I Sing The Body Electric

Welcome to Celebrate Whitman.  My name is George Bartley, and this episode  392 I Sing The Body Electric

In the previous episode, Celebrate Whitman dealt with the artist’s three months in New Orleans.  I had planned to talk with Mr. Whitman about his perceptions of the slave markets there, but it turned our to be more than enough for an episode all itself.  So in this episode, I would like to talk with the ghost of Mr. Whitman about some of the writer’s complex feelings about slavery.

But first - a little bit about slavery in New Orleans in the state of Louisiana. 

Now slavery was introduced in Louisiana by French colonists in 1706. And Louisiana was to experience slavery under several colonial powers, including the French, Spanish, and briefly by the French again, before becoming part of the United States in 1803.

Greetings, Mr. Bartley.

Hello, Mr. Whitman.

In this episode, I want to talk about some of your observations regarding slavery in Louisiana.

Ah yes, Mr. Bartley - I had never experienced so much slavery around me until my three months in Louisiana.  And I must admit that the proliferation of slavery all around me had a profound impact on my views and future writings about slavery. I witnessed slave auctions firsthand and kept an advertisement for one as a "reminder" and "warning" for decades after.  The large presence of enslaved people and the realities of slavery focused my attention on the themes of slavery and freedom in a way that my previous environment in New York had not.

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Transcript

George - plain

Walt Whitman - italics 

Welcome to Celebrate Whitman.  My name is George Bartley, and this episode  392 I Sing The Body Electric

In the previous episode, Celebrate Whitman dealt with the artist’s three months in New Orleans.  I had planned to talk with Mr. Whitman about his perceptions of the slave markets there, but it turned our to be more than enough for an episode all itself.  So in this episode, I would like to talk with the ghost of Mr. Whitman about some of the writer’s complex feelings about slavery.

But first - a little bit about slavery in New Orleans in the state of Louisiana. 

Now slavery was introduced in Louisiana by French colonists in 1706. And Louisiana was to experience slavery under several colonial powers, including the French, Spanish, and briefly by the French again, before becoming part of the United States in 1803.

Greetings, Mr. Bartley.

Hello, Mr. Whitman.

In this episode, I want to talk about some of your observations regarding slavery in Louisiana.

Ah yes, Mr. Bartley - I had never experienced so much slavery around me until my three months in Louisiana.  And I must admit that the proliferation of slavery all around me had a profound impact on my views and future writings about slavery. I witnessed slave auctions firsthand and kept an advertisement for one as a "reminder" and "warning" for decades after.  The large presence of enslaved people and the realities of slavery focused my attention on the themes of slavery and freedom in a way that my previous environment in New York had not.

Can you give me an example.

Certainly, Mr. Bartley - I believe that my 1855 poem "I Sing the Body Electric" contains questions that challenge the racist arguments used to justify slavery, equalizing all races as part of the same human family. This reflects how my time in New Orleans reshaped my thinking on slavery from just an economic issue to a moral one about human equality.

Go on, Mr. Whitman.

Some critics have even said that I initially took a radical abolitionist stance after New Orleans, writing such lines as "I am the poet of the slaves and of the masters of slaves...I go with the slaves of the earth equally with the masters."

Mr. Whitman, I agree with you, but it seems that such a view might antagonize the many people who disagreed with you regarding the issue.

Yes, Mr. Bartley, that is why I Iater muted this radicalism during the Civil War, not wanting to disturb the nation's healing with what some might consider provocative racial views.

Mr. Whitman, that is certainly understandable.

Ah, Mr. Bartley, let me reiterate - witnessing slavery up close in New Orleans fundamentally changed my perspective, pushing me towards more abolitionist and egalitarian views initially before I tempered my radicalism later. But the experience left an indelible mark that influenced my poetry celebrating diverse humanity.

Well, Mr. Whitman, how did your experience with slavery in New Orleans influence your views on democracy?

Mr. Bartley - I cannot emphasize enough that in New Orleans, I was exposed to the realities of slavery in a way I had not been in the North. I  witnessed slave auctions firsthand and kept an advertisement for one as a haunting "reminder" for decades after.

The large presence of enslaved people focused my attention on the themes of slavery and freedom in a new way.  Some may say that I initially took a radical abolitionist stance, writing lines such as  "I am the poet of the slaves and of the masters of slaves...I go with the slaves of the earth equally with the masters."  And in my 1855 poem "I Sing the Body Electric" I pose questions that challenge the racist arguments used to justify slavery.

Mr. Whitman, This tells me that your experiences in New Orleans reshaped you thinking on slavery from just an economic issue to a moral one about human equality.

Yes - the exposure to slavery and human degradation that I witnessed in New Orleans fundamentally changed my perspective, pushing me towards more abolitionist and egalitarian democratic ideals initially before the realities of the Civil War's aftermath led me to temper my radicalism. But the experience left an indelible mark that influenced my poetry celebrating diverse humanity as part of my democratic vision.

To be a bit more specific - how did the realities of slavery affect you -

Ah, Mr. Bartley - Simply witnessing slave auctions during my stay in New Orleans played a pivotal role in transforming my thinking and shaping my poetry celebrating diverse humanity.  As previously alluded to, I kept an advertisement for a slave auction that I likely picked up off a wall in the French Quarter as a haunting "reminder" and "warning" for over 40 years after my visit.

Mr. Whitman - witnessing the reality of slavery must have really affected you.

In my 1855 poem "I Sing the Body Electric", I imagine taking over the role of the New Orleans slave auctioneer, but instead of treating the enslaved as commodities, then announces them as equal members of the human family. This reflects how New Orleans reshaped my thinking on slavery from an economic issue to a moral one about human equality.

Permit me to read these two verses from I Sing the Body Electric -

A man’s body at auction,
(For before the war I often go to the slave-mart and watch the sale,)
I help the auctioneer, the sloven does not half know his business.

Gentlemen look on this wonder,
Whatever the bids of the bidders they cannot be high enough for it,
For it the globe lay preparing quintillions of years without one animal or plant,
For it the revolving cycles truly and steadily roll’d.

In this head the all-baffling brain,
In it and below it the makings of heroes.

Examine these limbs, red, black, or white, they are cunning in tendon and nerve,
They shall be stript that you may see them.

Exquisite senses, life-lit eyes, pluck, volition,
Flakes of breast-muscle, pliant backbone and neck, flesh not flabby, good-sized arms and legs,
And wonders within there yet.

Within there runs blood,
The same old blood! the same red-running blood!
There swells and jets a heart, there all passions, desires, reachings, aspirations,
(Do you think they are not there because they are not express’d in parlors and lecture-rooms?)

This is not only one man, this the father of those who shall be fathers in their turns,
In him the start of populous states and rich republics,
Of him countless immortal lives with countless embodiments and enjoyments.

How do you know who shall come from the offspring of his offspring through the centuries?
(Who might you find you have come from yourself, if you could trace back through the centuries?)

A woman’s body at auction,
She too is not only herself, she is the teeming mother of mothers,
She is the bearer of them that shall grow and be mates to the mothers.

Have you ever loved the body of a woman?
Have you ever loved the body of a man?
Do you not see that these are exactly the same to all in all nations and times all over the earth?

If any thing is sacred the human body is sacred,
And the glory and sweet of a man is the token of manhood untainted,
And in man or woman a clean, strong, firm-fibred body, is more beautiful than the most beautiful face.

Have you seen the fool that corrupted his own live body? or the fool that corrupted her own live body?
For they do not conceal themselves, and cannot conceal themselves.

Mr. Whitman, I never realized before how the graphic sights of a slave auction were central to one of your most significant works.

Ah, Mr. Bartley - I know that witnessing the dehumanizing spectacle of slave auctions in New Orleans was a transformative experience that pushed me towards more egalitarian, anti-slavery views, even as the realities of the post-Civil War era led me to temper my most radical racial egalitarian beliefs later in life.

Permit me to emphasize the damaging effects of the dehumanizing spectacle of slave auctions, the sheer scale of the trade, the brutal family separations, and seeing how economically vital slavery was to the nation all initially combining to profoundly shock me and reshape my views during my transformative time in New Orleans.  And to even consider the possibly that slavery  should  become a  national  institution despite its inherent inhumanities and blatant evil was morally and intellectually unthinkable.

Perhaps your time in New Orleans helped to shape your poetry to include different social types.

Perhaps, Mr. Bartley - perhaps - but I prefer to believe that I always saw the universality of man and nature - the simultaneous separateness and the unity of all.

Precisely, Mr. Whitman.

Ah yes, Mr. Bartley, in New Orleans, I was exposed to the most brutal realities of slavery.  I witnessed slave auctions firsthand - and the result was a reshaping of my thinking on slavery from just an economic issue to a profound moral one about human equality.

Initially, I opposed the expansion of slavery into new territories but did not call for its outright abolition. I supported the Free Soil movement and the Wilmot Proviso, which aimed to prohibit slavery's spread to lands acquired from Mexico. At this stage, I am somewhat ashamed to say that my opposition seemed motivated more by concerns over the economic threat to free white labor than moral objections to slavery itself.

However, I eventually developed a deeper sympathy for the plight of enslaved African Americans.  And I must admit that I was initially skeptical of the abolitionist movement, viewing it as too extreme and divisive. But the passage of the Kansas-Nebraska Act in 1854, which opened new territories to potential slavery, along with the rendition of the fugitive slave Anthony Burns, radicalized Northern opinion including my own.  My 1855 poetry condemned the Fugitive Slave Law and sympathized with escaped slaves.

That is quite a change.

Yes, Mr. Bartley - by the Civil War era I had embraced a vision of multiracial democracy and egalitarianism. My shifting stances reflected the nation's own unresolved tensions and gradual progression toward rejecting slavery's immorality.

In other words, I was on a moral journey that took me from  from a pragmatic opposition to slavery's expansion, to a deeper moral revulsion against the institution and empathy for the enslaved, culminating in democratic poetry that envisioned racial equality.

I firmly believe that my family roots, personal experiences in the South, and the intensifying national crisis over slavery all contributed to my progression from a primarily economic opposition to slavery's expansion, to a deeper moral revulsion against the institution itself. I would like to believe that my poetry had developed into a vehicle for expressing an egalitarian, anti-racist vision.

Later in my writing career, I employed several powerful rhetorical strategies in my poetry to convey my evolving emotions and perspectives on the brutality of slavery and the slave trade. In poems such as "Song of Myself,” I used the first-person "I" to directly identify with and give voice to the experiences of enslaved people.

For example:

"I am the hounded slave, I wince at the bite of the dogs."
By using "I" instead of “he or she," I wanted to create an intimate connection and empathy with the sufIfering of slaves. I used this rhetorical technique to make their dehumanization feel personal and visceral.
In "I Sing the Body Electric," I used a series of pointed rhetorical questions to challenge the racist rationalization for slavery:

"Do you suppose you have a right to a good sight, and he or she has no right to a sight?"

These questions directly confront the reader's potential prejudices and assert the equality and humanity of the enslaved. And I also frequently celebrated the beauty, dignity and divinity of the human body in sensual terms. This elevated view of the physical self stands in stark contrast to the degrading commodification of enslaved bodies. My poetry insists on their full humanity.
By employing intimate first-person perspectives, visceral imagery, probing rhetorical questions, and an almost religious reverence for the human form, my rhetorical strategies convey an empathetic identification with the enslaved while forcefully condemning the immorality of slavery itself.

Alright, Mr. Whitman - were you ever able to write works that somehow combine the brutality of slavery along with empathy for the enslaved individual.

Yes, Mr. Bartley - I hope that I have accomplished imagery to evoke those two diametrically opposed realities in I Sing the Body Electric.  In that 1855 poem, I take on the disturbing role of a slave auctioneer, using graphic descriptions to underscore the dehumanization of slaves:

"Gentlemen look on this curious creature,
Whatever the bids of the bidders they cannot be high enough for him...
Examine these limbs, red black or white....they shall be stript that you may see them.”

By vividly depicting slaves being stripped and examined like livestock, my purpose was to shock the reader into confronting the immorality of human bondage. In the same poem, I counters this with exalted imagery celebrating the body and humanity of the enslaved:

"In that head the all-baffling brain,
In it and below it the makings of the attributes of heroes...
Exquisite senses, life-lit eyes, pluck, volition,
Flakes of breast-muscle, pliant backbone and neck, flesh not flabby..."

In a similar untitled poem from 1855 that was incorporated into “The Sleepers,” I attempted to give voice to a slave’s rage”

"I am the poet of the slave's fierce, loud, unbridled cry...
Stalking, bellowing through markets, venging itself on trade
gougers.”
The imagery of a raging, bellowing slave powerfully expresses the righteous anger that I felt towards the injustice of slavery.
By juxtaposing grotesque, dehumanizing images of the slave trade with exalted depictions of the enslaved's bodies, minds and seething anger, I wanted my vivid imagery to shock the reader into recognizing both slavery's immorality and the full humanity of its victims.

"A slave at auction!
I help the auctioneer...the sloven does not half know his business.
Gentlemen look on this curious creature,
Whatever the bids of the bidders they cannot be high enough for him,
For him the globe lay preparing quintillions of years without one animal or plant,
For him the revolving cycles truly and steadily rolled.
In that head the all-baffling brain,
In it and below it the makings of the attributes of heroes.”

And with that recitation, I will bestow my farewells.

Thank you, Mr. Whitman.

Farewell, Mr. Bartley.

Goodbye, Mr. Whitman

Join Celebrate Whitman for episode 393 Schoolteaching Years

Sources include: The Complete Works of Walt Whitman, especially Leaves of Grass by Walt Whitman, From Noon to Starry Night: A Life of Walt Whitman by Ivan R. Dee, Walt Whitman: A Life by Justin Kaplan, Walt Whitman: The Song of Himself by Jerome Loving, and Walt Whitman by James E. Miller.

Thank you for listening to Celebrate Whitman.