Whitman & Other Writers

Concerning Whitman’s “A Backward Glance O’er Travel’d Roads” and two giants of American literature: Walt Whitman [of course] and Edgar Allan Poe.

At one point in the “Backward Glance” essay, Whitman talks about Edgar Poe’s poetry and prose. Of Poe’s poetry, Whitman admits he is “not an admirer,” but appreciates the “melodious expressions…of human morbidity.” This is not the first time Whitman talks about Poe: Whitman had an entry in the Specimen Days cluster dated the first day of 1880 titled “Edgar Poe’s Significance.”

Bliss Perry, the great literary scholar and Harvard professor [and editor of The Atlantic Monthly from 1899-1909] who was only a generation younger than Whitman, had a chapter in his book, The American Spirit in Literature, called “Poe and Whitman” [Chapter VIII]. In this chapter, Perry writes about Poe’s theory of verse: “The aim of poetry…is not truth but pleasure. Poetry should be brief, indefinite, and musical. Its chief instrument is sound. A certain quaintness or grotesqueness of tone is a means for satisfying the thirst for supernal beauty. Hence the musical lyric is to Poe the only true type of poetry; a long poem does not exist.”

Whitman is talking about precisely this theory when he continues in “Backward Glance,” “But I was repaid in Poe’s prose by the idea that…there can be no such thing as a long poem. The same thought had been haunting my mind before, but Poe’s argument, though short, work’d the sum out and proved it to me.” Earlier in this entry, as well as in the Specimen Days writing on Poe, Whitman gave Poe a sort of hesitating praise for his poetry. But focusing on Poe’s [non-short story] prose writings, Whitman finds he has more in common with Poe than he previously thought. [A slight aside: I think it's funny, considering that for Poe a poem cannot be longer than a musical lyric, that some of Whitman's "long poems" could be justified as poems under this system because of such genre-defining names as "Song of Myself" or (individually, for example) "I Sing the Body Electric"].

Curiously, Bliss Perry does not specifically cite these telling words from Whitman while comparing and contrasting the writers and their respective styles, but this thought of Whitman’s doubtlessly belongs alongside Perry’s argument that the two share such artistic compulsions as “egotism,” “a Romantic temperament” and unconventional literary genius.

Still, even Perry is firm in asserting the striking differences between the two [if you must know what those are, feel free to check out Bliss Perry's book - now in the public domain], differences that stand regardless of any advertising by contemporary sellers…

About at close as Poe & Whitman are going to get.

Concerning Whitman’s “A Backward Glance O’er Travel’d Roads” and two giants of American literature: Walt Whitman [of course] and Edgar Allan Poe.

At one point in the “Backward Glance” essay, Whitman talks about Edgar Poe’s poetry and prose. Of Poe’s poetry, Whitman admits he is “not an admirer,” but appreciates the “melodious expressions…of human morbidity.” This is not the first time Whitman talks about Poe: Whitman had an entry in the Specimen Days cluster dated the first day of 1880 titled “Edgar Poe’s Significance.”

Bliss Perry, the great literary scholar and Harvard professor [and editor of The Atlantic Monthly from 1899-1909] who was only a generation younger than Whitman, had a chapter in his book, The American Spirit in Literature, called “Poe and Whitman” [Chapter VIII]. In this chapter, Perry writes about Poe’s theory of verse: “The aim of poetry…is not truth but pleasure. Poetry should be brief, indefinite, and musical. Its chief instrument is sound. A certain quaintness or grotesqueness of tone is a means for satisfying the thirst for supernal beauty. Hence the musical lyric is to Poe the only true type of poetry; a long poem does not exist.”

Whitman is talking about precisely this theory when he continues in “Backward Glance,” “But I was repaid in Poe’s prose by the idea that…there can be no such thing as a long poem. The same thought had been haunting my mind before, but Poe’s argument, though short, work’d the sum out and proved it to me.” Earlier in this entry, as well as in the Specimen Days writing on Poe, Whitman gave Poe a sort of hesitating praise for his poetry. But focusing on Poe’s [non-short story] prose writings, Whitman finds he has more in common with Poe than he previously thought. [A slight aside: I think it's funny, considering that for Poe a poem cannot be longer than a musical lyric, that some of Whitman's "long poems" could be justified as poems under this system because of such genre-defining names as "Song of Myself" or (individually, for example) "I Sing the Body Electric"].

Curiously, Bliss Perry does not specifically cite these telling words from Whitman while comparing and contrasting the writers and their respective styles, but this thought of Whitman’s doubtlessly belongs alongside Perry’s argument that the two share such artistic compulsions as “egotism,” “a Romantic temperament” and unconventional literary genius.

Still, even Perry is firm in asserting the striking differences between the two [if you must know what those are, feel free to check out Bliss Perry's book - now in the public domain], differences that stand regardless of any advertising by contemporary sellers…

About at close as Poe & Whitman are going to get.

Concerning Whitman’s “A Backward Glance O’er Travel’d Roads” and two giants of American literature: Walt Whitman [of course] and Edgar Allan Poe.

At one point in the “Backward Glance” essay, Whitman talks about Edgar Poe’s poetry and prose. Of Poe’s poetry, Whitman admits he is “not an admirer,” but appreciates the “melodious expressions…of human morbidity.” This is not the first time Whitman talks about Poe: Whitman had an entry in the Specimen Days cluster dated the first day of 1880 titled “Edgar Poe’s Significance.”

Bliss Perry, the great literary scholar and Harvard professor [and editor of The Atlantic Monthly from 1899-1909] who was only a generation younger than Whitman, had a chapter in his book, The American Spirit in Literature, called “Poe and Whitman” [Chapter VIII]. In this chapter, Perry writes about Poe’s theory of verse: “The aim of poetry…is not truth but pleasure. Poetry should be brief, indefinite, and musical. Its chief instrument is sound. A certain quaintness or grotesqueness of tone is a means for satisfying the thirst for supernal beauty. Hence the musical lyric is to Poe the only true type of poetry; a long poem does not exist.”

Whitman is talking about precisely this theory when he continues in “Backward Glance,” “But I was repaid in Poe’s prose by the idea that…there can be no such thing as a long poem. The same thought had been haunting my mind before, but Poe’s argument, though short, work’d the sum out and proved it to me.” Earlier in this entry, as well as in the Specimen Days writing on Poe, Whitman gave Poe a sort of hesitating praise for his poetry. But focusing on Poe’s [non-short story] prose writings, Whitman finds he has more in common with Poe than he previously thought. [A slight aside: I think it's funny, considering that for Poe a poem cannot be longer than a musical lyric, that some of Whitman's "long poems" could be justified as poems under this system because of such genre-defining names as "Song of Myself" or (individually, for example) "I Sing the Body Electric"].

Curiously, Bliss Perry does not specifically cite these telling words from Whitman while comparing and contrasting the writers and their respective styles, but this thought of Whitman’s doubtlessly belongs alongside Perry’s argument that the two share such artistic compulsions as “egotism,” “a Romantic temperament” and unconventional literary genius.

Still, even Perry is firm in asserting the striking differences between the two [if you must know what those are, feel free to check out Bliss Perry's book - now in the public domain], differences that stand regardless of any advertising by contemporary sellers…

About at close as Poe & Whitman are going to get.