REVISIONS, PERCEPTION, MOVEMENT, CHANGE
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There has been much controversy (see Roy Harvey Pearce, “Whitman Justified: The Poet in 1860″, in Modern Critical Views, 1985) about the changes made by Whitman in Leaves of Grass during his life. His revisions, which are similar to the method of recomposition in performance by Greek bards, as noted by Nagy in his Pindar’s Homer, could be seen as a new edition of a book in modern times (what is done on paper today represents a new performance for a bard in ancient times). The revisions then can be taken into account for just what they are, attempts to find a better way to convey a message. This is a common practice for any writer. Every time we re-read what we write, we tend to seek a better word, better sound, better rhythm, the same way a translator does, always trying to reach perfection of expression. In the case of Whitman, we must have in mind that he never yielded to his critics, and never changed anything due to public opinion or just to have his book published. It took decades until a publishing house took over his works to make an official edition.
Even considering that, if he had done so, he would have had a much better reception by the public in general and by the critics in particular, which could have made him earn a lot of money. However, he never sold his soul. He endured much hardship, but never gave in.
He could have agreed with the editors and censors and made the changes required, crossed out the filthy words, deleted “vulgar” passages. Nevertheless, the only changes he performed in his works through the various editions were the ones based on his personal beliefs. The rearrangements came from his own feelings and thoughts. He always followed his own heart in doing so. And as, in my opinion, the greatness of a poet can only be measured by the truthfulness with which he puts to paper what comes out of his heart and mind, I believe that the changes made by Whitman correspond to what he really felt and thought. By that I mean that I trust the poet completely and do not question his changes. I take his works for granted, I accept his book the way he finally chose it to be in the last moments of his life and I am not worried about studying his notebooks to see what the poems looked before. It does not matter. It is like thinking that the sketches of a painter could be better than his final version of a painting.
That is, changes in words do not change the meaning of the message, they just refine it, make it clearer, smoother, readier to enter the reader’s mind or ears. Naturally, if the poet feels that a new form is more adequate to pass on his message, he has all the right to perform these changes.
As well as the reader interprets a poet’s works according to his own personal background. From this standpoint, we can not say that what the reader feels is right or wrong, or even that the reader has to feel something specific when he reads a passage from a book. The only thing that can be required of a reader is that he has to be truthful to his feelings as much as the poet was to his. And express as truly as he can what was it that came up from the bottom of his heart in front of that work of art.
This is what I think and feel about perception. Personally, I prefer the word perception to reception, because it implies interaction towards the world at large and works of art in particular.
Therefore, my writing can only try to describe my perceptions, especially my present perceptions, what is happening in the now, not what I saw in the past, because the past is over and what I felt before is not important any more, except as a memory. It was important in the past, but we need to stick to the present. Just like Whitman did with the Leaves, he tried to keep it modern, updating his vision regularly, keeping it apace with the current moments. This is the essence of “making it new”. I want the living Leaves, what is alive within me now, the life that the Leaves awakens in me at this moment.
Naturally, every new moment brings a new perception. We are not who we used to be in the past, there is always a new “I” looking at the world, because “we both step and do not step in the same rivers”[i], because we evolve, we change and so does the world, and actually we may see a new world at every step of the way if we follow the movement of our lives. It does not invalidate the old perception, it just revives it, updates it, shows a new angle to look at things.
Time dies at every second and is reborn at every new second too. So we die at every second just to be reborn at the next second. It means that there is a new universe at every second, and the only thing to do is try to see it. How? By letting the past go away, because it naturally does, and seeing the present moment with present vision. And see the world from the perspective of movement. We are consciousness in movement, or the movement of consciousness. Death is lack of movement. The movement only continues if we accept to die and be reborn again all the time. This way we do not stop the movement of the spirit. Because this is not about physical death, it is about psychical death. Death is the past. If we keep looking at the world and at ourselves from the same point of view we had in the past, we never advance. In order to advance, we need to go forward, to see with open and free eyes what is before us. Simply because life is movement. What is dead does not move. Or we could call it vibration. What is alive vibrates. What is dead does not vibrate. Another good term is trans-formation, trans-figuration, trans-portation, trans-ition, trans-… that is the important word: TRANS. Trans is a Latin noun or prefix that means “across”, “beyond” or “on the opposite side” of something. That is, it is not what is here or there, rather, it is the movement from here to there.
As the poet was always advancing and changing, and seeing the present with different eyes from those he saw in the past, he was constantly rearranging the poems, the verses, the clusters, and revising and changing. He was arranging the book according to his current perception of the world. However, in my humble opinion, he was always rearranging the form of the book, not the essence. Because the essence is eternal, and the essence can assume any form. The essence is not stuck in a form. He could only change the form to make his message be better understood. Thus, the form is ever changing, as it happens in nature, in a process called metamorphosis. To finish, let us read a few lines from section 33 of “Song of Myself”, to show Whitman’s own words on movement and vision:
“Space and Time! now I see it is true, what I guess’d at,
What I guess’d when I loaf’d on the grass,
What I guess’d while I lay alone in my bed,
And again as I walk’d the beach under the paling stars of the morning.
My ties and ballasts leave me, my elbows rest in the sea-gaps,
I skirt the sierras, my palms cover continents,
I am afoot with my vision.”
[i] Heraclitus of Ephesus, pre-Socratic Greek Philosopher, about 535 – 475BC.
