It is urged against Whitman that he brings us the materials of poetry, but
not poetry: he brings us the marble block, but not the statue; or he
brings us the brick and mortar, but not the house. False or superficial
analogies mislead us. Poetry is not something made; it is something grown,
it is a vital union of the fact and the spirit. If the verse awakens in us
the poetic thrill, the material, whatever it be, must have been touched
with the transforming spirit of poesy. Why does Whitman's material suggest
to any reader that it is poetic material? Because it has already been
breathed upon by the poetic spirit. A poet may bring the raw material of
poetry in the sense that he may bring the raw material of a gold coin; the
stamp and form you give it does not add to its value. It is doubtful if
any of Whitman's utterances could be worked up into what is called poetry
without a distinct loss of poetic value. What they would gain in finish
they would lose in suggestiveness. This word "suggestiveness" affords one
of the keys to Whitman. The objection to him I have been considering
arises from the failure of the critic to see and appreciate his avowed
purpose to make his page fruitful in poetic suggestion, rather than in
samples of poetic elaboration. "I finish no specimens," he says. "I shower
them by exhaustless laws, fresh and modern continually, as Nature does."
He is quite content if he awaken the poetic emotion without at all
satisfying it. He would have you more eager and hungry for poetry when you
had finished with him than when you began. He brings the poetic stimulus,
and brings it in fuller measure than any contemporary poet; and this is
enough for him.
An eminent musician and composer, the late Dr. Ritter, told me that
reading "Leaves of Grass" excited him to composition as no other poetry
did. Tennyson left him passive and cold, but Whitman set his fingers in
motion at once; he was so fruitful in themes, so suggestive of new
harmonies and melodies. He gave the hints, and left his reader to follow
them up. This is exactly what Whitman wanted to do. It defines his
attitude toward poetry, towards philosophy, towards religion,--to suggest
and set going, to arouse unanswerable questions, and to brace you to meet
them; to bring the materials of poetry, if you will have it so, and leave
you to make the poem; to start trains of thought, and leave you to pursue
the flight alone. Not a thinker, several critics have urged; no, but the
cause of thought in others to an unwonted degree. "Whether you agree with
him or not," says an Australian essayist, "he will sting you into such an
anguish of thought as must in the end be beneficial." It matters little to
him whether or not you agree with him; what is important is, that you
should think the matter out for yourself. He purposely avoids hemming you
in by his conclusions; he would lead you in no direction but your own.
"Once more I charge you give play to your self. I charge you leave all
free, as I have left all free."
No thought, no philosophy, no music, no poetry, in his pages; no, it is
all character, impulse, emotion, suggestion. But the true reader of him
experiences all these things: he finds in his pages, if he knows how to
look for it, a profound metaphysic, a profound ethic, a profound æsthetic;
a theory of art and poetry which is never stated, but only hinted or
suggested, and which is much more robust and vital than what we are used
to; a theory of good and evil; a view of character and conduct; a theory
of the state and of politics, of the relation of the sexes, etc., to give
ample food for thought and speculation. The Hegelian philosophy is in the
"Leaves" as vital as the red corpuscles in the blood, so much is implied
that is not stated, but only suggested, as in Nature herself. The really
vast erudition of the work is adroitly concealed, hidden like its
philosophy, as a tree hides its roots. Readers should not need to be told
that, in the region of art as of religion, mentality is not first, but
spirituality, personality, imagination; and that we do not expect a poet's
thoughts to lie upon his pages like boulders in the field, but rather to
show their presence like elements in the soil.
"Love-buds, put before you and within you, whoever you are,
Buds to be unfolded on the old terms,
If you bring the warmth of the sun to them, they will open, and bring
form, color, perfume to you,
If you become the aliment and the wet, they will become flowers, fruits,
tall branches and trees."
The early records and sacred books of most peoples contain what is called
the materials of poetry. The Bible is full of such materials. English
literature shows many attempts to work this material up into poetry, but
always with a distinct loss of poetic value. The gold is simply beaten
out thin and made to cover more surface, or it is mixed with some base
metal. A recent English poet has attempted to work up the New Testament
records into poetry, and the result is for the most part a thin, windy
dilution of the original. If the record or legend is full of poetic
suggestion, that is enough; to elaborate it, and deck it out in poetic
finery without loss of poetic value, is next to impossible.
To me the Arthurian legends as they are given in the old books, are more
poetic, more stimulating to the imagination, than they are after they have
gone through the verbal upholstering and polishing of such a poet as
Swinburne or even Tennyson. These poets add little but words and flowers
of fancy, and the heroic simplicity of the original is quite destroyed.