All about Walt Whitman

3.6 Longfellow

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807–82), a contemporary of Whitman, though “certainly more universally loved”, even though he did not possess “so colorful a personality” (ALLEN, 1955, p.541), wrote some of the most popular poems in American literature, in which he created a body of romantic American legends. Although a sympathetic and ethical person, Longfellow was not involved in religious and social issues of the time.[1] However, he did display some interest in the abolitionist cause. He achieved great fame with poems such as Evangeline (1847), The Song of Hiawatha (1855), The Courtship of Miles Standish (1858), and Tales of a Wayside Inn (1863). He used uncommon, old rhythms to weave myths of the American past. Nevertheless, Longfellow was “predominantly an iambic writer”, who included in his poetry variations of this poetic pattern, such as “elisions, the trochaic substitutions, the spondaic effects”, but all within the “regular iambic patterns” (WRIGHT, 1985, p.90).

The main problem, then, is that Longfellow did not penetrate the spirit of America. His mastery of poetry was “of a kind which [forced] him to turn away from the living world and to sing either of Europe or of the American past” (1985, p.90). A quotation[2] from “Death of Longfellow” (WHITMAN, 1996, pp.941-3) shall provide us with more specific information on the subject:

Camden, April 3, ’82.— […] Longfellow in his voluminous works seems to me not only to be eminent in the style and forms of poetical expression that mark the present age, (an idiosyncrasy, almost a sickness, of verbal melody,) but to bring what is always dearest as poetry to the general human heart and taste, and probably must be so in the nature of things. He is certainly the sort of bard and counteractant most needed for our materialistic, self-assertive, money-worshipping, Anglo-Saxon races, and especially for the present age in America—an age tyrannically regulated with reference to the manufacturer, the merchant, the financier, the politician and the day workman—for whom and among whom he comes as the poet of melody, courtesy, deference—poet of the mellow twilight of the past in Italy, Germany, Spain, and in Northern Europe—poet of all sympathetic gentleness—and universal poet of women and young people. I should have to think long if I were ask’d to name the man who has done more, and in more valuable directions, for America.

I doubt if there ever was before such a fine intuitive judge and selecter of poems. His translations of many German and Scandinavian pieces are said to be better than the vernaculars. He does not urge or lash. His influence is like good drink or air. He is not tepid either, but always vital, with flavor, motion, grace. He strikes a splendid average, and does not sing exceptional passions, or humanity’s jagged escapades. He is not revolutionary, brings nothing offensive or new, does not deal hard blows. On the contrary, his songs soothe and heal, or if they excite, it is a healthy and agreeable excitement. His very anger is gentle, is at second hand, (as in the “Quadroon Girl” and the “Witnesses.”)

[…]

To the ungracious complaint-charge of his want of racy nativity and special originality, I shall only say that America and the world may well be reverently thankful—can never be thankful enough—for any such singing-bird vouchsafed out of the centuries, without asking that the notes be different from those of other songsters; adding what I have heard Longfellow himself say, that ere the New World can be worthily original, and announce herself and her own heroes, she must be well saturated with the originality of others, and respectfully consider the heroes that lived before Agamemnon.

It is quite interesting to note that while praising Longfellow by cataloguing his qualities, Whitman at the same time is highlighting the defects, because the very qualities are what prevented Longfellow from being a truly American poet of his time: “almost a sickness, of verbal melody”, “He is certainly the sort of bard […] most needed for our materialistic, self-assertive, money-worshipping, Anglo-Saxon races, […] [at] an age tyrannically regulated with reference to the manufacturer, the merchant, the financier, the politician and the day workman […]”. And for that age and people “he comes as the poet of melody, courtesy, deference—poet of the mellow twilight of the past in Italy, Germany, Spain, and in Northern Europe—poet of all sympathetic gentleness—and universal poet of women and young people.” The problem is that his mellowness, together with his “sickness, of verbal melody”, his gentleness and his saturation with “the originality of others” distanced him from the actual social, political and literary conditions of the New World. His focus on form made him depart from content and especially the source of content from which he was to derive his inspiration, that is, the interaction between the poet and the world before him. His distancing from immediate reality made him stay a step back far from things, to paraphrase Emerson. The poems cited by Whitman in his note may show this more clearly. Although they are a bit long, it is worth quoting them in full in order for us to see this flowering of happy melody, despite the theme sung, which is naturally horrifying:

“Quadroon Girl”

The Slaver in the broad lagoon

Lay moored with idle sail;

He waited for the rising moon,

And for the evening gale.

.

Under the shore his boat was tied,

And all her listless crew

Watched the gray alligator slide

Into the still bayou.

.

Odors of orange-flowers, and spice,

Reached them from time to time,

Like airs that breathe from Paradise

Upon a world of crime.

.

The Planter, under his roof of thatch,

Smoked thoughtfully and slow;

The Slaver’s thumb was on the latch,

He seemed in haste to go.

.

He said, “My ship at anchor rides

In yonder broad lagoon;

I only wait the evening tides,

And the rising of the moon.

.

Before them, with her face upraised,

In timid attitude,

Like one half curious, half amazed,

A Quadroon maiden stood.

.

Her eyes were large, and full of light,

Her arms and neck were bare;

No garment she wore save a kirtle bright,

And her own long, raven hair.

.

And on her lips there played a smile

As holy, meek, and faint,

As lights in some cathedral aisle

The features of a saint.

.

“The soil is barren,–the farm is old”;

The thoughtful planter said;

Then looked upon the Slaver’s gold,

And then upon the maid.

.

His heart within him was at strife

With such accursed gains:

For he knew whose passions gave her life,

Whose blood ran in her veins.

.

But the voice of nature was too weak;

He took the glittering gold!

Then pale as death grew the maiden’s cheek,

Her hands as icy cold.

.

The Slaver led her from the door,

He led her by the hand,

To be his slave and paramour

In a strange and distant land!

.

“The Witnesses”

In Ocean’s wide domains,

Half buried in the sands,

Lie skeletons in chains,

With shackled feet and hands.

.

Beyond the fall of dews,

Deeper than plummet lies,

Float ships, with all their crews,

No more to sink nor rise.

.

There the black Slave-ship swims,

Freighted with human forms,

Whose fettered, fleshless limbs

Are not the sport of storms.

.

These are the bones of Slaves;

They gleam from the abyss;

They cry, from yawning waves,

“We are the Witnesses!”

.

Within Earth’s wide domains

Are markets for men’s lives;

Their necks are galled with chains,

Their wrists are cramped with gyves.

.

Dead bodies, that the kite

In deserts makes its prey;

Murders, that with affright

Scare school-boys from their play!

.

All evil thoughts and deeds;

Anger, and lust, and pride;

The foulest, rankest weeds,

That choke Life’s groaning tide!

.

These are the woes of Slaves;

They glare from the abyss;

They cry, from unknown graves,

“We are the Witnesses![3]

.

The first thing we notice is the divorce between content and form. It is like children merrily chanting the most terrible disgrace, in a state of total unconsciousness. As the poet says in the poem about the slaver: “The voice of nature was too week”. Actually, it was so week that it was dying, and the poem is a proof of that, since it goes on singing joyfully the disgraceful destiny of the quadroon girl, taken to be the “paramour” (a lover in an adulterous relationship) of the slaver, “pale as death”, with “icy cold” hands. It is death anticipated. It is a happy melody describing a deadly situation, which is a symptom of the “sickness” diagnosed by Whitman in Longfellow’s poetry. We will never deny Longfellow’s literary importance, but we can not be blind to his incongruities. Then again, in the second poem, there is a merry voice singing the “woes of Slaves” (misery, misfortune, calamity) crying ‘We are the Witnesses”, while the poet seems to forget what those bones are witnesses to. The impression the poem gives is that the poet is so horrified at those sights that he tries to put curtains to prevent the reader from suffering the real impact the scenes will have on him. This is exactly the opposite of what Whitman was doing, as he stated in the 1855 Preface: “[…] I will not have in my writings any elegance, or effect, or originality, to hang in the way between me and the rest like curtains. I will have nothing hang in the way, not the richest curtains.” These curtains he mentions are the artificiality of poetic elements when used to make the poem seem beautiful to the reader’s ears and eyes, but which at the same time hide the truthfulness of what is seen, because the poet is not able to “deal hard blows”, or is afraid to shock the reader with crude reality.  Only a poet who is “Turbulent, fleshy and sensual, eating, drinking and breeding;” and “No sentimentalist” (“Song of Myself”, section 24) could sing “notes” that are “different from those of other songsters”.

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[1] Longfellow visited Whitman in Camden in the summer of 1879, a fact that Whitman remembered with pride. At the poet’s death, Whitman wrote a note for the press, called “Death of Longfellow.”  This note was published in Specimen Days, which is a book of prose made up of 250 memoranda or short notes (WHITMAN, 1996, p.941-3).

[2] The text quoted maintains its original punctuation.

[3] One may read these poems at the Complete Poetical Works of Longfellow website.  Accessed on July 30, 2007.

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