Walt Whitman: Sexuality Debate
Walt Whitman: Sexuality Debate
The debate of one’s sexuality has more commonly come into the picture of American society towards the very end of the 19th century. A captious discussion is the lifestyle of Walt Whitman: American poet, essayist and journalist. Though modern critics tend to debate his sexuality, there is great disagreement as to whether Whitman ever had sexual relations with men, expressed alongside his poetry. Walt Whitman was born on Long Island on May 31st, 1819, just thirty years after George Washington was inaugurated as the first president of the newly formed United States of America. Whitman published his poem “Beat! Beat! Drums!” as a patriotic rally call for the North. In 17th century America, it is a stretch to assert the historicity of labeling him as a homosexual, an identity that did not exist in his cultural context. Homoerotic relationships and men who engaged in them as a distinct class did not exist for Whitman or in his America. In August of 1890, Walt Whitman received a rather awkward and blunt piece of fan mail. “In your conception of Comradeship,” wrote British literary critic John Addington Symonds, “do you contemplate the possible intrusion of those semi- sexual emotions and actions which no doubt do occur between men?” Symonds, who later wrote about his own sexual experiences with men, must have been disappointed by Whitman’s response. “That the calamus part has even allow’d the possibility of such construction as mention’d is terrible”. He insisted that Symonds accusations were “morbid inferences- wh’ are disavow’d by me & seem damnable.” “Calamus” mentioned above is a cluster of poems in his major work, Leaves of Grass, written by Whitman that mention the “manly love of comrades”. It is difficult for some biographers to understand why Whitman would write about lying in another man’s arms and then proceeding to call homosexuality “damnable”. Whitman was concerned with politics throughout his whole life. He
The debate of one’s sexuality has more commonly come into the picture of American society towards the very end of the 19th century. A captious discussion is the lifestyle of Walt Whitman: American poet, essayist and journalist. Though modern critics tend to debate his sexuality, there is great disagreement as to whether Whitman ever had sexual relations with men, expressed alongside his poetry. Walt Whitman was born on Long Island on May 31st, 1819, just thirty years after George Washington was inaugurated as the first president of the newly formed United States of America. Whitman published his poem “Beat! Beat! Drums!” as a patriotic rally call for the North. In 17th century America, it is a stretch to assert the historicity of labeling him as a homosexual, an identity that did not exist in his cultural context. Homoerotic relationships and men who engaged in them as a distinct class did not exist for Whitman or in his America. In August of 1890, Walt Whitman received a rather awkward and blunt piece of fan mail. “In your conception of Comradeship,” wrote British literary critic John Addington Symonds, “do you contemplate the possible intrusion of those semi- sexual emotions and actions which no doubt do occur between men?” Symonds, who later wrote about his own sexual experiences with men, must have been disappointed by Whitman’s response. “That the calamus part has even allow’d the possibility of such construction as mention’d is terrible”. He insisted that Symonds accusations were “morbid inferences- wh’ are disavow’d by me & seem damnable.” “Calamus” mentioned above is a cluster of poems in his major work, Leaves of Grass, written by Whitman that mention the “manly love of comrades”. It is difficult for some biographers to understand why Whitman would write about lying in another man’s arms and then proceeding to call homosexuality “damnable”. Whitman was concerned with politics throughout his whole life. He