Is Whitman's too big for my own good? [ Edited ]

[ziki]

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fanuzzir wrote:
Unabashed egotism has to rub all of us the wrong way, if we have any regard for the life of others or for the integrity of other things out there. That is Whitman's greatest offense, beyond the matter of erotic love--the narcissism of that love, and the conviction that all generosity and solicitude he gives the world will return back to him. I won't go into how this was slightly legitimate in the world of nineteenth century idealism, for even Emerson and his followers found Whitman over the top. Whitman found in egotism a way to live sensually, and to think corporatively, or of the whole. Narcissism was his challenge to the ethical norms of our existence, and like Freud's concept, opened up a whole new world of experience and history that can't be put into our adult concepts of right and wrong. That's what people saw in him--his aspiration to invent a whole new value system.

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Would you please give me a conrete example of 'unabashed egotism' in Whitman's poetry the way you see it?

thanks
ziki

Message Edited by ziki on 02-09-200701:17 PM

[ziki]

Thanks for that post. It gives me room to add something I couldn't earlier. I really wish that Whitman didn't rub me so raw, because there are parts of his poetry that I fine very compelling, some images that speak very powerfully to me. But I have great trouble finding and hearing that among all the egocentrical noise.

In a strange way, it's a bit the same way I feel about some rap music. If you just read the actual rap text, there is some amazingly good stuff there (as well as some quite awful stuff). But the good stuff is so overladen with the sheer volume of noise, the interspersing of the really awful stuff, the whole presentation, that the good stuff is lost and buried.

Whitman and rap. Quite a pair to put together, eh?
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Great post Everyman!

thanks
ziki

[ziki]

Choisya wrote: I think the meaning within 'I celebrate myself' is possibly a Christian one which is celebrating being made in the image of God.

That is how I tend to interpret it, although I am not Christian or anything.



Lying naked on the earth and feeling that God is in your bed are similes for feeling that you are (or should be) close to nature and, I think, close to God.

The thought of pantheism. I say why not?
Ultimately there is no division between God and Nature, methinks. Nature desires reverence, it is the temple.


It is a Christian concept to worship your own body as a temple so perhaps Whitman was referring to I Corinthians 6:19-20 in this poem?


Me& Bible we are not real friends, I can't the stories....but if the body is a manifestation of God then yes it is sacred as any life is.


'Do you not know that your body is a temple of the holy spirit, who is in you and whom you have received from God. You are not your own. You were bought at a price. Therefore honour God with your body.'

Yes. I just have one objection to that: if my body is a home of spirit (the voice of god) and I am the servant&doer (same same) then there is no "I" that can worship anything. Blasphemy is a term that ecomes redundant. Churches are not needed. Your only church is life here and now, each and every moment. In celebrating your se you celebtrate your other broher.


I hear and behold God in every object.

This is the whole point (include even Mary Magdalena, a murderer, a thief). You can't judge the action or the man. That is a terrible challenge for us. Your holiness embraces everything.


I see something of God each hour of the twenty four, and each moment then. In the faces of men and women I see God, and in my own face in the glass. I find letters from God dropped in the street - and every one is signed by God's name, And I leave them where they are, for I know that others will punctually come forever and ever.

Beautiful IMHO (god is not the other, the other ceased to be, nirvana)



I therefore think he is saying Understand/Celebrate your body (and your own feelings) and you will 'possesss the origin of all poems'

celebrate everything....but ultimately you will not celebrate because there is no I left to celebrate. The line "I celebrate myself" helps you on your way to oneness if understood rightly.

...meaning understand the meaning of life, as given to you by God.

yes.

These days I guess we might say that he was 'in touch with himself' spiritually.

yes

I probably don't express this very well as an atheist but I hope you know what I mean.

I think you expressed that very well. For me there is no division between an atheist and God. Haha, that must be my ultimate line...yes, I know exactly how you mean.

Thanks a lot for your post!

ziki

Message Edited by ziki on 02-09-200701:31 PM

[Everyman]

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Choisya wrote:
I am still unsure how this squares, or doesn't square, with the belief that your body is a 'temple': If your body is holy, because it is in the image of God, surely Christians can celebrate that? Just as, say, Catholics 'celebrate Mass'.

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The celebration of Mass is the celebration of the Divine, or the Divine-human link. Mass celebrants are not celebrating themselves.

When you go into a temple, do you go into it to celebrate yourself?

It seems that Whitman goes into Church to sing "How great I am" rather than "How great Thou art."

[Choisya]

Thanks. I am still puzzling about this. The Catholic Mass explanation I can vaguely see but Whitman is not 'going into' a temple, as I see it, he is saying what Corinthians says, that his body and everything about it IS a temple, therefore he celebrates it. No doubt I am unable to understand these concepts as you see them because I am not religious but I still feel that there is some religious significance in this poem and these expressions nevertheless. However, Ziki seems to understand what I am getting at so I will be content with that.

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Everyman wrote:

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Choisya wrote:
I am still unsure how this squares, or doesn't square, with the belief that your body is a 'temple': If your body is holy, because it is in the image of God, surely Christians can celebrate that? Just as, say, Catholics 'celebrate Mass'.

---

The celebration of Mass is the celebration of the Divine, or the Divine-human link. Mass celebrants are not celebrating themselves.

When you go into a temple, do you go into it to celebrate yourself?

It seems that Whitman goes into Church to sing "How great I am" rather than "How great Thou art."

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Message Edited by Choisya on 02-09-200705:50 PM

[Choisya]

Thanks a lot Ziki - I am glad I made some sense because it really is quite difficult for me to explain these religious concepts.

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ziki wrote:
Choisya wrote: I think the meaning within 'I celebrate myself' is possibly a Christian one which is celebrating being made in the image of God.

That is how I tend to interpret it, although I am not Christian or anything.



Lying naked on the earth and feeling that God is in your bed are similes for feeling that you are (or should be) close to nature and, I think, close to God.

The thought of pantheism. I say why not?
Ultimately there is no division between God and Nature, methinks. Nature desires reverence, it is the temple.


It is a Christian concept to worship your own body as a temple so perhaps Whitman was referring to I Corinthians 6:19-20 in this poem?


Me& Bible we are not real friends, I can't the stories....but if the body is a manifestation of God then yes it is sacred as any life is.


'Do you not know that your body is a temple of the holy spirit, who is in you and whom you have received from God. You are not your own. You were bought at a price. Therefore honour God with your body.'

Yes. I just have one objection to that: if my body is a home of spirit (the voice of god) and I am the servant&doer (same same) then there is no "I" that can worship anything. Blasphemy is a term that ecomes redundant. Churches are not needed. Your only church is life here and now, each and every moment. In celebrating your se you celebtrate your other broher.


I hear and behold God in every object.

This is the whole point (include even Mary Magdalena, a murderer, a thief). You can't judge the action or the man. That is a terrible challenge for us. Your holiness embraces everything.


I see something of God each hour of the twenty four, and each moment then. In the faces of men and women I see God, and in my own face in the glass. I find letters from God dropped in the street - and every one is signed by God's name, And I leave them where they are, for I know that others will punctually come forever and ever.

Beautiful IMHO (god is not the other, the other ceased to be, nirvana)



I therefore think he is saying Understand/Celebrate your body (and your own feelings) and you will 'possesss the origin of all poems'

celebrate everything....but ultimately you will not celebrate because there is no I left to celebrate. The line "I celebrate myself" helps you on your way to oneness if understood rightly.

...meaning understand the meaning of life, as given to you by God.

yes.

These days I guess we might say that he was 'in touch with himself' spiritually.

yes

I probably don't express this very well as an atheist but I hope you know what I mean.

I think you expressed that very well. For me there is no division between an atheist and God. Haha, that must be my ultimate line...yes, I know exactly how you mean.

Thanks a lot for your post!

ziki

Message Edited by ziki on 02-09-200701:31 PM

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[pmath]

Choisya, I understand what you're getting at: I believe you're discussing mysticism.

I also wonder if women in general understand WW better than men do.

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Choisya wrote:
... Ziki seems to understand what I am getting at so I will be content with that.

[Everyman]

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pmath wrote:
I also wonder if women in general understand WW better than men do.

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Or perhaps they don't necessarily understand him better, but feel less challenged by him. Perhaps men see Whitman more as a strutting male trying to assert supremacy, which arouses a viscerally hostile response in at least some other males, but perhaps a more sympathetic response in women, who might find the posture appealing rather than challenging.

Sort of the way that a peacock strutting his feathers may appeal to peahens but be attacked by other peacocks.

Just speculating here.

[pmath]

Doesn't he seem to be simply saying "come and follow me?"

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Everyman wrote:
Or perhaps they don't necessarily understand him better, but feel less challenged by him.

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pmath wrote:
I also wonder if women in general understand WW better than men do.

[ziki]

Everyman wrote: Mass celebrants are not celebrating themselves.

NO.


When you go into a temple, do you go into it to celebrate yourself?

Yes, as in Life.

(Apart of the fact that we do not build many temples nowadays, so practically it is impossible in the exact meaning of the word. However, temple, a place of reverence can be found in many ways.)
You are speaking about the Ego, Everyman, I am not. These are just different categories of assigned meaning.

It seems that Whitman goes into Church to sing "How great I am" rather than "How great Thou art."

I see no difference there. You are created in the light of god, there is no other. Other is the doing of the Ego, a concept you start to realize at 6 months old and unless one is prepared to challenge that concept, nothing will happen but the religious wars and unnecessary conflicts in daily life. There is a lot uf unlearning to do and you can't go back into some uterus watery limbo, you have to reinstall that in your daily life as the adult you are. Therein lies the challenge that majority(I daresay) will not take. If they did we would live in another world of no Bushes and Sadams just to name two.

ziki

Message Edited by ziki on 02-10-200710:37 AM

[ziki]

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Everyman wrote:

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pmath wrote:
I also wonder if women in general understand WW better than men do.

---

Or perhaps they don't necessarily understand him better, but feel less challenged by him. Perhaps men see Whitman more as a strutting male trying to assert supremacy, which arouses a viscerally hostile response in at least some other males, but perhaps a more sympathetic response in women, who might find the posture appealing rather than challenging.

Sort of the way that a peacock strutting his feathers may appeal to peahens but be attacked by other peacocks.

Just speculating here.

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For me this lies beyond the division of genders. I hear him speaking to human beings. When taken on a this level of understanding I see that it can create troubles.

ziki

[ziki]

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pmath wrote:
Doesn't he seem to be simply saying "come and follow me?"

I didn't read enough of him but from what I read so far he says I've been to this place and this what it did to me, this is what I experienced, saw. He wants you to see it, too.

Perhaps...at least this is how I take it.

ziki

[ziki]

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Choisya wrote:
Thanks a lot Ziki - I am glad I made some sense because it really is quite difficult for me to explain these religious concepts.

They are difficult to talk about and the field is ridden with Christian dogmas and the focus on Thee Other, punishment and sin and the whole oddysey of nonsense accumulated by ages of manipulation of the simple message of love.

God's even less than a brother. It's place in your heart. How it is called doesn't matter. God, Nature, Universe...once you feel the connection of opposites and move beyond the usual pattern of religious thinking all unfolds by itself. You live it and that is enough.
Let priests do their mass dance around the altar, getting drunk on Jesus's blood....who cares?

This "who cares" is a very useful question when understood rightly. Why? It infallibly points as an arrow to the (wrong)doings of an Ego.

OK I guess we moved from Whitman a bit...LOL.

ziki

[fanuzzir]

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Choisya wrote:
That's what people saw in him--his aspiration to invent a whole new value system.

Because I look at him as a poet trying to say things to me in a different way I can forgive the egotism. Just as I forgave D H Lawrence his explicit sexual references and Joyce his baffling unpunctuated language, or for that matter the Impressionist's break away from old techniques. It takes an effort but with all new artistic endeavours I try to look beyond the narrow confines of my own mindset, conditioned as it is by class, upbringing, time and place.

I also believe, along with Whitman, that 'all generosity and solicitude he gives the world will return back to him'. The Golden Rule etc.

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fanuzzir wrote:


Choisya, that is excellent and appropriate company in which to put Whitman. One thing I want to add: that Melville was looking to make literature transparent with living, not something you read to discover truths not found in living. That's why he says, "Are you looking for the meaning?" in a taunting way in the opening. His poem, he says, has much deliberate meaning as a piece of rock. It's supposed to be as natural, also, like a living thing, a blade of grass (leaf being a part of a book).

[fanuzzir]

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Everyman wrote:

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pmath wrote:
I also wonder if women in general understand WW better than men do.

---

Or perhaps they don't necessarily understand him better, but feel less challenged by him. Perhaps men see Whitman more as a strutting male trying to assert supremacy, which arouses a viscerally hostile response in at least some other males, but perhaps a more sympathetic response in women, who might find the posture appealing rather than challenging.

Sort of the way that a peacock strutting his feathers may appeal to peahens but be attacked by other peacocks.

Just speculating here.

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The voracious appetite to encompass everything and spew it back out as his production: this does not strike me as a peacock's behaviour so much as it is a child's--techinically, a childhood narcisstic stage that does not recognize the difference between one's own organs of gratification and the outside world; everything is for me, everything for my pleasure.

[fanuzzir]

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ziki wrote:
Everyman wrote: Mass celebrants are not celebrating themselves.

NO.


Please go to the end of "Song of Myself" and "Song of the OPen Road and you will find an explicit invitation. There can be no equivocation about this.

Message Edited by fanuzzir on 02-10-200705:58 PM

[fanuzzir]

Everyone please weight in ASAP: Bill mentioned doing Walden in April, but I think we might want to read Emerson if you want to continue and investigate this subject of egotism. Let me know right away.
Bob

[pmath]

Yes, Bob, we were thinking of discussing RWE's work after Moby-Dick anyway: I've quoted some of our posts below.

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fanuzzir wrote (here):
Thanks again everyone for weighing in. ... My only question right now is whether to run Emerson concurrently with [Moby-Dick] as an alternative non-fiction thread for people so inclined or to do things sequentially.

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pmath wrote:
B&N Classics edition of Essays and Poems by Ralph Waldo Emerson:
http://search.barnesandnoble.com/booksearch/isbnInquiry.asp?EAN=9781593080761

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fanuzzir wrote:
Everyone please weigh in ASAP: Bill mentioned doing Walden in April, but I think we might want to read Emerson if you want to continue and investigate this subject of egotism. Let me know right away.

[Everyman]

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fanuzzir wrote:
The voracious appetite to encompass everything and spew it back out as his production: this does not strike me as a peacock's behaviour so much as it is a child's--technically, a childhood narcissistic stage that does not recognize the difference between one's own organs of gratification and the outside world; everything is for me, everything for my pleasure.

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I think you've really hit something there. I like that way of thinking about Whitman.

Maybe we should nickname him "The Terrible Twos Poet."

[Everyman]

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fanuzzir wrote:
Everyone please weight in ASAP: Bill mentioned doing Walden in April, but I think we might want to read Emerson if you want to continue and investigate this subject of egotism. Let me know right away.
Bob

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I would like to read Emerson again, but probably like others here would need to know soon which Emerson you would be dealing with so I can see whether these are works I already have in my library or whether I would have to go out and acquire them.