by Chris Alexion, Copyright January 24, 2007, all rights reserved. 310 views
In the sphere of Frost's nineteenth-century predecessors, probably none stands as tall as Walt Whitman. Whitman's exuberance, openness, and groundbreaking innovations opened the door for modernist poetry, and no study of Frost's place in American literature would be complete without reference to the bearded poet from New York. As with Bradstreet, Poe, and Emerson, Frost shares common elements with Whitman. This common ground lies mostly in the gregarious embrace of humanity found in both men's poetry (though of course this theme is much more pronounced in Whitman).
Whitman's poetic democracy is evident. In "I Hear America Singing," Whitman glorifies the common American, whether that American is black or white, male or female, professional or laborer.
I hear America singing, the varied carols I hear,
Those of mechanics, each one singing his as it should be blithe and strong,
The carpenter singing his as he measures his plank or beam,
The mason singing his as he makes ready for work, or leaves off work,
The boatman singing what belongs to him in his boat, the deckhand singing on the steamboat deck. . . .
For Whitman, his brotherhood with American men and women was more than simply a poetic theme. It was his life; as Jefferson could not live without books, so Whitman could not live without people. Humanity fueled his art, as
in "I Saw in Louisiana a Live-Oak Growing":
[I]ts look, rude, unbending, lusty, made me think of myself,
But I wonder'd how it could utter joyous leaves standing alone there without its
friend near, for I knew I could not. . . .
For all that, and though the live-oak glistens there in Louisiana solitary in a wide
flat space,
Uttering joyous leaves all its life without a friend a lover near,
I know very well I could not.
Frost too is gregarious, and lays stress on knowing other people. In "The Tuft of Flowers," he uses an ordinary farm chore like mowing to convey both loneliness and the gradual realization of companionship. Frost is turning the grass after a fellow-worker who mowed earlier. Frost looks for him and listens for the sound of his scythe-sharpening. "But he had gone his way, the grass all mown, / And I must be, as he had been–alone, / 'As all must be' I said within my heart, 'Whether they work together or apart.'" Yet as Frost continues his chore, he notices a tuft of flowers the mower had deliberately spared from the mowing. Even though the mower left the flowers "from sheer morning gladness at the brim" and not out of any thought for Frost, Frost still rejoices in the existence of an unseen but kindred spirit: "'Men work together,' I told him from the heart, / 'Whether they work together or apart.'" Like the detective Gabriel Syme in G. K. Chesterton's novel *The Man Who Was Thursday, Frost lives the paradox of one who fancies himself alone when he is really surrounded by friends.
Yet, as with his other predecessors before Whitman, Frost maintains his independence. Though Frost is a "sociable" poet, he is not a *social poet in the same sense as Whitman. Whitman's human exuberance carries underlying civil implications; his democracy is political as much as it is poetic, and leads to the almost explicitly partisan "Oh Captain! My Captain!' and "Hush'd Be the Camps To-Day." These poems exalt Abraham Lincoln's person and policies in a way far out of Frost's comfort zone. Frost is even more laconic on politics than on religion; his poem for John F. Kennedy's inauguration is as close as he gets to political, and even this work is general and seems to express surprise that the "august" state would ask poets to participate in its events. We might also note in passing that Frost did not prefer Whitman's free verse, even joking about it in "How Hard It Is to Keep From Being King When It's in You and in the Situation." In this poem/story, the son of the ex-king remarks,
"I'm not a free-verse singer. He was wrong there. . . .
I write real verse in numbers, as they say.
I'm talking not free verse but blank verse now. . . .
Free verse, so called, is really cherished prose. . . .
It has its beauty, only I don't write it.
And possibly my not writing it should stop me
From holding forth on Freedom like a Whitman. . . ."
1 • J.J. • January 28, 2007 • 5:34 PM
C memorized "Oh Captain! My Captain!" for school when she was little!
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