly as a phallic symbol.3 The "Calamus" poems ore thus unambiguously identified with the love of males for males, and this love is explicitly erotic. The poems themselves emphasize the physical, as well as emotional, expression of male intimacy. Whitman's "Calamus" poems evoke a great variety of those deep feelings connected with love-in particular, the love of males for males, expressed in the most physical of terms. These feelings range from the deepest despair to the most positive, passionate love.

In the first verse of the 1860 edition of Leaves of Grass, "Proto-Leaf," Whitman states his poetic program: among his subjects he will write of "sexual organs and acts!"-describing them "with courageous clear voice," proving them "illustrious!' What he immediately adds that he "will sing the song of companionship"-he will show alone will unify the states-those states which "are to found their own ideal of manly love, indicating it in me." He continues:

I will therefore let flame from me the burning fires that were threatening to consume me, I will lift what has too long kept down those smoldering fires, I will give them complete abandonment, I will write the evangel-poem of comrades and of love, (For who but I should understand love, with all its sorrow and joy? And who but I should be the poet of comrades ) 4

In his verse, Whitman begins to formulate, in poetic terms, a conception of sexual politics. "Calamus" poem number 5 emphasizes the social, unifying function of male comradeship.

STATES! Were you looking to be held together by the lawyers? By an agreement on a paper? Or by arms?

Away! I arrive, bringing these, beyond all the form of courts and arms, These! to hold you together as h l y as the earth itself is held together

There shall from me be a new friendship-It shall be called after my name, It shall circulate through The States, indifferent of place, It shall twist and intertwist them through and around each other- Compact shall they be, showing new signs, Affection shall solve every one of the problems of freedom, Those who love each other shall be invincible….

It shall be customary in all directions, in the houses and streets, to see manly affection, The departing brother or friend shall salute the remaining brother or friend with a kiss.

There shall be innovations, There shall be countless linked hands.

These shall be masters of the world under a new power, They shall laugh to scorn the attacks of all the remainder of the world.

These shall tie and band stronger than hoops of iron, I, extatic, O partners! O lands! henceforth with the love of lovers tie you 5