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NARRATOR:
He was the son
of American soil,
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a child of its hope,
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America's rude adolescent,
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its spurned lover,
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its faithful nurse,
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its unwavering champion
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and the creator of its own
poetic voice,
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a voice to be reckoned with.
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MARTIN ESPADA:
"I speak the password primeval,
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"I give the sign of democracy;
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"By God!
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"I will accept nothing
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"which all cannot have
their counterpart of
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on the same terms."
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ED FOLSOM:
Walt Whitman believed
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that, really, a book was going
to prevent a civil war.
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WALT WHITMAN (dramatized):
There shall be from me
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a new friendship.
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It shall be called
after my name.
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ALLAN GURGANUS:
To have come up with a vision
that was so immense...
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DAVID REYNOLDS:
He expected people to be healed.
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WHITMAN (dramatized):
I celebrate myself.
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And what I assume
you shall assume.
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ESPADA:
It wasn't just vanity.
It wasn't just ego.
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Certainly he wanted to be heard.
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But he also had something
to say.
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Walt Whitman is a poet
of urgency.
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WHITMAN (dramatized):
I am to see to it
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that I do not lose you.
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I am faithful,
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I do not give out.
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FOLSOM:
How to absorb this
national disaster?
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And what new life now,
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for America, can possibly
grow out of it?
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� �
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Captioning sponsored by
the ALFRED P. SLOAN FOUNDATION,
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LIBERTY MUTUAL,
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the NATIONAL ENDOWMENT
FOR THE HUMANITIES,
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the CORPORATION
FOR PUBLIC BROADCASTING
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00:02:22,976 --> 00:02:25,344
and VIEWERS LIKE YOU
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� �
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American Experience
is made possible by:
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to enhance public understanding
of the role of technology.
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The foundation also seeks
to portray the lives
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of the men and women engaged
in scientific
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and technological pursuit.
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Major corporate funding is
provided by Liberty Mutual.
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Throughout history,
ordinary people
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have considered it
their responsibility
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to do something extraordinary.
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Liberty Mutual-- proud sponsor
of American Experience.
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This program has been made
possible by a grant from:
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American Experience
is also made possible
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by the Corporation
for Public Broadcasting
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and by contributions
to your PBS station from:
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KAREN KARBIENER:
We're at this incredibly
volatile time.
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The country is divided into two.
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ALLAN GURGANUS:
And yet, there was a kind
of listlessness
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among the population.
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A passivity and a drift
and a cynicism.
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NARRATOR:
As the country slouched toward
Civil War in the 1850s,
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one concerned citizen was trying
mightily to wake his countrymen
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to the dangers of their
bitterness and despond.
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He'd already spent his own
small treasure
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to publish a book of poetry
called Leaves of Grass.
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The American democratic
experiment needed saving,
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he had implored in Leaves,
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was worth saving.
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For his effort,
he'd been called
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"preposterous," "nonsensical,"
"grotesque" and "scurvy."
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A lesser man would have been
shamed into silence.
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Walt Whitman
determined to speak louder.
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He was willing
to fight the tide all the way,
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to stand fast
against derision, neglect
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00:05:04,271 --> 00:05:07,206
and the relentless undertow
of his own doubt,
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00:05:07,274 --> 00:05:10,009
to sacrifice his financial
well-being,
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his family, his personal life
and his health,
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all in the service
of forcing America
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to face its strange new self.
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WHITMAN (dramatized):
Never more shall I escape.
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Never more the cries
of unsatisfied love
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be absent from me.
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Never again leave me
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to be the peaceful child
I was before
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what there in the night,
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under the yellow
and sagging moon,
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the messenger there aroused...
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...the fire,
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the sweet hell within.
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The unknown want,
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the destiny of me.
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(children shouting
playfully)
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(insects buzzing)
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(birds chirping)
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(child panting)
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NARRATOR
America's first great poet
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entered the world
at the margins,
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on a working-class farm
on Long Island, New York,
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into a family that held tight
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to the promise
of the young country.
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His ancestors,
Walt was reminded,
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had sacrificed blood in the
cause of American independence.
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ED FOLSOM:
His brothers who came after him
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were all named
after American heroes.
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We have George Washington
Whitman,
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and we have Thomas Jefferson
Whitman,
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and we have Andrew Jackson
Whitman.
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So he grew up
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with George Washington
and Andrew Jackson
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and Thomas Jefferson sitting
at his table with him.
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GURGANUS:
These were the,
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the common people, in the
literal sense of the word.
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And the freedom that he found
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in this lack of pedigree
assured his right
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to choose the person
that he wanted to become.
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BETSY ERKKILA:
He was sensitive
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and even overly sensitive
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to what was going on around him.
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Both in terms of people
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but also a very sensuous
interaction
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with the world.
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And from a very early age,
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he felt himself called
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to do something with this.
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(chirping)
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NARRATOR:
As a boy, Walter Whitman, Jr.
had precious little time
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to pursue his own dreams.
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00:08:30,143 --> 00:08:33,079
His father was a farmer,
a carpenter
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00:08:33,146 --> 00:08:35,514
and an unsuccessful
real estate speculator,
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who struggled all his life
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to keep his wife
and eight children afloat.
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He took Walt
out of school at age 11
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to help prop up
the family's meager income.
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00:08:47,294 --> 00:08:50,730
The Whitmans' circumstances
never lived up to their hopes,
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00:08:50,797 --> 00:08:54,200
and Walter Whitman, Sr. became
an ever more zealous adherent
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of strong drink
and radical politics.
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00:08:57,637 --> 00:09:00,873
The elder Whitman came to see
his growing streak
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00:09:00,941 --> 00:09:04,877
of financial failure as the work
of forces beyond his control:
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00:09:04,945 --> 00:09:08,347
banking cabals,
organized swindles
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00:09:08,415 --> 00:09:11,717
and the unchecked power
of the propertied class.
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00:09:11,785 --> 00:09:15,187
"Keep a good heart,"
he liked to say.
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00:09:15,255 --> 00:09:18,224
"The worst is yet to come."
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00:09:18,291 --> 00:09:23,229
At 21, Walt Whitman fled
his father's dark shadow
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and set his own course
in the world.
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00:09:26,299 --> 00:09:29,568
"I stand for the sunny point
of view," he would claim,
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00:09:29,636 --> 00:09:33,739
"the joyful conclusion."
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EDWIN BURROWS:
If you're young and ambitious
and talented and artistic
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00:09:36,877 --> 00:09:38,878
and you want to make your mark
in the world,
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00:09:38,945 --> 00:09:41,514
New York was the only place
to go in the United States.
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00:09:41,581 --> 00:09:45,551
It was already the center of
everything that was interesting.
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There are ships crowding
the waterfront
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from all over the world;
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swarms of sailors speaking all
kinds of different languages;
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young men
rushing back and forth;
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clerks, counting houses,
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00:10:12,212 --> 00:10:13,946
cartmen dragging
loads of things.
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Whitman could
get off the ferry right there
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on the foot of Fulton Street
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and feel like
he had entered the world.
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NARRATOR:
New York was a city on the rise
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and Whitman was swept along
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by the rush
of its accelerating current.
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He was a notable figure,
even in a crowd:
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six feet tall,
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with a personal presence
he described as "magnetic."
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He was self-educated,
stubbornly self-reliant,
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and equipped with a self-regard
that bordered arrogance.
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He had decided,
as he would later say,
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to "enter with the rest
into the competition
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00:11:08,201 --> 00:11:10,069
"for the usual rewards:
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business, political, literary."
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And he set out
to show the men doing the hiring
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on Newspaper Row that he could
be as discriminating as they.
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GURGANUS:
He dresses in a white collar,
with a vest,
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00:11:24,317 --> 00:11:28,788
walking stick,
a big floppy fedora,
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and tries to pass for a
professional man of letters.
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And he gets into doors
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on the basis of how he appears.
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It's not his Harvard pedigree.
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He doesn't have one.
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What he has is the force
of his personality
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and how he appears.
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NARRATOR:
Whitman sported a fresh
boutonni�re in his frock coat,
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a gold pen,
and a silver timepiece.
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But he could not long button up
his compulsion
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to have his say, his way,
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which put him
in near constant opposition
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to society's
prevailing sentiments.
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00:12:19,673 --> 00:12:21,741
As a newspaperman,
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00:12:21,808 --> 00:12:24,744
Walt staked out radical
positions on labor issues,
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women's property rights,
capital punishment
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and immigration.
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00:12:28,815 --> 00:12:30,916
And he was pleased
to pick fights
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with the hide-bound editors
at rival newspapers.
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He brought a bare-knuckled,
working-class �lan
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to his new business,
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00:12:38,525 --> 00:12:42,428
railing against the "old
moth-eaten systems of Europe"
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00:12:42,496 --> 00:12:43,896
so many of New York's
upper class
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00:12:43,964 --> 00:12:46,365
seemed intent on emulating.
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00:12:46,433 --> 00:12:48,701
He called one editor
"a reptile
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00:12:48,769 --> 00:12:51,670
"marking his path with slime
wherever he goes,
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00:12:51,738 --> 00:12:53,439
"and breathing mildew
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00:12:53,507 --> 00:12:56,709
at everything fresh
and fragrant."
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00:12:56,777 --> 00:13:00,379
His bosses apparently found him
all but ungovernable.
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00:13:00,447 --> 00:13:03,516
In just four years he lost favor
at the Tattler,
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00:13:03,583 --> 00:13:05,951
the Daily Plebeian,
the Statesman,
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00:13:06,019 --> 00:13:07,953
the Mirror, the Democrat,
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00:13:08,021 --> 00:13:09,955
the Sun and the Star.
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00:13:11,792 --> 00:13:13,559
DAVID REYNOLDS:
He got into
a little bit of trouble
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00:13:13,627 --> 00:13:15,661
because he kind of rubbed up
against people,
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sometimes,
in the wrong way.
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00:13:17,831 --> 00:13:20,733
And he also got increasingly
into trouble
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00:13:20,801 --> 00:13:23,035
because he didn't like
being on a schedule.
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00:13:23,103 --> 00:13:26,305
And some of his employers
thought that he was lazy.
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00:13:26,373 --> 00:13:28,841
He wasn't the most
dedicated worker.
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00:13:28,909 --> 00:13:31,944
And his love of the city
often led him,
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00:13:32,012 --> 00:13:34,046
during lunch and after lunch,
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00:13:34,114 --> 00:13:38,050
even though he had duties
that would oblige him
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00:13:38,118 --> 00:13:40,786
to stay in Printing House Row
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00:13:40,854 --> 00:13:43,355
and do his thing at the various
papers he worked for,
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00:13:43,423 --> 00:13:45,925
he wound up hopping
on the omnibus
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00:13:45,992 --> 00:13:49,195
or walking up to a museum
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00:13:49,262 --> 00:13:52,398
or to a bar
or to the Park Theater
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00:13:52,466 --> 00:13:55,835
to just see and absorb New York.
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00:14:02,109 --> 00:14:04,844
ERKKILA:
Whitman loved the sense
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00:14:04,911 --> 00:14:07,913
of a humanity flowing
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00:14:07,981 --> 00:14:11,784
and huge crowds of people
and events going on.
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00:14:14,121 --> 00:14:15,755
NARRATOR:
Like Walt,
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00:14:15,822 --> 00:14:18,157
New York was inventing
itself every day,
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00:14:18,225 --> 00:14:22,027
lurching toward a destiny
it had yet to fully imagine.
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00:14:23,430 --> 00:14:25,030
The pull of the emerging city
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00:14:25,098 --> 00:14:27,199
captured Whitman
and compelled him
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00:14:27,267 --> 00:14:29,301
to record
in his personal notebooks
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00:14:29,369 --> 00:14:31,904
what he heard and saw
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00:14:31,972 --> 00:14:35,374
and felt as he walked nights
among the throng,
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00:14:35,442 --> 00:14:37,676
under gas lamps
that made Broadway
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00:14:37,744 --> 00:14:39,945
a shimmer of white light
238
00:14:40,013 --> 00:14:42,581
or as he ducked into
the narrow, dark streets
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00:14:42,649 --> 00:14:44,984
of the notorious
Five Points slum.
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00:14:50,891 --> 00:14:51,857
He noted the museum
of Egyptology
241
00:14:51,925 --> 00:14:53,759
and the tenement house,
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00:14:53,827 --> 00:14:56,328
the waterworks
and the corner saloon,
243
00:14:56,396 --> 00:14:59,632
the lavish opera,
the rowdy Bowery theaters,
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00:14:59,700 --> 00:15:01,701
and, from his seat
atop the omnibus,
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00:15:01,768 --> 00:15:03,803
with the breeze in his face,
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00:15:03,870 --> 00:15:07,740
the daily human drama
of the city streets.
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00:15:07,808 --> 00:15:09,909
KARBIENER:
He's assembling these
248
00:15:09,976 --> 00:15:13,145
collages of what he sees.
249
00:15:13,213 --> 00:15:16,215
And he's also obviously
250
00:15:16,283 --> 00:15:19,418
interested in a lot of the guys
that he's checking out.
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00:15:27,594 --> 00:15:30,463
So we've got
these marvelous lists
252
00:15:30,530 --> 00:15:33,232
of whoever's taking his fancy
at the time.
253
00:15:34,801 --> 00:15:37,269
GURGANUS:
He liked cab drivers.
254
00:15:37,337 --> 00:15:41,307
He liked the guys who had
been in the sun all day
255
00:15:41,375 --> 00:15:42,775
and had brown faces;
256
00:15:42,843 --> 00:15:44,443
who were powerful enough
through the shoulders
257
00:15:44,511 --> 00:15:48,013
to reign in the horses
that were required
258
00:15:48,081 --> 00:15:54,186
to drive one of these
immense cabs down Broadway.
259
00:15:54,254 --> 00:15:56,589
NARRATOR:
He made it his practice to climb
260
00:15:56,656 --> 00:15:58,724
into the navigator's chair
on the omnibus,
261
00:15:58,792 --> 00:16:02,595
where he chatted up drivers
like Broadway Jack,
262
00:16:02,662 --> 00:16:04,196
Yellow Joe, Balky Bill,
263
00:16:04,264 --> 00:16:06,999
Old Elephant and his brother
Young Elephant,
264
00:16:07,067 --> 00:16:11,270
Big Frank,
Patsy Dee and Tippy.
265
00:16:11,338 --> 00:16:14,440
WHITMAN (dramatized):
They had immense qualities,
largely animal--
266
00:16:14,508 --> 00:16:17,276
eating, drinking, women--
267
00:16:17,344 --> 00:16:20,513
great personal pride.
268
00:16:20,580 --> 00:16:24,650
How many hours,
forenoons and afternoons,
269
00:16:24,718 --> 00:16:27,219
how many exhilarating
nighttimes I've had,
270
00:16:27,287 --> 00:16:29,455
riding the whole length
of Broadway,
271
00:16:29,523 --> 00:16:31,991
listening to some yarn,
272
00:16:32,059 --> 00:16:34,660
and the most vivid yarns
ever spun,
273
00:16:34,728 --> 00:16:37,096
and the rarest mimicry.
274
00:16:37,164 --> 00:16:40,966
Or perhaps, I, declaiming
some stormy passage
275
00:16:41,034 --> 00:16:43,602
from Julius Caesar and Richard.
276
00:16:43,670 --> 00:16:46,338
You could roar
as loudly as you chose
277
00:16:46,406 --> 00:16:49,341
in that heavy, dense,
uninterrupted street bass.
278
00:16:51,645 --> 00:16:53,512
BURROWS:
The sound...
279
00:16:53,580 --> 00:16:56,048
would have been amazing.
280
00:16:56,116 --> 00:16:58,317
(horses whinny, pigs snort)
281
00:16:58,385 --> 00:16:59,685
(clanking, rattling)
282
00:16:59,753 --> 00:17:03,022
Iron-rimmed wagon wheels
clanking across cobblestones--
283
00:17:03,090 --> 00:17:06,525
it was a frightful din.
284
00:17:06,593 --> 00:17:09,729
There are thousands
and thousands of horses,
285
00:17:09,796 --> 00:17:14,367
eave tons of manure
on the street every day.
286
00:17:14,434 --> 00:17:19,004
Hundreds of gallons
of horse piss, every day,
287
00:17:19,072 --> 00:17:21,640
is deposited
on the street of New York.
288
00:17:21,708 --> 00:17:23,242
Nobody collects that.
289
00:17:23,310 --> 00:17:25,978
There is
no sanitation department
290
00:17:26,046 --> 00:17:27,413
in 19th century New York.
291
00:17:27,481 --> 00:17:30,082
What you have
is swarms of pigs, basically,
292
00:17:30,150 --> 00:17:31,851
who roam around the streets,
293
00:17:31,918 --> 00:17:35,221
gobbling up
whatever they can find.
294
00:17:35,288 --> 00:17:38,491
In about July or August,
295
00:17:38,558 --> 00:17:42,128
the smell of New York
is overpowering.
296
00:17:44,197 --> 00:17:45,664
FOLSOM:
The dirt, the rubbish, the filth
297
00:17:45,732 --> 00:17:50,102
that a growing population
is producing:
298
00:17:50,170 --> 00:17:53,172
how to deal with this,
how to get rid of it,
299
00:17:53,240 --> 00:17:56,876
how to begin
to control everything--
300
00:17:56,943 --> 00:17:58,878
from animals
walking the street
301
00:17:58,945 --> 00:18:03,916
to housing the endless numbers
of people entering the city
302
00:18:03,984 --> 00:18:06,652
and growing numbers
of immigrants.
303
00:18:06,720 --> 00:18:10,256
NARRATOR:
Walt saw the frantic and
furious efforts being made
304
00:18:10,323 --> 00:18:13,826
to tame the frightening mass
of new arrivals;
305
00:18:13,894 --> 00:18:15,728
to fit them up
to be worthy citizens
306
00:18:15,796 --> 00:18:18,731
of the American republic.
307
00:18:18,799 --> 00:18:21,467
But with as many
as 2,000 foreign-born people
308
00:18:21,535 --> 00:18:23,269
entering New York
in a single day,
309
00:18:23,336 --> 00:18:26,238
the job was
beyond anyone's doing.
310
00:18:26,306 --> 00:18:29,041
Strong voices opined
that this new wave
311
00:18:29,109 --> 00:18:31,811
of uneducated immigrants
should simply be
312
00:18:31,878 --> 00:18:33,779
excluded from the body politic.
313
00:18:38,885 --> 00:18:43,089
BURROWS:
Very often,
you'd find genteel writers
314
00:18:43,156 --> 00:18:46,425
who would write about
the good old days of the city,
315
00:18:46,493 --> 00:18:49,462
when it was small,
when it was intimate,
316
00:18:49,529 --> 00:18:51,697
when everybody knew everybody,
317
00:18:51,765 --> 00:18:53,899
when everybody
knew who was in charge
318
00:18:53,967 --> 00:18:55,935
and everybody respected
everybody.
319
00:18:56,002 --> 00:18:58,871
KARBIENER:
I think about
Edgar Allan Poe, for instance,
320
00:18:58,939 --> 00:19:01,741
or Melville,
a native New Yorker
321
00:19:01,808 --> 00:19:04,043
who, actually,
really didn't like the city.
322
00:19:04,111 --> 00:19:07,179
All they saw were
the poor crowds of immigrants,
323
00:19:07,247 --> 00:19:10,216
and dirtiness,
and the pigs in the streets.
324
00:19:10,283 --> 00:19:12,551
So there are plenty of people
who just see the dark side.
325
00:19:14,388 --> 00:19:16,355
What I love about Whitman
326
00:19:16,423 --> 00:19:20,326
is that this man
sees beauty in that.
327
00:19:32,472 --> 00:19:35,474
He sees the Mississippi
in Broadway.
328
00:19:37,644 --> 00:19:41,180
He sees identity in the city.
329
00:19:41,248 --> 00:19:42,615
WHITMAN (dramatized):
Here are people
330
00:19:42,682 --> 00:19:44,650
of all classes
and stages of rank,
331
00:19:44,718 --> 00:19:47,853
from all countries of the globe,
332
00:19:47,921 --> 00:19:52,358
every hue of ignorance
and learning,
333
00:19:52,426 --> 00:19:54,627
morality and vice,
wealth and want,
334
00:19:54,694 --> 00:19:56,962
fashion and coarseness,
335
00:19:57,030 --> 00:19:58,597
breeding and brutality,
336
00:19:58,665 --> 00:20:00,933
elevation and degradation,
337
00:20:01,001 --> 00:20:03,869
impudence and modesty.
338
00:20:06,606 --> 00:20:11,377
FOLSOM:
Whitman feels the power
of the city of strangers.
339
00:20:13,547 --> 00:20:17,650
He's looking at
a city of strangers
340
00:20:17,718 --> 00:20:20,586
and how something
we might now call
341
00:20:20,654 --> 00:20:23,556
"urban affection"
begins to develop.
342
00:20:23,623 --> 00:20:25,891
How do you come
to care for people
343
00:20:25,959 --> 00:20:28,294
that you have never seen before
344
00:20:28,361 --> 00:20:30,329
and that you
may never see again?
345
00:20:34,668 --> 00:20:37,169
Every day,
we encounter people,
346
00:20:37,237 --> 00:20:40,406
eyes make contact,
347
00:20:40,474 --> 00:20:43,442
we brush by people,
348
00:20:43,510 --> 00:20:45,745
physically come into contact
with them,
349
00:20:45,812 --> 00:20:47,780
and may never see them again.
350
00:20:49,950 --> 00:20:52,118
But Whitman's notebooks
at this time
351
00:20:52,185 --> 00:20:54,754
are filled with images...
352
00:20:54,821 --> 00:20:58,023
just jottings of these people...
353
00:21:00,961 --> 00:21:03,796
...what they're doing,
what they look like,
354
00:21:03,864 --> 00:21:06,031
what their names are.
355
00:21:12,606 --> 00:21:16,042
What is this person doing?
356
00:21:16,109 --> 00:21:19,345
What's the activity
that defines this person?
357
00:21:19,413 --> 00:21:24,050
If I were doing that activity,
358
00:21:24,117 --> 00:21:25,317
that person would be me.
359
00:21:27,554 --> 00:21:31,123
If I were wandering
the other way,
360
00:21:31,191 --> 00:21:34,560
rather than this way,
that person could be me.
361
00:21:36,163 --> 00:21:37,396
That could be me.
362
00:21:38,632 --> 00:21:41,200
That could be me.
363
00:21:41,268 --> 00:21:47,039
What is it that separates
any of us?
364
00:22:02,055 --> 00:22:05,725
NARRATOR:
By 1847, within a few years
of his arrival in New York,
365
00:22:05,792 --> 00:22:09,128
Whitman's parents and siblings
had moved into nearby Brooklyn,
366
00:22:09,196 --> 00:22:12,198
where they tried to cash in
on the new building boom...
367
00:22:12,265 --> 00:22:14,266
and failed.
368
00:22:14,334 --> 00:22:16,769
Walt was drawn back
into the family home
369
00:22:16,837 --> 00:22:18,304
to help with the finances,
370
00:22:18,372 --> 00:22:21,640
and to bear the weight
of his father's final slide
371
00:22:21,708 --> 00:22:23,976
into defeat
and bitter resignation.
372
00:22:25,679 --> 00:22:28,314
PRICE:
He took on a parental role
within the family.
373
00:22:28,382 --> 00:22:30,983
I think as early as 1847
374
00:22:31,051 --> 00:22:33,085
he held the title
to the family home,
375
00:22:33,153 --> 00:22:37,123
even though his father
would live until 1855.
376
00:22:37,190 --> 00:22:41,560
He's clearly the one they all
turn to as the smart one,
377
00:22:41,628 --> 00:22:43,062
the one with insight,
378
00:22:43,130 --> 00:22:44,997
the person who's
emotionally stable.
379
00:22:47,034 --> 00:22:49,035
NARRATOR:
Despite their downward mobility,
380
00:22:49,102 --> 00:22:52,638
the Whitmans felt themselves
tied to a bigger destiny.
381
00:22:52,706 --> 00:22:54,006
Whatever their station,
382
00:22:54,074 --> 00:22:55,775
New Yorkers were apt
to see their city
383
00:22:55,842 --> 00:22:58,177
as the ornament of the nation,
384
00:22:58,245 --> 00:23:01,347
a nation that bestrode
a continent.
385
00:23:01,415 --> 00:23:03,749
Walt could leave
his troubled home,
386
00:23:03,817 --> 00:23:06,085
go to the office
and editorialize the glory
387
00:23:06,153 --> 00:23:08,621
of the U.S. victory
in the Mexican War,
388
00:23:08,688 --> 00:23:12,558
which landed Americans
half a million square miles,
389
00:23:12,626 --> 00:23:14,960
including California, Texas,
390
00:23:15,028 --> 00:23:18,898
and territory enough
for a slew of other states.
391
00:23:18,965 --> 00:23:22,034
But the new acquisition
raised again, and for good,
392
00:23:22,102 --> 00:23:25,771
an issue on which the nation
was hopelessly split.
393
00:23:27,941 --> 00:23:30,843
In 1848, Walt Whitman had
394
00:23:30,911 --> 00:23:33,379
no particular concern
for the emancipation
395
00:23:33,447 --> 00:23:35,981
or the welfare of Black slaves.
396
00:23:36,049 --> 00:23:39,318
And he could not abide
fanatical abolitionists
397
00:23:39,386 --> 00:23:41,654
who were willing
to pull the Union apart
398
00:23:41,722 --> 00:23:45,124
if Southern states refused
to renounce slavery.
399
00:23:45,192 --> 00:23:48,627
Whitman was chiefly worried
that the white working class
400
00:23:48,695 --> 00:23:50,730
would have to compete
with slave labor
401
00:23:50,797 --> 00:23:52,398
in the new Western territories,
402
00:23:52,466 --> 00:23:55,067
as they did all over the South.
403
00:23:55,135 --> 00:23:57,002
WHITMAN (dramatized):
In 15 of the states,
404
00:23:57,070 --> 00:24:02,775
350,000 masters of slaves
keep down the true people,
405
00:24:02,843 --> 00:24:05,544
the millions of white citizens:
406
00:24:05,612 --> 00:24:10,950
mechanics, farmers,
boatmen, manufacturers.
407
00:24:11,017 --> 00:24:13,652
NARRATOR:
Whitman's fierce
and full-throated cry
408
00:24:13,720 --> 00:24:16,889
for the working man
got him fired again,
409
00:24:16,957 --> 00:24:19,759
but a publisher offered
the editorship of a new paper:
410
00:24:19,826 --> 00:24:21,360
the Crescent.
411
00:24:21,428 --> 00:24:23,195
There was one catch:
412
00:24:23,263 --> 00:24:25,131
The job was in New Orleans.
413
00:24:26,299 --> 00:24:27,800
FOLSOM:
And Whitman
414
00:24:27,868 --> 00:24:29,335
takes him up on it.
415
00:24:29,403 --> 00:24:32,204
It's a chance to see the nation
416
00:24:32,272 --> 00:24:36,909
in a way that
he has not... at all.
417
00:24:36,977 --> 00:24:41,380
He hasn't really been
out of a very narrow confine
418
00:24:41,448 --> 00:24:43,315
of New York and Long Island.
419
00:24:47,821 --> 00:24:52,158
And so this is going to be,
for Whitman, the big trip.
420
00:24:52,225 --> 00:24:56,729
This is going
to be Whitman's equivalent
421
00:24:56,797 --> 00:24:58,631
to the trip to Europe
422
00:24:58,698 --> 00:25:03,636
that the children
of the privileged classes took.
423
00:25:03,704 --> 00:25:05,905
NARRATOR:
Early in 1848,
424
00:25:05,972 --> 00:25:09,909
28-year-old Walt Whitman
and his teenaged brother Jeff
425
00:25:09,976 --> 00:25:12,244
steamed out of a gray-wrapped
New York winter
426
00:25:12,312 --> 00:25:16,048
and into the mellow weathers
of the Deep South.
427
00:25:31,732 --> 00:25:34,066
Peach trees were already
in full blossom
428
00:25:34,134 --> 00:25:36,769
when the brothers arrived
in New Orleans.
429
00:25:36,837 --> 00:25:39,739
The scent of magnolia, myrtle,
and bougainvillea
430
00:25:39,806 --> 00:25:43,442
perfumed the city squares.
431
00:25:43,510 --> 00:25:46,445
Whitman had duties
at the newspaper,
432
00:25:46,513 --> 00:25:49,215
but he was seduced
by the sensual public life
433
00:25:49,282 --> 00:25:50,916
of New Orleans.
434
00:25:50,984 --> 00:25:54,053
He watched the shirtless
dockworkers at the wharves
435
00:25:54,121 --> 00:25:56,422
and the semi-nude actors
and actresses
436
00:25:56,490 --> 00:25:58,524
enacting scenes from the Bible;
437
00:25:58,592 --> 00:26:01,594
or sat for hours amid
the soft-voiced social whirl
438
00:26:01,661 --> 00:26:03,729
of the open-air bars,
439
00:26:03,797 --> 00:26:06,932
where locals spoke a gumbo
of English, French,
440
00:26:07,000 --> 00:26:08,968
Spanish, and Cajun.
441
00:26:09,036 --> 00:26:13,072
He was especially drawn
to the young women
442
00:26:13,140 --> 00:26:16,909
selling roses and violets
on the street.
443
00:26:16,977 --> 00:26:20,479
WALT WHITMAN (dramatized):
Women with splendid bodies--
444
00:26:20,547 --> 00:26:22,882
no bustles, no corsets,
445
00:26:22,949 --> 00:26:25,651
no enormities of any sort:
446
00:26:25,719 --> 00:26:28,254
large, luminous eyes,
447
00:26:28,321 --> 00:26:32,124
faces a rich olive...
448
00:26:32,192 --> 00:26:35,895
fascinating, magnetic, sexual,
449
00:26:35,962 --> 00:26:39,665
ignorant, illiterate;
450
00:26:39,733 --> 00:26:42,668
always more than pretty.
451
00:26:42,736 --> 00:26:45,871
Pretty is too weak a word
to apply to them.
452
00:26:50,077 --> 00:26:52,378
YUSEF KOMUNYAKAA:
There is, you know,
453
00:26:52,446 --> 00:26:58,150
the myth of him
actually having a relationship
454
00:26:58,218 --> 00:27:04,190
with a... with a Black woman
or a Black man.
455
00:27:09,763 --> 00:27:13,299
FOLSOM:
He sees racial mixture
456
00:27:13,367 --> 00:27:16,102
and cultural mixture
in New Orleans
457
00:27:16,169 --> 00:27:20,940
on a scale that he has
not encountered before
458
00:27:21,007 --> 00:27:23,242
and sees that it can work.
459
00:27:23,310 --> 00:27:24,577
It can be exciting.
460
00:27:24,644 --> 00:27:25,945
It can be exhilarating.
461
00:27:26,012 --> 00:27:29,815
It can lead to an intense,
new kind of affection.
462
00:27:29,883 --> 00:27:33,119
Because I think part of
that urban affection in Whitman
463
00:27:33,186 --> 00:27:38,991
is always that... that sense
of... of violation...
464
00:27:40,527 --> 00:27:45,097
...a sense of crossing a barrier
and discovering you can cross it
465
00:27:45,165 --> 00:27:47,733
and not be harmed by it,
but, in fact, be...
466
00:27:47,801 --> 00:27:51,203
strengthened by it,
enlarged by it.
467
00:27:53,807 --> 00:27:56,042
NARRATOR:
There was another,
more difficult crossing
468
00:27:56,109 --> 00:27:58,244
the trip south forced
on Whitman--
469
00:27:58,311 --> 00:28:01,914
a crossing
that would haunt him for years.
470
00:28:01,982 --> 00:28:05,117
In New York, where slavery
had long been illegal,
471
00:28:05,185 --> 00:28:07,153
Whitman had easily averted
his gaze
472
00:28:07,220 --> 00:28:09,221
from the true costs
of the institution,
473
00:28:09,289 --> 00:28:10,623
but in New Orleans
474
00:28:10,690 --> 00:28:15,227
he came face to face with
the stark fact of human bondage
475
00:28:15,295 --> 00:28:19,298
in a country founded
on the idea of freedom,
476
00:28:19,366 --> 00:28:23,469
face-to-face with an entire race
of people excluded by law
477
00:28:23,537 --> 00:28:27,006
and by force
from the American story.
478
00:28:28,475 --> 00:28:36,515
FOLSOM:
He sees slave auctions
take place,
479
00:28:36,583 --> 00:28:40,720
and as he sees
human beings for sale
480
00:28:40,787 --> 00:28:45,725
he is stunned
by the brutality
481
00:28:45,792 --> 00:28:50,229
and the sheer physical force
of the experience.
482
00:28:52,799 --> 00:28:55,501
ERKKILA:
He would have seen auctioneers
483
00:28:55,569 --> 00:29:00,239
enumerating literally body parts
in selling
484
00:29:00,307 --> 00:29:05,144
human beings as commodities.
485
00:29:08,949 --> 00:29:13,786
And buyers would actually feel
slave's bodies
486
00:29:13,854 --> 00:29:18,524
in trying to figure out
if they were going to buy them.
487
00:29:23,530 --> 00:29:25,398
KOMUNYAKAA:
For some reason,
488
00:29:25,465 --> 00:29:30,236
I feel like he has the capacity
489
00:29:30,303 --> 00:29:33,572
to imagine himself
490
00:29:33,640 --> 00:29:37,643
on the auction block as well.
491
00:29:40,914 --> 00:29:42,748
FOLSOM:
That could be me.
492
00:29:44,885 --> 00:29:47,386
That could be me.
493
00:29:49,489 --> 00:29:52,892
That person could be me.
494
00:29:58,498 --> 00:30:02,902
KOMUNYAKAA:
It really enters his psyche.
495
00:30:02,969 --> 00:30:05,504
I think he's wrestling
with himself.
496
00:30:07,841 --> 00:30:10,643
NARRATOR:
When Walt returned to his
parents' home in Brooklyn,
497
00:30:10,711 --> 00:30:14,146
after just three months
in New Orleans,
498
00:30:14,214 --> 00:30:17,116
he carried with him a poster
advertising a slave auction
499
00:30:17,184 --> 00:30:20,619
and vague premonitions
that the contradictions
500
00:30:20,687 --> 00:30:24,390
in American democracy
would prove fatal.
501
00:30:24,458 --> 00:30:27,593
Over the next eight years,
the issue of slavery festered.
502
00:30:27,661 --> 00:30:31,263
By 1855, an armed battle
had already commenced
503
00:30:31,331 --> 00:30:33,599
on the Kansas-Missouri border,
504
00:30:33,667 --> 00:30:37,770
rickety compromise legislation
in Washington crumbled,
505
00:30:37,838 --> 00:30:42,241
the bonds of national affection
were being eaten away,
506
00:30:42,309 --> 00:30:44,076
and Whitman could see that
the nation's political leaders
507
00:30:44,144 --> 00:30:47,046
were too timid
or too self-interested
508
00:30:47,114 --> 00:30:49,014
to minister to the sickness
509
00:30:49,082 --> 00:30:51,917
before it rotted America
to the bone.
510
00:30:51,985 --> 00:30:55,554
What the nation needed,
Whitman was convinced,
511
00:30:55,622 --> 00:30:57,356
was a call to healing
512
00:30:57,424 --> 00:31:01,394
from a voice that was of, by,
and for the common people.
513
00:31:08,869 --> 00:31:11,070
"The poet is representative,"
514
00:31:11,138 --> 00:31:14,273
America's literary eminence
Ralph Waldo Emerson
515
00:31:14,341 --> 00:31:17,176
had essayed ten years earlier.
516
00:31:17,244 --> 00:31:21,480
"He stands among partial men
for the complete man.
517
00:31:21,548 --> 00:31:23,883
"The poet is the man
without impediment,
518
00:31:23,950 --> 00:31:27,119
"who sees and handles
that which others dream of,
519
00:31:27,187 --> 00:31:30,990
"traverses the whole scale
of experience.
520
00:31:31,058 --> 00:31:35,061
I look in vain
for the poet I describe."
521
00:31:39,499 --> 00:31:41,600
GURGANUS:
I think Walt Whitman went
to the "help wanted" section
522
00:31:41,668 --> 00:31:46,639
and found a squib that said
"Wanted: National Poet,"
523
00:31:46,707 --> 00:31:48,708
and he was innocent enough
524
00:31:48,775 --> 00:31:52,078
to believe
there really was such a job,
525
00:31:52,145 --> 00:31:53,813
and if he could
just write a poem
526
00:31:53,880 --> 00:31:57,516
that incorporated
everything he felt and suspected
527
00:31:57,584 --> 00:32:01,987
and hoped for from America,
528
00:32:02,055 --> 00:32:05,291
that he would have the position.
529
00:32:11,098 --> 00:32:13,299
NARRATOR:
Alone in the garret
of a working-class house
530
00:32:13,367 --> 00:32:15,434
in Brooklyn, New York,
531
00:32:15,502 --> 00:32:18,437
jotting in
a 3 1/2 x 5 1/2-inch notebook,
532
00:32:18,505 --> 00:32:21,674
Walt Whitman searched
for a poetic voice
533
00:32:21,742 --> 00:32:24,276
that could gather up and bind
all the disparate places
534
00:32:24,344 --> 00:32:26,345
and people of America,
535
00:32:26,413 --> 00:32:28,848
a voice that would rise
above despair
536
00:32:28,915 --> 00:32:30,649
and cynicism and intolerance
537
00:32:30,717 --> 00:32:33,652
to sing the vast promise
of the country.
538
00:32:37,124 --> 00:32:39,925
FOLSOM:
As you read through
his little notebook,
539
00:32:39,993 --> 00:32:42,928
you can see the moment
540
00:32:42,996 --> 00:32:46,565
where Leaves of Grass
begins to emerge.
541
00:32:48,668 --> 00:32:50,503
In typical Whitman fashion,
542
00:32:50,570 --> 00:32:53,472
there are all kinds of things
in this notebook--
543
00:32:53,540 --> 00:32:56,075
little notations
of what he owes people
544
00:32:56,143 --> 00:32:58,711
and he's got addresses
and names of people
545
00:32:58,779 --> 00:33:01,814
and places that he has to go.
546
00:33:01,882 --> 00:33:05,818
And then he begins writing
in prose.
547
00:33:05,886 --> 00:33:10,556
He starts out saying,
"Be simple and clear.
548
00:33:10,624 --> 00:33:13,392
Be not occult."
549
00:33:13,460 --> 00:33:17,463
He's looking for his voice,
and at one point he says,
550
00:33:17,531 --> 00:33:23,536
"Every soul has
its own individual voice."
551
00:33:23,603 --> 00:33:25,905
And then, he has a line
552
00:33:25,972 --> 00:33:29,008
that I've always
been fascinated with.
553
00:33:29,076 --> 00:33:31,811
It says, "Do not descend
554
00:33:31,878 --> 00:33:36,082
among professors
and capitalists."
555
00:33:36,149 --> 00:33:38,617
And he stops at that point
556
00:33:38,685 --> 00:33:41,587
and there are a couple
of blank pages
557
00:33:41,655 --> 00:33:43,489
and then,
when you turn the page,
558
00:33:43,557 --> 00:33:47,026
suddenly, there it is.
559
00:33:47,094 --> 00:33:49,495
And it starts,
560
00:33:49,563 --> 00:33:52,431
"I am the poet of slaves
561
00:33:52,499 --> 00:33:55,301
"and of the masters of slaves.
562
00:33:55,369 --> 00:33:58,971
"I am the poet of the body
563
00:33:59,039 --> 00:34:01,173
and I am..."
564
00:34:02,776 --> 00:34:05,044
And then he stops.
565
00:34:05,112 --> 00:34:10,616
And in that moment
where he writes "and I am,"
566
00:34:10,684 --> 00:34:14,854
I can feel the moment
where Whitman senses that "I"
567
00:34:14,921 --> 00:34:18,724
that is going to become his main
character in all of his poems,
568
00:34:18,792 --> 00:34:21,293
that "I" has come
into existence.
569
00:34:21,361 --> 00:34:22,728
"And I am."
570
00:34:23,930 --> 00:34:28,067
And then he crosses
those lines out
571
00:34:28,135 --> 00:34:30,403
and there's a little space
572
00:34:30,470 --> 00:34:32,505
and then he writes
the first lines
573
00:34:32,572 --> 00:34:36,108
that are going to get
into Leaves of Grass.
574
00:34:36,176 --> 00:34:38,277
"I am the poet of the body
575
00:34:38,345 --> 00:34:42,314
"and I am the poet of the soul.
576
00:34:42,382 --> 00:34:45,184
"I go with the slaves
of the earth
577
00:34:45,252 --> 00:34:48,454
"equally with the masters.
578
00:34:48,522 --> 00:34:53,225
"And I will stand between
the master and the slaves,
579
00:34:53,293 --> 00:34:55,327
"entering into both
580
00:34:55,395 --> 00:34:59,732
so that both
will understand me alike."
581
00:35:00,834 --> 00:35:03,636
And there it is.
582
00:35:03,704 --> 00:35:07,239
Everything that's going
to be great in Whitman
583
00:35:07,307 --> 00:35:09,575
is in those lines.
584
00:35:11,812 --> 00:35:14,013
NARRATOR:
Out of that small notebook
grew a thin volume
585
00:35:14,081 --> 00:35:17,016
with 12 untitled poems,
586
00:35:17,084 --> 00:35:20,686
typeset by the hand of the poet.
587
00:35:20,754 --> 00:35:24,757
ESPADA:
"I celebrate myself,
588
00:35:24,825 --> 00:35:27,727
And what I assume
you shall assume..."
589
00:35:27,794 --> 00:35:29,995
"For every atom belonging to me
590
00:35:30,063 --> 00:35:33,499
"as good belongs to you.
591
00:35:33,567 --> 00:35:36,702
I loafe
and invite my soul..."
592
00:35:36,770 --> 00:35:39,638
"I loafe and
invite my soul,
593
00:35:39,706 --> 00:35:43,943
"I lean and loafe at my ease,
594
00:35:44,010 --> 00:35:47,246
observing a spear
of summer grass."
595
00:35:47,314 --> 00:35:50,583
WHITMAN (dramatized):
The spotted hawk swoops by
596
00:35:50,650 --> 00:35:52,685
and accuses me.
597
00:35:52,753 --> 00:35:56,522
He complains of my gab
and my loitering.
598
00:35:56,590 --> 00:35:59,291
I, too, am not a bit tamed.
599
00:35:59,359 --> 00:36:03,329
I, too,
am untranslatable.
600
00:36:03,397 --> 00:36:07,166
I sound my barbaric yawp
over the roofs of the world.
601
00:36:07,234 --> 00:36:09,802
ESPADA:
"I speak the password primeval.
602
00:36:09,870 --> 00:36:11,837
"I give a sign of democracy;
603
00:36:11,905 --> 00:36:14,440
"By God! I will accept nothing
604
00:36:14,508 --> 00:36:17,576
"which all cannot have
their counterpart of
605
00:36:17,644 --> 00:36:20,046
"on the same terms.
606
00:36:20,113 --> 00:36:21,981
"Through me, forbidden voices.
607
00:36:22,049 --> 00:36:25,851
"Voices of sexes and lusts.
608
00:36:25,919 --> 00:36:27,920
"Voices veiled,
and I remove the veil.
609
00:36:27,988 --> 00:36:34,193
Voices indecent by me clarified
and transfigured."
610
00:36:36,496 --> 00:36:40,299
BILLY COLLINS:
Here was the first
truly American poet
611
00:36:40,367 --> 00:36:44,170
who broke out of the form
of formal poetry.
612
00:36:44,237 --> 00:36:47,273
You know how, in a sonnet,
you have these boundaries?
613
00:36:47,340 --> 00:36:50,609
Leaves of Grass is a poem
without boundaries,
614
00:36:50,677 --> 00:36:53,212
and so that everything
can flood into it.
615
00:36:53,280 --> 00:36:55,948
Uh, people, professions,
616
00:36:56,016 --> 00:36:58,184
landscape, memories,
617
00:36:58,251 --> 00:37:00,386
engineering, water,
618
00:37:00,454 --> 00:37:02,254
children, Native Americans.
619
00:37:02,322 --> 00:37:05,758
There's no boundaries
keeping anything out.
620
00:37:09,896 --> 00:37:13,299
NARRATOR:
Leaves of Grass contained
astronomy, mythology,
621
00:37:13,367 --> 00:37:16,535
Egyptology, religions
of the East and West
622
00:37:16,603 --> 00:37:18,204
and the latest science.
623
00:37:23,744 --> 00:37:27,480
The sublime operatic line
and the blunt, coarse talk
624
00:37:27,547 --> 00:37:30,082
of the Five Points were
in Leaves.
625
00:37:46,767 --> 00:37:49,802
The carpenter, the printer,
the half-breed,
626
00:37:49,870 --> 00:37:52,405
patriarchs, prostitutes,
opium eaters
627
00:37:52,472 --> 00:37:55,541
and the President himself
peopled the poems.
628
00:37:55,609 --> 00:37:59,712
The squaw in her yellow-hemmed
cloth was there on the page,
629
00:37:59,780 --> 00:38:02,114
the bride in her white dress.
630
00:38:02,182 --> 00:38:06,252
Kentuckian, Georgian
and Californian.
631
00:38:06,319 --> 00:38:09,388
What joined them to one another
was the firm embrace
632
00:38:09,456 --> 00:38:11,557
of the poet himself,
633
00:38:11,625 --> 00:38:14,693
who was, after all,
just one of the crowd.
634
00:38:18,165 --> 00:38:20,633
FOLSOM:
Whitman portrays himself
635
00:38:20,701 --> 00:38:22,368
on the title page
in the frontispiece
636
00:38:22,436 --> 00:38:23,536
without his name,
637
00:38:23,603 --> 00:38:26,539
but with an image of himself
638
00:38:26,606 --> 00:38:32,611
unlike any image
of a poet before.
639
00:38:32,679 --> 00:38:34,647
It's not the poet
from the shoulders up,
640
00:38:34,715 --> 00:38:36,348
dressed in formal dress,
641
00:38:36,416 --> 00:38:40,052
which emphasizes the poetry
that comes from the intellect,
642
00:38:40,120 --> 00:38:44,690
the poetry that comes from a
life of privilege and education.
643
00:38:44,758 --> 00:38:48,060
Instead, this is poetry
that comes from a life
644
00:38:48,128 --> 00:38:49,695
of walking in the streets.
645
00:38:49,763 --> 00:38:54,767
It's the poetry that emerges
through the hands and arms,
646
00:38:54,835 --> 00:38:56,769
and through the heart
pumping blood
647
00:38:56,837 --> 00:38:59,405
to all parts of the body.
648
00:39:01,608 --> 00:39:05,444
The perspiration,
the aroma of these armpits,
649
00:39:05,512 --> 00:39:08,981
Whitman talks about--
aroma finer than prayer.
650
00:39:20,861 --> 00:39:23,829
PRICE:
This is everything about sinews.
651
00:39:23,897 --> 00:39:25,631
This was everything
about crotch.
652
00:39:25,699 --> 00:39:27,933
This was everything
about armpits.
653
00:39:28,001 --> 00:39:30,569
For him, you couldn't have
an honest poetry
654
00:39:30,637 --> 00:39:33,039
that wasn't including
the whole person.
655
00:39:35,809 --> 00:39:38,978
KARBIENER:
Nakedness, from the first page,
is celebrated.
656
00:39:44,484 --> 00:39:49,622
Whitman's openness
and celebration of sexuality,
657
00:39:49,689 --> 00:39:52,091
and not just heterosexual sex,
658
00:39:52,159 --> 00:39:54,560
but sex on the edges--
659
00:39:54,628 --> 00:39:57,596
uh, masturbation, uh, voyeurism,
660
00:39:57,664 --> 00:40:01,467
um, oral sex, uh--
it's in there.
661
00:40:01,535 --> 00:40:05,171
(birds singing)
662
00:40:05,238 --> 00:40:08,340
GURGANUS:
I grew up in Rocky Mountain,
North Carolina.
663
00:40:08,408 --> 00:40:11,744
There was not
a working bookshop,
664
00:40:11,812 --> 00:40:13,446
but there was
a stationery department
665
00:40:13,513 --> 00:40:15,948
in the corner
of the best department store.
666
00:40:16,016 --> 00:40:20,419
And there, among
the greeting cards,
667
00:40:20,487 --> 00:40:23,255
were a few books,
including Leaves of Grass.
668
00:40:23,323 --> 00:40:26,692
I had somehow heard through
the ten-year-old grapevine
669
00:40:26,760 --> 00:40:31,564
that it had some hot stuff
in it.
670
00:40:31,631 --> 00:40:35,468
I bought it, assuming that
the clerk would believe
671
00:40:35,535 --> 00:40:37,937
that it was
for inspirational purposes,
672
00:40:38,004 --> 00:40:41,941
and pedaled
to the nearest woods.
673
00:40:42,008 --> 00:40:45,077
And I opened and began looking
for the good parts,
674
00:40:45,145 --> 00:40:48,481
and discovered that,
in a strange way,
675
00:40:48,548 --> 00:40:51,751
it's all good parts in Whitman.
676
00:40:51,818 --> 00:40:54,320
That you're never more
than four lines
677
00:40:54,388 --> 00:40:56,889
from an erotic jot.
678
00:40:56,957 --> 00:40:59,759
There... You're never
very far away from the body.
679
00:41:02,028 --> 00:41:03,929
(birds singing)
680
00:41:19,112 --> 00:41:22,982
WHITMAN (dramatized):
I mind how we lay in June,
681
00:41:23,050 --> 00:41:27,586
such a transparent
summer morning.
682
00:41:27,654 --> 00:41:32,725
You settled your head
athwart my hips
683
00:41:32,793 --> 00:41:36,128
and gently turned over upon me.
684
00:41:40,801 --> 00:41:43,669
And parted the shirt
from my bosom-bone,
685
00:41:43,737 --> 00:41:45,905
and plunged your tongue
686
00:41:45,972 --> 00:41:48,741
to my barestript heart.
687
00:41:52,212 --> 00:41:56,949
And reached
till you felt my beard...
688
00:42:00,487 --> 00:42:03,989
...and reached
till you held my feet.
689
00:42:33,520 --> 00:42:35,321
� �
690
00:42:55,475 --> 00:42:58,778
Swiftly arose
and spread around me
691
00:42:58,845 --> 00:43:02,715
the peace and joy and knowledge
692
00:43:02,783 --> 00:43:06,919
that pass all the art
and argument of the earth.
693
00:43:06,987 --> 00:43:11,390
And I know that the hand of God
694
00:43:11,458 --> 00:43:15,795
is the elder hand of my own.
695
00:43:22,736 --> 00:43:25,705
There's a whole thing
about the sexuality and all.
696
00:43:25,772 --> 00:43:28,207
But I think maybe
697
00:43:28,275 --> 00:43:33,412
there is a kind
of deeper, more serious taboo.
698
00:43:33,480 --> 00:43:39,719
FOLSOM:
Whitman equates the human body
and democracy
699
00:43:39,786 --> 00:43:43,456
in some radical
and essential way.
700
00:43:43,523 --> 00:43:49,829
That the human body is
what we all share.
701
00:43:52,099 --> 00:43:55,534
We all experience this world
through the body.
702
00:43:55,602 --> 00:43:59,705
And if we can all begin
to agree
703
00:43:59,773 --> 00:44:04,977
that the body itself
is a sacred thing,
704
00:44:05,045 --> 00:44:08,814
then we have the beginnings
of democracy.
705
00:44:11,218 --> 00:44:15,020
KOMUNYAKAA:
"A slave at auction!
706
00:44:15,088 --> 00:44:17,523
"I help the auctioneer...
707
00:44:17,591 --> 00:44:21,560
"The sloven does not
half know his business.
708
00:44:23,630 --> 00:44:28,100
"Gentlemen, look on
this curious creature.
709
00:44:30,370 --> 00:44:34,240
"Whatever the bids
of the bidders,
710
00:44:34,307 --> 00:44:37,209
"they cannot be high enough
for him.
711
00:44:40,514 --> 00:44:42,515
"For him,
712
00:44:42,582 --> 00:44:48,220
"the globe lay preparing
quintillions of years
713
00:44:48,288 --> 00:44:53,392
"without one animal or plant.
714
00:44:59,566 --> 00:45:05,905
"For him, the revolving cycles
truly and steadily rolled.
715
00:45:09,242 --> 00:45:13,646
"In that head,
the all baffling brain.
716
00:45:13,714 --> 00:45:17,283
"In it and below it,
717
00:45:17,350 --> 00:45:24,023
"the makings of attributes
of heroes.
718
00:45:26,226 --> 00:45:29,395
"Examine these limbs,
719
00:45:29,463 --> 00:45:31,797
"red, black or white.
720
00:45:34,000 --> 00:45:37,069
"They are very cunning
in tendon and nerve.
721
00:45:38,939 --> 00:45:43,843
"They shall be stripped
that you may see them.
722
00:45:46,079 --> 00:45:47,880
"Exquisite senses,
723
00:45:47,948 --> 00:45:53,552
"life lit eyes pluck volition...
724
00:45:53,620 --> 00:45:58,290
"and wonders within there yet.
725
00:45:58,358 --> 00:46:02,361
"Within there runs his blood.
726
00:46:02,429 --> 00:46:05,431
"The same old blood.
727
00:46:05,499 --> 00:46:09,702
The same red running blood."
728
00:46:15,342 --> 00:46:18,978
NARRATOR
Walt could afford
to print only 795 copies
729
00:46:19,046 --> 00:46:22,348
of his ungainly,
oversized first edition.
730
00:46:22,416 --> 00:46:24,717
A few hundred he bound
731
00:46:24,785 --> 00:46:26,986
in dark green cloth,
the rest in paper.
732
00:46:27,054 --> 00:46:29,755
He found a few stores willing
to stock the book,
733
00:46:29,823 --> 00:46:33,426
set a price,
and loosed it on the world.
734
00:46:45,372 --> 00:46:47,339
KARBIENER:
There were some writers
735
00:46:47,407 --> 00:46:49,642
that really supported
that vision,
736
00:46:49,710 --> 00:46:52,545
but there were
so many bad reviews.
737
00:46:52,612 --> 00:46:56,248
And many of them came from
prestigious voices of the day.
738
00:46:56,316 --> 00:46:58,017
One or more reviewer
will suggest
739
00:46:58,085 --> 00:47:00,252
that he be whipped
in the streets,
740
00:47:00,320 --> 00:47:03,589
and that one suggests
he should commit suicide.
741
00:47:03,657 --> 00:47:05,224
Another reviewer said
742
00:47:05,292 --> 00:47:07,460
that this author must be
like a lunatic,
743
00:47:07,527 --> 00:47:11,831
an escaped lunatic,
raving in pitiable delirium.
744
00:47:11,898 --> 00:47:13,532
Other people describe
Leaves of Grass
745
00:47:13,600 --> 00:47:15,801
as being like
an explosion in a sewer.
746
00:47:15,869 --> 00:47:18,804
And so... so people
go to great lengths
747
00:47:18,872 --> 00:47:22,575
to really say some brutal things
about his book.
748
00:47:22,642 --> 00:47:24,777
NARRATOR:
Whitman was oddly cheered
749
00:47:24,845 --> 00:47:27,079
by the reaction
of the literary elite.
750
00:47:27,147 --> 00:47:29,782
He liked that they seemed
so obviously threatened
751
00:47:29,850 --> 00:47:32,118
by his homemade book.
752
00:47:32,185 --> 00:47:34,887
In fact, the force and volume
of the denunciation
753
00:47:34,955 --> 00:47:36,655
of Leaves of Grass
754
00:47:36,723 --> 00:47:39,725
only increased Whitman's
already high hopes.
755
00:47:42,095 --> 00:47:45,664
PRICE:
Whitman had a remarkable faith
756
00:47:45,732 --> 00:47:49,335
in ordinary people
to understand his book.
757
00:47:49,403 --> 00:47:51,203
It's celebrating
American democracy.
758
00:47:51,271 --> 00:47:53,706
It's talking the language
of the people.
759
00:47:53,774 --> 00:47:56,542
It's attacking aristocratic
influences in American life.
760
00:47:56,610 --> 00:47:59,145
Why wouldn't this be very,
very popular with the people?
761
00:48:00,313 --> 00:48:02,481
He expected stage drivers
762
00:48:02,549 --> 00:48:06,052
to stop between runs and pull
out a copy of Leaves of Grass.
763
00:48:06,119 --> 00:48:09,922
People going out to plow
the fields have a copy
764
00:48:09,990 --> 00:48:12,892
of Leaves of Grass
in their very large back pocket
765
00:48:12,959 --> 00:48:15,061
to accommodate that,
that huge book.
766
00:48:15,128 --> 00:48:17,196
In the preface to this book,
he had written:
767
00:48:17,264 --> 00:48:18,931
"This is what you shall do.
768
00:48:18,999 --> 00:48:22,401
"You shall take my volume,
every month, out in nature,
769
00:48:22,469 --> 00:48:24,670
and you'll read it
under the sky."
770
00:48:24,738 --> 00:48:26,939
And he expected people
to be healed.
771
00:48:27,007 --> 00:48:32,978
And he expected America, really,
to kind of come together
772
00:48:33,046 --> 00:48:34,880
in this vision,
this poetic vision.
773
00:48:37,451 --> 00:48:41,253
NARRATOR:
Walt's poetic vision did not
exactly sweep the nation.
774
00:48:41,321 --> 00:48:45,324
A dozen people bought the book,
maybe two-dozen.
775
00:48:45,392 --> 00:48:47,693
Whitman gave away more
than he sold.
776
00:48:47,761 --> 00:48:50,496
His own family
showed little interest.
777
00:48:50,564 --> 00:48:53,399
"I saw the book,"
said Walt's brother George.
778
00:48:53,467 --> 00:48:55,668
"Didn't read it at all;
779
00:48:55,736 --> 00:48:58,437
didn't think it worth reading."
780
00:48:58,505 --> 00:49:01,440
The one glimmer of hope came
from the high arbiter
781
00:49:01,508 --> 00:49:03,876
of literary America,
Ralph Waldo Emerson,
782
00:49:03,944 --> 00:49:07,246
to whom Whitman had sent
one of the first copies
783
00:49:07,314 --> 00:49:10,282
of Leaves of Grass.
784
00:49:10,350 --> 00:49:13,319
Emerson's actual response was
markedly ambivalent.
785
00:49:13,387 --> 00:49:17,456
He wrote to friends that Leaves
was "a nondescript monster,"
786
00:49:17,524 --> 00:49:20,559
with "terrible eyes
and buffalo strength,
787
00:49:20,627 --> 00:49:23,095
American to the bone."
788
00:49:23,163 --> 00:49:26,399
He wasn't convinced the book
could properly be called poetry.
789
00:49:26,466 --> 00:49:28,868
But Emerson also recognized
790
00:49:28,935 --> 00:49:31,804
that Leaves of Grass
could not be ignored,
791
00:49:31,872 --> 00:49:34,440
that its author merited
encouragement.
792
00:49:34,508 --> 00:49:41,047
And Emerson, who was the god, in
some ways, of American letters,
793
00:49:41,114 --> 00:49:47,520
took the time out to write
Whitman an extraordinary letter,
794
00:49:47,587 --> 00:49:50,556
in which he basically says
795
00:49:50,624 --> 00:49:54,660
that he rubbed his eyes a little
bit to see if this was no dream.
796
00:49:59,933 --> 00:50:02,802
NARRATOR:
"I find it the most
extraordinary piece of wit
797
00:50:02,869 --> 00:50:07,106
and wisdom that America has yet
contributed," Emerson wrote.
798
00:50:07,174 --> 00:50:09,975
"I give you joy of your free
and brave thought.
799
00:50:10,043 --> 00:50:12,545
"I have great joy in it.
800
00:50:12,612 --> 00:50:15,548
"I find incomparable things
said incomparably well,
801
00:50:15,615 --> 00:50:18,617
"as they must be.
802
00:50:18,685 --> 00:50:22,488
I greet you at the beginning
of a great career."
803
00:50:24,825 --> 00:50:26,759
There are very few people
in our culture
804
00:50:26,827 --> 00:50:32,298
who would be a concomitant
figure to Emerson then.
805
00:50:32,365 --> 00:50:35,668
It's a combination of Billy
Graham and Oprah Winfrey.
806
00:50:37,838 --> 00:50:40,639
It's so powerful to imagine
807
00:50:40,707 --> 00:50:43,542
that Whitman told nobody
he had received this letter.
808
00:50:45,011 --> 00:50:47,947
He walked around with it
in his breast pocket,
809
00:50:48,014 --> 00:50:50,282
probably walking out
into fields and meadows,
810
00:50:50,350 --> 00:50:52,318
which were still then available
in Brooklyn,
811
00:50:52,386 --> 00:50:55,454
reading and rereading
and rereading it.
812
00:50:58,725 --> 00:51:02,261
NARRATOR:
Whitman understood the letter
was meant for his eyes only.
813
00:51:02,329 --> 00:51:04,230
Ralph Waldo Emerson
was a jealous guardian
814
00:51:04,297 --> 00:51:06,298
of his own standing,
815
00:51:06,366 --> 00:51:09,335
careful about whom
he anointed in public.
816
00:51:09,403 --> 00:51:13,072
But Whitman's grand project
was hanging by a thread.
817
00:51:13,140 --> 00:51:15,841
Leaves of Grass was too dear
to Walt,
818
00:51:15,909 --> 00:51:18,544
and too important
to the nation he loved,
819
00:51:18,612 --> 00:51:22,314
to adhere to the niceties
of social intercourse.
820
00:51:22,382 --> 00:51:24,216
REYNOLDS:
He actually
had the letter printed
821
00:51:24,284 --> 00:51:25,751
in the New York Tribune,
822
00:51:25,819 --> 00:51:28,888
which, uh... (chuckles)
a little suspect there.
823
00:51:28,955 --> 00:51:32,758
And without Emerson's
permission.
824
00:51:35,195 --> 00:51:37,063
NARRATOR:
Whitman didn't stop there.
825
00:51:37,130 --> 00:51:39,498
With sales sill lagging,
826
00:51:39,566 --> 00:51:42,702
he wrote at least three
anonymous and bombastic reviews
827
00:51:42,769 --> 00:51:44,704
of Leaves of Grass.
828
00:51:44,771 --> 00:51:48,240
"He is to prove either the most
lamentable of failures
829
00:51:48,308 --> 00:51:50,242
"or the most glorious
of triumphs
830
00:51:50,310 --> 00:51:53,479
in the known history
of literature," Whitman wrote.
831
00:51:53,547 --> 00:51:55,915
Of himself.
832
00:51:55,982 --> 00:51:58,484
"Here we have a book
which fairly staggers us.
833
00:51:58,552 --> 00:52:01,420
An American bard at last!"
834
00:52:02,889 --> 00:52:05,524
For all his manic effort,
835
00:52:05,592 --> 00:52:08,194
sales of Leaves did not improve.
836
00:52:08,261 --> 00:52:11,163
So Whitman simply bent to work
on his next hope,
837
00:52:11,231 --> 00:52:13,399
a second edition,
838
00:52:13,467 --> 00:52:17,370
preparing 20 new poems and
revising the original 12.
839
00:52:17,437 --> 00:52:20,306
He was desperate to connect.
840
00:52:23,510 --> 00:52:27,279
FOLSOM:
Whitman publishes a new poem
called "Sun-down Poem,"
841
00:52:27,347 --> 00:52:29,849
and eventually called
"Crossing Brooklyn Ferry."
842
00:52:29,916 --> 00:52:31,884
He writes:
843
00:52:31,952 --> 00:52:35,287
"It avails not...
844
00:52:35,355 --> 00:52:39,125
"neither time or place.
845
00:52:39,192 --> 00:52:42,061
"Distance avails not.
846
00:52:45,899 --> 00:52:47,900
"I am with you,
847
00:52:47,968 --> 00:52:52,238
"you men and women
of a generation,
848
00:52:52,305 --> 00:52:56,609
"or ever so many
generations hence.
849
00:52:58,779 --> 00:53:01,847
"I project myself.
850
00:53:01,915 --> 00:53:04,583
"Also I return.
851
00:53:04,651 --> 00:53:07,586
"I am with you
852
00:53:07,654 --> 00:53:10,523
and know how it is."
853
00:53:23,437 --> 00:53:27,440
Whitman places his I,
854
00:53:27,507 --> 00:53:30,376
the I that's been speaking
in the present tense,
855
00:53:30,444 --> 00:53:33,412
puts it into the past.
856
00:53:33,480 --> 00:53:36,115
And he puts himself
in a past, now,
857
00:53:36,183 --> 00:53:40,086
that is so far past
that he's not alive anymore.
858
00:53:40,153 --> 00:53:43,222
And gives over the present tense
of the poem
859
00:53:43,290 --> 00:53:46,025
to you and me, to us,
the readers.
860
00:53:51,698 --> 00:53:57,370
Whitman, in 1856,
was not only imagining us
861
00:53:57,437 --> 00:54:00,573
in 2008 reading this poem,
862
00:54:00,640 --> 00:54:05,845
but projecting us into 2008
to read this poem.
863
00:54:05,912 --> 00:54:11,617
It's as if he is creating us
as a character in the poem.
864
00:54:16,356 --> 00:54:18,357
"Just as you feel
865
00:54:18,425 --> 00:54:21,327
"when you look on the river
and sky
866
00:54:21,395 --> 00:54:23,262
"so I felt.
867
00:54:25,832 --> 00:54:29,769
"Just as any of you
is one of a living crowd
868
00:54:29,836 --> 00:54:33,906
I was one of a crowd."
869
00:54:33,974 --> 00:54:36,876
WHITMAN (dramatized):
Just as you are refreshed
870
00:54:36,943 --> 00:54:39,779
by the gladness of the river,
871
00:54:39,846 --> 00:54:41,781
and the bright flow,
872
00:54:41,848 --> 00:54:44,750
I was refreshed.
873
00:54:46,486 --> 00:54:49,422
Just as you stand
and lean on the rail,
874
00:54:49,489 --> 00:54:53,259
yet hurry
with the swift current,
875
00:54:53,326 --> 00:54:57,196
I stood, yet was hurried.
876
00:55:12,546 --> 00:55:17,483
ESPADA:
My Brooklyn wasn't quite
the Brooklyn of Walt Whitman.
877
00:55:17,551 --> 00:55:21,687
At the same time, there's
so much I recognize in this.
878
00:55:21,755 --> 00:55:24,957
I certainly recognize,
879
00:55:25,025 --> 00:55:30,329
in Whitman's deep appreciation
for the fact that being alive,
880
00:55:30,397 --> 00:55:34,467
my own appreciation
for the fact of being alive.
881
00:55:34,534 --> 00:55:37,470
And he's absolutely right.
882
00:55:37,537 --> 00:55:39,538
I see his Brooklyn.
883
00:55:39,606 --> 00:55:44,610
And, strangely enough,
I think he saw my Brooklyn.
884
00:55:44,678 --> 00:55:47,380
As different as it was,
885
00:55:47,447 --> 00:55:50,249
there were certainly things
in common.
886
00:55:51,752 --> 00:55:54,687
I think about those seagulls.
887
00:55:54,755 --> 00:55:57,923
I saw those seagulls, too.
888
00:55:57,991 --> 00:56:01,460
And, damn, I think
they're the same seagulls.
889
00:56:03,697 --> 00:56:06,432
WHITMAN (dramatized):
Closer yet I approach you.
890
00:56:08,602 --> 00:56:10,870
What thought you have of me,
891
00:56:10,937 --> 00:56:13,672
I had as much of you.
892
00:56:13,740 --> 00:56:18,210
I laid in my stores in advance,
893
00:56:18,278 --> 00:56:21,747
I considered long
and seriously of you
894
00:56:21,815 --> 00:56:24,683
before you were born.
895
00:56:26,887 --> 00:56:31,357
Who was to know
what should come home to me?
896
00:56:31,425 --> 00:56:35,394
Who knows
but I am enjoying this?
897
00:56:35,462 --> 00:56:41,033
Who knows but I am as good
as looking at you now,
898
00:56:41,101 --> 00:56:44,136
for all you cannot see me?
899
00:56:44,204 --> 00:56:46,338
FOLSOM:
What all the preaching
in the world,
900
00:56:46,406 --> 00:56:48,407
what all the religions
in the world
901
00:56:48,475 --> 00:56:51,811
have been telling you
to have faith about:
902
00:56:51,878 --> 00:56:55,047
that there is
some sort of life after death,
903
00:56:55,115 --> 00:56:56,982
that it's possible
to communicate
904
00:56:57,050 --> 00:56:59,085
across time and across space.
905
00:56:59,152 --> 00:57:03,255
We've just proved it,
haven't we?
906
00:57:03,323 --> 00:57:06,358
That we can talk beyond death.
907
00:57:06,426 --> 00:57:10,229
That we can have affection
for one another beyond death.
908
00:57:12,365 --> 00:57:14,967
WHITMAN (dramatized):
We understand, then, do we not?
909
00:57:15,035 --> 00:57:18,971
What I promised
without mentioning it,
910
00:57:19,039 --> 00:57:22,241
have you not accepted?
911
00:57:23,377 --> 00:57:26,912
What the study could not teach,
912
00:57:26,980 --> 00:57:28,514
what the preaching
could not accomplish
913
00:57:28,582 --> 00:57:35,020
is accomplished, is it not?
914
00:57:46,299 --> 00:57:48,300
NARRATOR:
Within weeks of the publication
915
00:57:48,368 --> 00:57:50,336
of the second edition
of Leaves of Grass,
916
00:57:50,404 --> 00:57:53,105
two envoys from Emerson's world,
917
00:57:53,173 --> 00:57:56,876
writers Henry David Thoreau
and Bronson Alcott,
918
00:57:56,943 --> 00:57:58,944
made pilgrimage to Brooklyn
919
00:57:59,012 --> 00:58:01,113
to have a look
at this Walt Whitman.
920
00:58:01,181 --> 00:58:03,049
And Whitman put on a show.
921
00:58:06,319 --> 00:58:08,187
He invited the men up
922
00:58:08,255 --> 00:58:10,723
to his unkempt attic room
where he made
923
00:58:10,791 --> 00:58:14,093
what he called his "pomes"
at a rude wooden table.
924
00:58:14,161 --> 00:58:17,930
Thoreau, the man who had lived
for seasons in Walden Woods,
925
00:58:17,998 --> 00:58:21,434
was taken aback
by Whitman's unmade bed,
926
00:58:21,501 --> 00:58:24,470
a slop jar visible underneath.
927
00:58:24,538 --> 00:58:28,174
Alcott noted with a start
the prints of Hercules,
928
00:58:28,241 --> 00:58:31,210
Bacchus and a satyr tacked
to the attic wall,
929
00:58:31,278 --> 00:58:33,979
while Whitman bragged
about bathing naked
930
00:58:34,047 --> 00:58:37,016
in Coney Island's winter surf.
931
00:58:37,084 --> 00:58:39,985
Walt Whitman was
"broad-shouldered,
932
00:58:40,053 --> 00:58:42,688
rouge-fleshed, Bacchus-browed,
933
00:58:42,756 --> 00:58:46,659
bearded like a satyr,
and rank," wrote Alcott.
934
00:58:46,727 --> 00:58:49,128
"Eyes gray, unimaginative,
935
00:58:49,196 --> 00:58:51,630
"cautious yet sagacious;
936
00:58:51,698 --> 00:58:54,233
"his voice deep, sharp,
937
00:58:54,301 --> 00:58:56,902
"tender sometimes,
and almost melting.
938
00:58:56,970 --> 00:59:00,272
"When talking he will recline
upon the couch at length,
939
00:59:00,340 --> 00:59:03,275
"pillowing his head
upon his bended arm,
940
00:59:03,343 --> 00:59:07,246
"and informing you, naively,
how lazy he is,
941
00:59:07,314 --> 00:59:09,682
and slow."
942
00:59:10,884 --> 00:59:13,953
Whitman's strange pose,
as always,
943
00:59:14,020 --> 00:59:16,055
was meant to deflect.
944
00:59:16,123 --> 00:59:18,791
He was the poet of health
and glad tidings
945
00:59:18,859 --> 00:59:21,927
and he didn't care to let
anybody see beyond that.
946
00:59:21,995 --> 00:59:25,131
In fact,
Whitman himself was a master
947
00:59:25,198 --> 00:59:28,801
at denying
the uglier facts at hand.
948
00:59:28,869 --> 00:59:32,538
GURGANUS:
He's loaded into a house
with many, many siblings
949
00:59:32,606 --> 00:59:36,208
many of whom have pathologies
which would fill the hour.
950
00:59:36,276 --> 00:59:37,710
He shared the bed
951
00:59:37,778 --> 00:59:40,112
with his profoundly
retarded brother,
952
00:59:40,180 --> 00:59:43,649
who overate
until he passed out
953
00:59:43,717 --> 00:59:45,584
from ingesting food.
954
00:59:47,554 --> 00:59:50,089
REYNOLDS:
His brother Andrew
became an alcoholic,
955
00:59:50,157 --> 00:59:53,159
and was married to a woman
who became a streetwalker.
956
00:59:53,226 --> 00:59:56,529
His sister Hannah
was probably psychotic.
957
00:59:56,596 --> 00:59:58,697
She was very mentally unstable.
958
00:59:58,765 --> 01:00:01,233
His older brother, Jesse--
959
01:00:01,301 --> 01:00:04,103
Walt eventually had
to commit him
960
01:00:04,171 --> 01:00:06,639
to the Kings County
Lunatic Asylum.
961
01:00:09,643 --> 01:00:12,978
GURGANUS:
The more you read
about Whitman's family life,
962
01:00:13,046 --> 01:00:15,915
the more you understand
why he would prefer
963
01:00:15,982 --> 01:00:18,017
to be riding to and fro,
964
01:00:18,085 --> 01:00:20,086
up and down Broadway
again and again.
965
01:00:20,153 --> 01:00:24,090
He had to stay away
from home as much as possible.
966
01:00:25,759 --> 01:00:27,660
NARRATOR:
In the late 1850s,
967
01:00:27,728 --> 01:00:29,628
Walt liked to jump
off the omnibus
968
01:00:29,696 --> 01:00:31,564
at Broadway and Bleecker,
969
01:00:31,631 --> 01:00:33,466
where he could descend
among the revelers
970
01:00:33,533 --> 01:00:36,035
at an underground saloon
called Pfaff's.
971
01:00:40,040 --> 01:00:42,208
GURGANUS:
Pfaff's was the...
972
01:00:42,275 --> 01:00:45,978
Andy Warhol Factory,
the Studio 54,
973
01:00:46,046 --> 01:00:50,149
the Algonquin Round Table,
all rolled into one.
974
01:00:57,257 --> 01:01:01,460
KARBIENER:
It's a place where a lot
of the theatrical set winds up.
975
01:01:01,528 --> 01:01:05,030
He's meeting cross-dressers
976
01:01:05,098 --> 01:01:07,767
and all sorts
of other edgy types.
977
01:01:10,070 --> 01:01:12,972
It's Bohemia for Whitman.
978
01:01:13,040 --> 01:01:16,275
And he realizes
he kind of fits in there.
979
01:01:18,845 --> 01:01:21,747
He-He starts wearing these pants
called "bloomers,"
980
01:01:21,815 --> 01:01:24,784
which were the first pants
that women wore.
981
01:01:24,851 --> 01:01:27,720
And they were kind
of like pantaloons, very fluffy.
982
01:01:27,788 --> 01:01:29,688
But Whitman kind of wore them
flamboyantly
983
01:01:29,756 --> 01:01:31,490
and tucked them into his boots,
984
01:01:31,558 --> 01:01:34,493
and, you know,
basically, wore women's pants.
985
01:01:34,561 --> 01:01:37,196
GURGANUS:
Additionally,
986
01:01:37,264 --> 01:01:42,201
Pfaff's was a place
to pick up beautiful young men.
987
01:01:42,269 --> 01:01:44,270
And it's very funny,
988
01:01:44,337 --> 01:01:47,873
in reading some of the earlier
histories of Pfaff's,
989
01:01:47,941 --> 01:01:49,742
the heterosexual white guys
who are writing,
990
01:01:49,810 --> 01:01:51,444
seemed always to wonder:
991
01:01:51,511 --> 01:01:54,046
why would
he go to Pfaff's so often?
992
01:01:54,114 --> 01:01:56,382
Duh! I can tell you why.
993
01:01:56,450 --> 01:01:59,351
It was where all
the other outlaws gathered.
994
01:02:02,189 --> 01:02:04,123
WHITMAN (dramatized):
One flitting glimpse,
995
01:02:04,191 --> 01:02:06,058
caught through an interstice,
996
01:02:06,126 --> 01:02:09,128
of a youth who loves me
997
01:02:09,196 --> 01:02:11,831
and whom I love,
998
01:02:11,898 --> 01:02:16,168
silently approaching
and seating himself near,
999
01:02:16,236 --> 01:02:20,139
that he may hold me
by the hand.
1000
01:02:20,207 --> 01:02:22,808
And long while,
1001
01:02:22,876 --> 01:02:26,245
amid the noises
of coming and going,
1002
01:02:26,313 --> 01:02:29,682
there we two, content,
1003
01:02:29,750 --> 01:02:32,518
happy in being together,
1004
01:02:32,586 --> 01:02:37,923
speaking a little,
perhaps not a word.
1005
01:02:40,293 --> 01:02:44,196
GURGANUS:
Of all the young men
he met at Pfaff's,
1006
01:02:44,264 --> 01:02:46,365
Fred Vaughan, an Irishman,
1007
01:02:46,433 --> 01:02:50,136
was the person
that he felt closest to.
1008
01:02:50,203 --> 01:02:54,607
In the two or three years
Whitman lived away from home,
1009
01:02:54,674 --> 01:02:58,744
Fred Vaughan was his roommate,
was his pal.
1010
01:02:58,812 --> 01:03:01,747
WHITMAN (dramatized):
And that night,
1011
01:03:01,815 --> 01:03:04,683
while all was still,
1012
01:03:04,751 --> 01:03:09,055
I heard the waters roll slowly,
continually, up the shores.
1013
01:03:10,557 --> 01:03:13,325
I heard the hissing rustle
of the liquid and sands
1014
01:03:13,393 --> 01:03:19,632
as directed to me, whispering,
to congratulate me.
1015
01:03:19,700 --> 01:03:23,602
For the one I love most
lay sleeping by me
1016
01:03:23,670 --> 01:03:27,039
under the same cover
1017
01:03:27,107 --> 01:03:28,974
in the cool night.
1018
01:03:29,042 --> 01:03:31,777
In the autumn moonbeams,
1019
01:03:31,845 --> 01:03:35,448
his face was inclined
toward me.
1020
01:03:35,515 --> 01:03:40,386
And his arm lay lightly
around my breast,
1021
01:03:40,454 --> 01:03:45,658
and that night I was happy.
1022
01:03:47,928 --> 01:03:52,231
Take notice,
land of the prairies,
1023
01:03:52,299 --> 01:03:54,467
land of the south savannas,
1024
01:03:54,534 --> 01:03:56,902
Ohio's land.
1025
01:03:56,970 --> 01:04:00,673
Take notice,
you Kanuck woods,
1026
01:04:00,741 --> 01:04:02,842
and you Lake Huron,
1027
01:04:02,909 --> 01:04:06,479
and all that with you roll
toward Niagara,
1028
01:04:06,546 --> 01:04:10,082
that you each
and all find somebody else
1029
01:04:10,150 --> 01:04:13,252
to be your singer of songs.
1030
01:04:16,923 --> 01:04:19,859
One who loves me
is jealous of me,
1031
01:04:19,926 --> 01:04:23,796
and withdraws me
from all but love.
1032
01:04:23,864 --> 01:04:26,766
With the rest, I dispense.
1033
01:04:26,833 --> 01:04:30,169
I sever from what I thought
would suffice me,
1034
01:04:30,237 --> 01:04:32,772
for it does not.
1035
01:04:36,343 --> 01:04:40,279
I am indifferent
to my own songs.
1036
01:04:40,347 --> 01:04:44,383
I will go with him I love.
1037
01:04:44,451 --> 01:04:49,555
It is to be enough for us
that we are together.
1038
01:04:49,623 --> 01:04:54,093
We never separate again.
1039
01:04:57,431 --> 01:05:00,032
GURGANUS:
Just when Whitman
felt closest to him,
1040
01:05:00,100 --> 01:05:04,003
and was literally
willing to give up his mission
1041
01:05:04,071 --> 01:05:05,905
as the great American poet--
1042
01:05:05,972 --> 01:05:09,608
imagine, he'd already published
Leaves of Grass--
1043
01:05:09,676 --> 01:05:12,178
this kid must have had
something extraordinary--
1044
01:05:12,245 --> 01:05:16,115
Mr. Vaughan decided
that he wanted a wife and kids.
1045
01:05:16,183 --> 01:05:17,583
He wanted a regular life.
1046
01:05:17,651 --> 01:05:19,852
He was tired
of lying to his family.
1047
01:05:19,920 --> 01:05:21,887
And he moved out.
1048
01:05:21,955 --> 01:05:23,456
He said good-bye.
1049
01:05:34,368 --> 01:05:36,235
WHITMAN (dramatized):
Hours continuing,
1050
01:05:36,303 --> 01:05:41,273
long, sore and heavy hearted.
1051
01:05:43,076 --> 01:05:45,978
Hours of the dusk
when I withdrew
1052
01:05:46,046 --> 01:05:48,647
to a lonesome
and unfrequented spot.
1053
01:05:48,715 --> 01:05:52,585
Seating myself.
1054
01:05:52,652 --> 01:05:55,554
Leaning my face in my hands.
1055
01:05:58,024 --> 01:06:00,559
Hours sleepless.
1056
01:06:00,627 --> 01:06:02,628
Deep in the night,
1057
01:06:02,696 --> 01:06:04,830
when I go forth,
1058
01:06:04,898 --> 01:06:06,932
speeding swiftly
the country roads
1059
01:06:07,000 --> 01:06:09,802
or through the city streets.
1060
01:06:09,870 --> 01:06:13,239
Or pacing miles and miles,
1061
01:06:13,306 --> 01:06:16,709
stifling plaintive cries.
1062
01:06:20,047 --> 01:06:23,215
GURGANUS:
These are passages
in Whitman's life that...
1063
01:06:23,283 --> 01:06:26,685
don't make you feel embarrassed
for him.
1064
01:06:26,753 --> 01:06:29,055
They make you feel closer
to him.
1065
01:06:32,993 --> 01:06:35,061
Because anybody
who hasn't experienced
1066
01:06:35,128 --> 01:06:39,031
desertion and heartache
is scarcely alive.
1067
01:06:42,602 --> 01:06:45,938
And all you can say,
in reading those poems,
1068
01:06:46,006 --> 01:06:51,310
is that this was one of
the great loves of his life.
1069
01:06:51,378 --> 01:06:53,646
We don't have images
of Fred Vaughan.
1070
01:06:53,714 --> 01:06:56,082
We don't know much about him.
1071
01:06:56,149 --> 01:06:58,751
But the residue in the poems,
1072
01:06:58,819 --> 01:07:01,821
the great chasm in the poems,
1073
01:07:01,888 --> 01:07:03,989
make the poetry
1074
01:07:04,057 --> 01:07:06,459
some of the most powerful
that he ever wrote.
1075
01:07:07,828 --> 01:07:10,396
"Sullen and suffering hours!
1076
01:07:10,464 --> 01:07:13,799
"I am ashamed,
but it is useless.
1077
01:07:13,867 --> 01:07:16,902
"I am what I am;
1078
01:07:16,970 --> 01:07:19,538
"Hours of my torment.
1079
01:07:19,606 --> 01:07:22,208
"I wonder
if other men ever have the like,
1080
01:07:22,275 --> 01:07:24,009
"out of the like feelings?
1081
01:07:26,413 --> 01:07:29,181
"Is there even
one other like me--
1082
01:07:29,249 --> 01:07:35,588
"distracted, his friend,
his lover, lost to him?
1083
01:07:35,655 --> 01:07:40,593
"Does he see himself
reflected in me?
1084
01:07:40,660 --> 01:07:43,329
"In these hours,
1085
01:07:43,397 --> 01:07:48,334
does he see the face
of his hours reflected?"
1086
01:07:58,078 --> 01:08:00,146
NARRATOR:
More than three years had passed
1087
01:08:00,213 --> 01:08:03,149
since the publication
of the second edition of Leaves,
1088
01:08:03,216 --> 01:08:05,885
but in the aftermath
of the Fred Vaughan affair,
1089
01:08:05,952 --> 01:08:08,287
Walt had something
he felt compelled
1090
01:08:08,355 --> 01:08:10,823
to share with his countrymen--
1091
01:08:10,891 --> 01:08:13,759
a simple new human equation
for national healing.
1092
01:08:13,827 --> 01:08:17,463
"Affection," he wrote,
1093
01:08:17,531 --> 01:08:23,536
shall solve every one
of the problems of freedom."
1094
01:08:23,603 --> 01:08:25,571
In January of 1860,
1095
01:08:25,639 --> 01:08:28,074
while Southern States talked
of abandoning the Union,
1096
01:08:28,141 --> 01:08:30,176
Whitman let it be known
1097
01:08:30,243 --> 01:08:32,545
that he was in search
of a publisher,
1098
01:08:32,612 --> 01:08:35,381
and a Boston firm called Thayer
& Eldridge wrote to say
1099
01:08:35,449 --> 01:08:36,982
that they wanted to publish
1100
01:08:37,050 --> 01:08:39,885
the third edition
of Leaves of Grass.
1101
01:08:39,953 --> 01:08:43,322
"We can and will sell
a large number of copies...
1102
01:08:43,390 --> 01:08:44,790
"Try us.
1103
01:08:44,858 --> 01:08:46,759
We can do good for you."
1104
01:08:50,197 --> 01:08:52,565
Whitman's old swagger returned.
1105
01:08:52,632 --> 01:08:55,901
"I feel as if things had
taken a turn with me at last,"
1106
01:08:55,969 --> 01:08:58,537
Walt wrote to his brother Jeff.
1107
01:08:58,605 --> 01:09:01,240
In Boston,
preparing the new edition
1108
01:09:01,308 --> 01:09:04,143
and its 124 new poems,
1109
01:09:04,211 --> 01:09:06,979
Whitman made sure to be seen.
1110
01:09:07,047 --> 01:09:09,815
"I create a sensation
at Washington Street,"
1111
01:09:09,883 --> 01:09:11,851
he crowed.
1112
01:09:11,918 --> 01:09:14,687
"Everybody here is so like
everybody else.
1113
01:09:14,755 --> 01:09:17,423
And I am Walt Whitman."
1114
01:09:17,491 --> 01:09:20,826
When the great man himself,
Emerson,
1115
01:09:20,894 --> 01:09:22,862
took Walt for a walk
in a Boston park
1116
01:09:22,929 --> 01:09:24,130
and suggested he tone down
1117
01:09:24,197 --> 01:09:26,565
the more explicit
sexual references,
1118
01:09:26,633 --> 01:09:28,734
Walt would have none of it.
1119
01:09:28,802 --> 01:09:32,838
"The dirtiest book in all the
world," he would later say,
1120
01:09:32,906 --> 01:09:36,008
"is the expurgated book."
1121
01:09:36,076 --> 01:09:38,477
KARBIENER:
The 1860 edition
1122
01:09:38,545 --> 01:09:40,413
has two new clusters,
as he called them--
1123
01:09:40,480 --> 01:09:45,718
the "Calamus" cluster and the
"Children of Adam" cluster.
1124
01:09:45,786 --> 01:09:48,387
Children of Adam,
like the title says,
1125
01:09:48,455 --> 01:09:50,923
has a lot to do
with heterosexual love.
1126
01:09:50,991 --> 01:09:54,260
Procreation is really
a featured element
1127
01:09:54,327 --> 01:09:56,228
of a lot of the poems.
1128
01:09:56,296 --> 01:09:58,264
But the Calamus poems--
1129
01:09:58,331 --> 01:10:00,599
man, that is where
the energy is.
1130
01:10:03,670 --> 01:10:06,439
BILLY COLLINS:
"Passing stranger,
1131
01:10:06,506 --> 01:10:10,142
you do not know
how longingly I look upon you."
1132
01:10:10,210 --> 01:10:12,445
KOMUNYAKAA:
"You must be he
1133
01:10:12,512 --> 01:10:14,447
"I was seeking
1134
01:10:14,514 --> 01:10:17,783
"or she I was seeking.
1135
01:10:17,851 --> 01:10:22,421
"It comes to be as of a dream.
1136
01:10:22,489 --> 01:10:25,024
"You give me the pleasure
1137
01:10:25,092 --> 01:10:29,395
"of your eyes, face,
flesh as we pass,
1138
01:10:29,463 --> 01:10:31,864
"You take of my beard,
1139
01:10:31,932 --> 01:10:35,801
breast, hands, in return."
1140
01:10:35,869 --> 01:10:38,704
"I am not to speak to you.
1141
01:10:38,772 --> 01:10:41,407
"I am to think of you
when I sit alone
1142
01:10:41,475 --> 01:10:43,376
"or wake at night.
1143
01:10:43,443 --> 01:10:45,244
"Alone.
1144
01:10:45,312 --> 01:10:47,012
"I am to wait.
1145
01:10:47,080 --> 01:10:49,715
"I do not doubt
I am to meet you again.
1146
01:10:49,783 --> 01:10:54,387
I am to see to it
that I do not lose you."
1147
01:11:18,545 --> 01:11:22,314
FOLSOM:
I think that Whitman
believed that
1148
01:11:22,382 --> 01:11:27,953
Leaves of Grass was going
to prevent a civil war.
1149
01:11:28,021 --> 01:11:31,690
I think he had that much faith
in the 1860 Leaves of Grass.
1150
01:11:38,598 --> 01:11:42,568
As Whitman sees it turn
from what everyone
1151
01:11:42,636 --> 01:11:45,838
thought would be a two week
series of skirmishes
1152
01:11:45,906 --> 01:11:48,741
into a brutal
and long-lasting war,
1153
01:11:48,809 --> 01:11:53,145
he begins to believe that
Leaves of Grass
1154
01:11:53,213 --> 01:11:57,283
is a failure, is over.
1155
01:11:58,985 --> 01:12:00,853
NARRATOR:
As the signal national event
1156
01:12:00,921 --> 01:12:02,922
of his lifetime unfolded,
1157
01:12:02,989 --> 01:12:05,391
Walt Whitman turned from it,
1158
01:12:05,459 --> 01:12:07,460
and from poetry.
1159
01:12:07,527 --> 01:12:10,629
For the first 18 months
of the American Civil War,
1160
01:12:10,697 --> 01:12:13,099
he fell into a deep malaise.
1161
01:12:13,166 --> 01:12:15,501
He busied himself
with a sentimental history
1162
01:12:15,569 --> 01:12:16,936
of old Brooklyn,
1163
01:12:17,003 --> 01:12:20,239
and occasionally picked fights
at Pfaff's.
1164
01:12:20,307 --> 01:12:24,243
His connection to the war
was his brother, George,
1165
01:12:24,311 --> 01:12:27,113
who was fighting
with the 51st New York.
1166
01:12:27,180 --> 01:12:29,148
Walt followed the 51st
in the newspapers,
1167
01:12:29,216 --> 01:12:31,884
through its battles
at Roanoke Island,
1168
01:12:31,952 --> 01:12:34,387
Kelly's Ford, Second Bull Run,
1169
01:12:34,454 --> 01:12:37,890
Antietam, and then
at Fredericksburg, Virginia,
1170
01:12:37,958 --> 01:12:41,293
where on December 13, 1862,
1171
01:12:41,361 --> 01:12:43,529
the Union's commanding general
had ordered
1172
01:12:43,597 --> 01:12:47,400
14 futile attacks against
fortified Rebel positions.
1173
01:12:49,069 --> 01:12:51,804
When George's name appeared
in the casualty lists
1174
01:12:51,872 --> 01:12:56,042
in the New York newspapers,
just before Christmas of 1862,
1175
01:12:56,109 --> 01:13:01,113
Walt headed to the front
to find his brother.
1176
01:13:04,251 --> 01:13:07,787
FOLSOM:
Whitman comes to Fredericksburg
1177
01:13:07,854 --> 01:13:10,823
not knowing
what he's going to find,
1178
01:13:10,891 --> 01:13:14,427
and walks by the mansion
1179
01:13:14,494 --> 01:13:16,662
that has been turned
into the hospital.
1180
01:13:18,899 --> 01:13:25,404
And what he recalls seeing
is a pile of severed limbs,
1181
01:13:25,472 --> 01:13:30,876
amputated limbs,
arms and legs of the soldiers.
1182
01:13:33,280 --> 01:13:36,148
And this war becomes for him
1183
01:13:36,216 --> 01:13:38,617
a war on the body,
1184
01:13:38,685 --> 01:13:41,821
as well as
a War Between the States.
1185
01:13:46,526 --> 01:13:49,028
NARRATOR:
George Whitman
was alive and well,
1186
01:13:49,096 --> 01:13:50,663
but Walt remained
in Fredericksburg
1187
01:13:50,731 --> 01:13:54,433
for more than a week,
drawing nearer the war each day.
1188
01:13:55,702 --> 01:13:57,403
In his small green notebook,
1189
01:13:57,471 --> 01:13:59,572
Whitman began
recording the sights,
1190
01:13:59,639 --> 01:14:02,708
the sounds and the smells
of the camp,
1191
01:14:02,776 --> 01:14:04,977
and the soldier language
of the front.
1192
01:14:05,045 --> 01:14:08,481
He walked the charred
and denuded landscape
1193
01:14:08,548 --> 01:14:10,783
of the now still battlefield,
1194
01:14:10,851 --> 01:14:13,552
watched the silent
burial teams at work,
1195
01:14:13,620 --> 01:14:16,689
pulled back
the army-issue blankets
1196
01:14:16,757 --> 01:14:19,024
to look on faces of the dead,
1197
01:14:19,092 --> 01:14:22,862
and visited with the men
who would soon enough be dead.
1198
01:14:25,465 --> 01:14:27,933
WHITMAN (dramatized):
I do not see that I do much good
1199
01:14:28,001 --> 01:14:30,336
to these wounded and dying,
1200
01:14:30,404 --> 01:14:32,304
but I cannot leave them.
1201
01:14:34,474 --> 01:14:39,912
Once in a while, some youngster
holds on to me convulsively,
1202
01:14:39,980 --> 01:14:42,281
and I do what I can for him.
1203
01:14:42,349 --> 01:14:46,619
At any rate, stop with him
and sit near him for hours,
1204
01:14:46,686 --> 01:14:48,020
if he wishes it.
1205
01:14:50,290 --> 01:14:53,292
NARRATOR:
Doctors in the field hospital
noticed Whitman,
1206
01:14:53,360 --> 01:14:56,195
and asked him to tend
to a trainload of casualties
1207
01:14:56,263 --> 01:14:58,831
headed north to the capitol.
1208
01:14:58,899 --> 01:15:00,966
When a few of the wounded
on that train asked
1209
01:15:01,034 --> 01:15:03,736
the favor of his company
at the hospitals in Washington,
1210
01:15:03,804 --> 01:15:06,572
Walt could not refuse.
1211
01:15:10,477 --> 01:15:13,679
The hospitals Whitman entered
were a primitive business.
1212
01:15:13,747 --> 01:15:17,550
Surgeons sharpened knives
on their boot soles.
1213
01:15:17,617 --> 01:15:21,587
"We knew nothing about
antiseptics," wrote one doctor,
1214
01:15:21,655 --> 01:15:23,522
and therefore used none."
1215
01:15:26,493 --> 01:15:28,527
Infection cut through
those wards.
1216
01:15:28,595 --> 01:15:34,233
Gangrene cases had to watch as
their tissue was eaten away.
1217
01:15:34,301 --> 01:15:37,136
The smell was so bad
they were often isolated
1218
01:15:37,204 --> 01:15:39,071
and left to die alone.
1219
01:15:42,476 --> 01:15:44,577
WHITMAN (dramatized):
You hear groans or other sounds
1220
01:15:44,644 --> 01:15:49,648
of unendurable suffering
from two or three cots,
1221
01:15:49,716 --> 01:15:52,151
but in the main, there is quiet.
1222
01:15:53,653 --> 01:15:56,222
Most of these sick or hurt
1223
01:15:56,289 --> 01:15:59,592
are entirely without friend
or acquaintances here.
1224
01:16:01,595 --> 01:16:05,364
In one of the hospitals
I find Thomas Haley,
1225
01:16:05,432 --> 01:16:08,834
shot through the lungs,
inevitably dying.
1226
01:16:10,170 --> 01:16:14,440
The poor fellow is like
a frightened animal.
1227
01:16:15,776 --> 01:16:17,243
NARRATOR:
"What was a man to do?"
1228
01:16:17,310 --> 01:16:19,412
Walt would later write.
1229
01:16:19,479 --> 01:16:22,248
"There were thousands,
tens of thousands,
1230
01:16:22,315 --> 01:16:24,950
hundreds of thousands
needing me."
1231
01:16:26,486 --> 01:16:29,088
GURGANUS:
He found a job as a copyist,
1232
01:16:29,156 --> 01:16:32,024
and he would work until noon.
1233
01:16:32,092 --> 01:16:37,430
Then he would go to the wards
from noon until 4:00.
1234
01:16:37,497 --> 01:16:41,534
At 4:00, he would go back
to the Connors' house.
1235
01:16:41,601 --> 01:16:42,835
He would take a bath.
1236
01:16:42,903 --> 01:16:44,103
He would refresh himself,
1237
01:16:44,171 --> 01:16:46,338
probably take a nap,
have a supper.
1238
01:16:46,406 --> 01:16:49,141
And then at 6:00,
he would return to the ward
1239
01:16:49,209 --> 01:16:52,378
and stay from 6:00 to 9:00.
1240
01:16:52,446 --> 01:16:55,915
But if a particular soldier
wanted his company,
1241
01:16:55,982 --> 01:16:57,616
he would stay the night
at the hospital
1242
01:16:57,684 --> 01:17:00,920
and go directly from the ward
to work the next morning.
1243
01:17:02,456 --> 01:17:04,523
NARRATOR:
In the spring of 1863,
1244
01:17:04,591 --> 01:17:07,693
Whitman made his rounds
from his small apartment
1245
01:17:07,761 --> 01:17:09,795
to his government
office building
1246
01:17:09,863 --> 01:17:12,298
to the 40 hospitals
in and around Washington,
1247
01:17:12,365 --> 01:17:15,835
roaming through a nervous city.
1248
01:17:15,902 --> 01:17:18,571
Uniformed soldiers
peopled the streets,
1249
01:17:18,638 --> 01:17:20,740
and bunked down in the capitol
1250
01:17:20,807 --> 01:17:23,109
or in the park next
to the Washington Monument,
1251
01:17:23,176 --> 01:17:28,347
whose construction had
stalled at a squat 152 feet.
1252
01:17:28,415 --> 01:17:30,149
Completion was no sure thing.
1253
01:17:30,217 --> 01:17:32,451
News of General Lee's victory
1254
01:17:32,519 --> 01:17:35,087
over the Union forces
at Chancellorsville
1255
01:17:35,155 --> 01:17:38,090
echoed through the capitol city.
1256
01:17:38,158 --> 01:17:41,927
The Rebels were at the gates,
for all anyone knew.
1257
01:17:41,995 --> 01:17:43,896
WHITMAN (dramatized):
The squad of the guard
1258
01:17:43,964 --> 01:17:46,999
patrolling about,
examining passes,
1259
01:17:47,067 --> 01:17:49,201
a sentry at the door,
1260
01:17:49,269 --> 01:17:51,604
a cavalryman on horseback
1261
01:17:51,671 --> 01:17:54,006
with naked sabre
over his shoulder,
1262
01:17:54,074 --> 01:17:56,675
like a statue at the corner.
1263
01:17:58,612 --> 01:18:01,580
A great white Aladdin's palace
1264
01:18:01,648 --> 01:18:03,983
with an unfinished dome,
1265
01:18:04,051 --> 01:18:05,885
(reported to be cracking),
1266
01:18:05,952 --> 01:18:08,988
The Goddess of Liberty,
1267
01:18:09,056 --> 01:18:11,590
meanwhile standing
in the mud waiting.
1268
01:18:13,493 --> 01:18:16,462
The light falls, falls,
1269
01:18:16,530 --> 01:18:20,633
touches the cold white
of the great public edifices--
1270
01:18:21,902 --> 01:18:25,271
touches with
a kind of death-glaze
1271
01:18:25,338 --> 01:18:28,607
here and there,
the windows of Washington.
1272
01:18:31,545 --> 01:18:34,346
NARRATOR:
This awful scene,
Whitman had come to believe,
1273
01:18:34,414 --> 01:18:40,419
was beyond a poet's healing;
certainly beyond his healing.
1274
01:18:40,487 --> 01:18:44,390
Walt had no plans to make new
editions of Leaves of Grass.
1275
01:18:44,458 --> 01:18:47,960
He had dedicated himself
to his duty in the hospitals.
1276
01:18:48,028 --> 01:18:51,030
That was all he had to give.
1277
01:18:51,098 --> 01:18:53,532
What hope he still had
for the continuation
1278
01:18:53,600 --> 01:18:56,035
of America's grand
democratic experiment,
1279
01:18:56,103 --> 01:18:58,671
he grafted onto a new savior.
1280
01:19:00,807 --> 01:19:04,543
"I see the President almost
every day," he wrote.
1281
01:19:04,611 --> 01:19:06,979
"We have got to where
we exchange bows,
1282
01:19:07,047 --> 01:19:08,781
"and very cordial ones.
1283
01:19:08,849 --> 01:19:11,951
"I never see the man without
feeling that he is one
1284
01:19:12,018 --> 01:19:14,153
to become personally
attached to."
1285
01:19:16,490 --> 01:19:19,091
REYNOLDS:
Lincoln embodied
everything that the I,
1286
01:19:19,159 --> 01:19:24,029
the first person of Leaves of
Grass, was meant to embody.
1287
01:19:25,632 --> 01:19:29,502
He was the average, ordinary,
everyday American.
1288
01:19:29,569 --> 01:19:32,004
And yet, he was gifted
with such eloquence.
1289
01:19:32,072 --> 01:19:34,206
He had a kind
of poetic side to him.
1290
01:19:37,144 --> 01:19:41,080
KARBIENER:
Apparently, Walt used to wait
in front of the White House
1291
01:19:41,148 --> 01:19:43,182
just for a glimpse
1292
01:19:43,250 --> 01:19:45,684
of his "Redeemer President,"
as he called him.
1293
01:19:47,320 --> 01:19:48,788
I remember a quote
1294
01:19:48,855 --> 01:19:51,957
that "Lincoln was so ugly,
he was beautiful."
1295
01:19:56,696 --> 01:19:59,398
NARRATOR:
Walt may have recognized
something of himself
1296
01:19:59,466 --> 01:20:01,934
in the stooped shoulders
and sad eyes
1297
01:20:02,002 --> 01:20:04,403
of the besieged
and unpopular president.
1298
01:20:05,605 --> 01:20:08,941
In 1863, Abraham Lincoln
was under attack
1299
01:20:09,009 --> 01:20:11,644
for instituting the first
federal income tax
1300
01:20:11,712 --> 01:20:13,813
and a military draft.
1301
01:20:13,880 --> 01:20:15,448
And for signing
the controversial
1302
01:20:15,515 --> 01:20:17,616
"Emancipation Proclamation,"
1303
01:20:17,684 --> 01:20:20,319
freeing the slaves
in any state in rebellion.
1304
01:20:21,421 --> 01:20:23,689
Whitman backed him on all of it.
1305
01:20:23,757 --> 01:20:27,927
Above all, Walt honored
Lincoln's vow to save the Union,
1306
01:20:27,994 --> 01:20:29,829
even as the terrible cost
1307
01:20:29,896 --> 01:20:32,064
of the President's
stubborn will grew.
1308
01:20:33,433 --> 01:20:35,668
After every big battle
near Washington,
1309
01:20:35,736 --> 01:20:37,903
hundreds of wounded
a day debarked
1310
01:20:37,971 --> 01:20:39,372
at the foot of Sixth Street,
1311
01:20:39,439 --> 01:20:41,507
more than a thousand some days.
1312
01:20:42,776 --> 01:20:44,844
"The war," Whitman wrote,
1313
01:20:44,911 --> 01:20:47,613
"seems to me like a great
slaughterhouse,
1314
01:20:47,681 --> 01:20:50,182
and the men mutually butchering
each other."
1315
01:20:52,452 --> 01:20:56,088
WHITMAN (dramatized):
When I am present at the most
appalling scenes,
1316
01:20:56,156 --> 01:20:59,558
deaths, operations,
sickening wounds,
1317
01:20:59,626 --> 01:21:01,861
perhaps full of maggots,
1318
01:21:01,928 --> 01:21:04,630
I do not give out or budge.
1319
01:21:06,600 --> 01:21:10,136
But often, hours afterwards,
1320
01:21:10,203 --> 01:21:13,005
I feel sick
and actually tremble.
1321
01:21:15,575 --> 01:21:17,343
Yesterday was the worst,
1322
01:21:17,411 --> 01:21:20,312
many with bad and bloody wounds,
1323
01:21:20,380 --> 01:21:23,416
inevitably long neglected.
1324
01:21:23,483 --> 01:21:27,153
The sight of some cases
brought tears to my eyes.
1325
01:21:30,857 --> 01:21:34,894
I had the luck yesterday,
however, to do some good.
1326
01:21:36,029 --> 01:21:38,030
FOLSOM:
He would
1327
01:21:38,098 --> 01:21:43,402
get dressed up
and wash his beard
1328
01:21:43,470 --> 01:21:45,871
and all those young soldiers
1329
01:21:45,939 --> 01:21:47,907
would call him "old man,"
even though he was
1330
01:21:47,974 --> 01:21:52,078
only 40-some years old
at the time.
1331
01:21:52,145 --> 01:21:55,381
Because he really did look,
as one soldier said,
1332
01:21:55,449 --> 01:21:58,250
"like Santa Claus coming
through the wards,"
1333
01:21:58,318 --> 01:21:59,952
And he was carrying
his little bag,
1334
01:22:00,020 --> 01:22:02,421
and he would give them candy,
and he would give them treats,
1335
01:22:02,489 --> 01:22:06,559
and he would take down their
requests for small things
1336
01:22:06,626 --> 01:22:09,295
that he would go and get.
1337
01:22:09,362 --> 01:22:12,798
GURGANUS:
His bag contained
tobacco aplenty.
1338
01:22:12,866 --> 01:22:15,801
And, like a good mother,
no child ever got
1339
01:22:15,869 --> 01:22:17,269
more than the other child.
1340
01:22:18,905 --> 01:22:20,439
He would have notepaper.
1341
01:22:20,507 --> 01:22:22,141
He would have jelly.
1342
01:22:22,209 --> 01:22:23,409
He would have pens.
1343
01:22:23,477 --> 01:22:24,944
He would have pickles.
1344
01:22:25,011 --> 01:22:28,948
He would have biscuits, um...
1345
01:22:29,015 --> 01:22:31,650
any treat that a soldier
could have imagined.
1346
01:22:34,521 --> 01:22:37,857
There was a moment
when he gave 15 cents
1347
01:22:37,924 --> 01:22:41,193
to one of these boys
and the boy said,
1348
01:22:41,261 --> 01:22:44,296
"I'm gonna buy milk
from the milk lady..."
1349
01:22:45,632 --> 01:22:47,266
and then burst into tears.
1350
01:23:05,619 --> 01:23:09,055
The intensity of that...
1351
01:23:09,122 --> 01:23:13,325
sense of encountering
the strangers again...
1352
01:23:15,562 --> 01:23:18,898
...and feeling tremendous
affection for them,
1353
01:23:18,965 --> 01:23:21,934
demonstrating that affection.
1354
01:23:22,002 --> 01:23:24,270
Many of the soldiers,
as they were dying,
1355
01:23:24,337 --> 01:23:26,205
the last kiss they would have,
1356
01:23:26,273 --> 01:23:28,441
the last moment of affection
they would have,
1357
01:23:28,508 --> 01:23:31,277
would be from this bearded poet
1358
01:23:31,344 --> 01:23:36,182
who had taken time
to stop with them.
1359
01:23:36,249 --> 01:23:37,750
There were these,
1360
01:23:37,818 --> 01:23:41,087
again, moments of what he had
learned in New York
1361
01:23:41,154 --> 01:23:43,723
to be those moments
of urban affection,
1362
01:23:43,790 --> 01:23:47,126
that in the hospital became
national affection--
1363
01:23:47,194 --> 01:23:50,162
all of these soldiers
from all over the country,
1364
01:23:50,230 --> 01:23:54,166
Southern soldiers
as well as Northern soldiers.
1365
01:23:55,535 --> 01:23:58,003
There really was a sense
in those hospital wards
1366
01:23:58,071 --> 01:24:01,107
of Whitman encountering
the country,
1367
01:24:01,174 --> 01:24:04,310
the entire nation,
in a way that he never would
1368
01:24:04,378 --> 01:24:09,281
in any other form,
in any other setting.
1369
01:24:09,349 --> 01:24:13,252
They were all there
and he would absorb it all,
1370
01:24:13,320 --> 01:24:15,354
show affection for them all.
1371
01:24:17,991 --> 01:24:20,626
WHITMAN (dramatized):
I have spent a long time
1372
01:24:20,694 --> 01:24:27,033
with Oscar F. Wilber,
Company G, 154th, New York,
1373
01:24:27,100 --> 01:24:31,504
low with chronic diarrhea
and a bad wound also.
1374
01:24:33,540 --> 01:24:39,678
He talked of death,
and said he did not fear it.
1375
01:24:39,746 --> 01:24:43,883
He behaved very manly
and affectionate.
1376
01:24:45,652 --> 01:24:48,287
The kiss I gave him
as I was leaving,
1377
01:24:48,355 --> 01:24:51,090
he return'd fourfold.
1378
01:24:53,693 --> 01:24:56,262
He died a few days after.
1379
01:25:10,877 --> 01:25:12,678
NARRATOR:
Whitman's efforts
in the hospitals--
1380
01:25:12,746 --> 01:25:17,249
600 visits, he figured,
to more than 100,000 patients--
1381
01:25:17,317 --> 01:25:19,985
left him near collapse.
1382
01:25:20,053 --> 01:25:23,923
He suffered from insomnia,
night sweats, night terrors,
1383
01:25:23,990 --> 01:25:27,626
headaches, sore throat,
and buzzing in the ears.
1384
01:25:29,029 --> 01:25:30,996
Alone with his ailments,
1385
01:25:31,064 --> 01:25:35,568
in a spartan third-floor walk-up
ten blocks from the White House,
1386
01:25:35,635 --> 01:25:37,436
Walt Whitman found
strength enough
1387
01:25:37,504 --> 01:25:40,373
to extend one final
and solemn service
1388
01:25:40,440 --> 01:25:44,176
to the soldiers
he'd come to know so well.
1389
01:25:44,244 --> 01:25:45,911
He opened his notebooks
1390
01:25:45,979 --> 01:25:49,615
and began sketching
his memorial to them all
1391
01:25:49,683 --> 01:25:53,185
in a new book of poetry
he called Drum-Taps.
1392
01:25:54,721 --> 01:25:56,655
ESPADA:
"From the stump of the arm,
1393
01:25:56,723 --> 01:26:01,594
"the amputated hand,
I undo the clotted lint.
1394
01:26:01,661 --> 01:26:03,396
"Remove the slough.
1395
01:26:03,463 --> 01:26:05,798
"Wash off the matter and blood.
1396
01:26:09,202 --> 01:26:12,104
"Back on his pillow
the soldier bends
1397
01:26:12,172 --> 01:26:15,241
"with curved neck
and side falling head.
1398
01:26:19,946 --> 01:26:21,881
"His eyes are closed.
1399
01:26:21,948 --> 01:26:23,816
"His face is pale.
1400
01:26:26,787 --> 01:26:29,755
"He dares not look
on the bloody stump
1401
01:26:29,823 --> 01:26:32,358
"and has not yet looked on it.
1402
01:26:59,653 --> 01:27:01,620
"I am faithful.
1403
01:27:01,688 --> 01:27:05,791
"I do not give out.
1404
01:27:05,859 --> 01:27:10,196
"The fractured thigh, the knee,
the wound in the abdomen,
1405
01:27:10,263 --> 01:27:13,666
"these and more I dress
with impassive hand.
1406
01:27:13,734 --> 01:27:17,803
"Yet deep in my breast a fire,
a burning flame.
1407
01:27:17,871 --> 01:27:21,507
"Thus in silence,
in dreams' projections,
1408
01:27:21,575 --> 01:27:25,778
"Returning, resuming, I thread
my way through the hospitals,
1409
01:27:25,846 --> 01:27:29,715
"The hurt and the wounded
I pacify with soothing hand,
1410
01:27:29,783 --> 01:27:32,485
"I sit by the restless
all the dark night...
1411
01:27:35,722 --> 01:27:38,157
"Some are so young...
1412
01:27:39,326 --> 01:27:42,094
Some suffer so much."
1413
01:27:57,844 --> 01:28:00,613
NARRATOR:
Walt Whitman completed
the manuscript for Drum-Taps
1414
01:28:00,680 --> 01:28:04,050
around the time of Lincoln's
second inauguration.
1415
01:28:04,117 --> 01:28:07,053
A month later, Lee surrendered
his army at Appomattox
1416
01:28:07,120 --> 01:28:10,990
and the bloody fighting
was over.
1417
01:28:11,058 --> 01:28:13,926
Whitman's hero president
had saved the Union,
1418
01:28:13,994 --> 01:28:15,261
and the poet was convinced
1419
01:28:15,328 --> 01:28:19,765
Abraham Lincoln could repair
the national breach.
1420
01:28:19,833 --> 01:28:23,002
Five days after the surrender,
on Good Friday,
1421
01:28:23,070 --> 01:28:26,205
Walt was back home in Brooklyn
with his family.
1422
01:28:26,273 --> 01:28:30,142
George was finally home, too,
after four years at war.
1423
01:28:30,210 --> 01:28:32,244
Jeff was prospering.
1424
01:28:32,312 --> 01:28:34,313
Drum-Taps was ready
for the printer.
1425
01:28:34,381 --> 01:28:38,317
An early bloom of daffodils,
hyacinths, and tulips
1426
01:28:38,385 --> 01:28:40,352
scented Portland Avenue,
1427
01:28:40,420 --> 01:28:43,322
and there,
at his mother's house,
1428
01:28:43,390 --> 01:28:45,324
Whitman received news
1429
01:28:45,392 --> 01:28:49,628
of the last sad casualty
of the long war.
1430
01:28:52,833 --> 01:28:54,700
REYNOLDS:
Southerners as well
as Northerners
1431
01:28:54,768 --> 01:29:00,706
were stunned and were,
on some level, grieved
1432
01:29:00,774 --> 01:29:04,076
by the assassination
of Abraham Lincoln.
1433
01:29:07,347 --> 01:29:11,984
So Lincoln becomes,
in death, in a sense,
1434
01:29:12,052 --> 01:29:14,854
a greater version
of what he had been in life.
1435
01:29:19,326 --> 01:29:23,996
COLLINS:
"Coffin that passes
through lanes and streets,
1436
01:29:24,064 --> 01:29:25,264
"Through day and night,
1437
01:29:25,332 --> 01:29:30,469
"with the great cloud
darkening the land,
1438
01:29:30,537 --> 01:29:33,572
"With the pomp
of the inloop'd flags,
1439
01:29:33,640 --> 01:29:36,809
"with the cities draped
in black,
1440
01:29:36,877 --> 01:29:39,245
"With the show
of the States themselves,
1441
01:29:39,312 --> 01:29:43,682
"as of crape-veil'd women,
standing,
1442
01:29:43,750 --> 01:29:46,485
"With processions
long and winding,
1443
01:29:46,553 --> 01:29:48,821
"and the flambeaus of the night,
1444
01:29:48,889 --> 01:29:51,190
"With the countless
torches lit--
1445
01:29:51,258 --> 01:29:55,694
with the silent sea of faces,
and the unbared heads."
1446
01:29:59,599 --> 01:30:01,667
REYNOLDS:
Walt Whitman, who, above all,
had been searching
1447
01:30:01,735 --> 01:30:05,371
for unity, comradeship,
togetherness,
1448
01:30:05,439 --> 01:30:09,241
feels that in the death
of Abraham Lincoln
1449
01:30:09,309 --> 01:30:12,378
we finally have
that kind of unity
1450
01:30:12,446 --> 01:30:16,082
that America had lacked
before that.
1451
01:30:16,149 --> 01:30:19,685
The unity
that is finally achieved
1452
01:30:19,753 --> 01:30:22,354
and that Whitman's early poetry
could-couldn't--
1453
01:30:22,422 --> 01:30:26,158
tried to achieve
but never could.
1454
01:30:26,226 --> 01:30:30,963
WHITMAN (dramatized):
Then there is a cement
to the whole people,
1455
01:30:31,031 --> 01:30:33,399
subtle, more underlying,
1456
01:30:33,467 --> 01:30:36,102
than any thing
in written constitution,
1457
01:30:36,169 --> 01:30:39,338
or courts, or armies.
1458
01:30:39,406 --> 01:30:43,242
Namely, the cement of a death
identified thoroughly
1459
01:30:43,310 --> 01:30:46,445
with that people, at its head,
1460
01:30:46,513 --> 01:30:48,381
and for its sake.
1461
01:30:50,317 --> 01:30:52,351
Strange, is it not,
1462
01:30:52,419 --> 01:30:55,988
that battles, martyrs, agonies,
1463
01:30:56,056 --> 01:31:00,025
blood, even assassination,
1464
01:31:00,093 --> 01:31:02,094
should so condense,
1465
01:31:02,162 --> 01:31:06,699
perhaps only really,
lastingly condense,
1466
01:31:06,767 --> 01:31:10,236
a Nationality.
1467
01:31:10,303 --> 01:31:12,204
FOLSOM:
It's only going to be
after the Civil War
1468
01:31:12,272 --> 01:31:15,274
that he is going to begin
1469
01:31:15,342 --> 01:31:19,912
to re-conceive and re-imagine
Leaves of Grass
1470
01:31:19,980 --> 01:31:24,116
so radically that,
after the Civil War,
1471
01:31:24,184 --> 01:31:26,018
he would actually say,
at one point,
1472
01:31:26,086 --> 01:31:28,954
that the Civil War
is the very heart and the center
1473
01:31:29,022 --> 01:31:31,590
of Leaves of Grass
around which the book works.
1474
01:31:40,067 --> 01:31:44,937
In the 1867 edition,
he actually sews in--
1475
01:31:45,005 --> 01:31:48,007
I think of it
as an act of suturing--
1476
01:31:48,075 --> 01:31:50,476
Drum-Taps,
the Civil War poem,
1477
01:31:50,544 --> 01:31:52,912
into the back
of Leaves of Grass.
1478
01:31:57,417 --> 01:32:02,321
And, in that act,
he has made the decision
1479
01:32:02,389 --> 01:32:05,791
that Leaves of Grass
is large enough,
1480
01:32:05,859 --> 01:32:09,562
absorptive enough, broad enough
1481
01:32:09,629 --> 01:32:15,234
to absorb
this national disaster,
1482
01:32:15,302 --> 01:32:17,636
and what new life,
now, for America,
1483
01:32:17,704 --> 01:32:19,739
can possibly grow out of it.
1484
01:32:40,460 --> 01:32:42,795
NARRATOR:
The war completed
Leaves of Grass
1485
01:32:42,863 --> 01:32:45,564
and put a period on an era.
1486
01:32:45,632 --> 01:32:49,301
Walt Whitman spent many
of the following 25 years
1487
01:32:49,369 --> 01:32:53,539
confined to a small house
he bought in Camden, New Jersey,
1488
01:32:53,607 --> 01:32:56,375
while the country the poet
had so lovingly absorbed
1489
01:32:56,443 --> 01:32:58,778
faded from view.
1490
01:32:58,845 --> 01:33:02,815
Post-war America eluded
Whitman's grasp;
1491
01:33:02,883 --> 01:33:07,453
what grew from the Civil War
disappointed.
1492
01:33:09,689 --> 01:33:11,957
Whitman added little
to Leaves of Grass
1493
01:33:12,025 --> 01:33:14,894
in the long years after the war.
1494
01:33:14,961 --> 01:33:16,896
He tinkered and edited,
1495
01:33:16,963 --> 01:33:20,166
pulled some of the more
revealing Calamus poems,
1496
01:33:20,233 --> 01:33:22,968
attached small addenda.
1497
01:33:23,036 --> 01:33:25,971
The aging poet suffered
a series of strokes.
1498
01:33:26,039 --> 01:33:29,175
His legs failed him,
his lungs withered,
1499
01:33:29,242 --> 01:33:31,577
abscesses surrounded his heart.
1500
01:33:31,645 --> 01:33:33,245
One growth eroded a rib,
1501
01:33:33,313 --> 01:33:35,681
leaving him
in excruciating pain.
1502
01:33:35,749 --> 01:33:40,086
He had an enlarged prostate,
a fatty liver, and a gallstone.
1503
01:33:41,788 --> 01:33:45,024
KARBIENER:
At the end of the 1880s,
he was wheelchair-bound
1504
01:33:45,092 --> 01:33:49,462
and really found one side of
his body completely paralyzed.
1505
01:33:49,529 --> 01:33:51,864
So this was a man
on all fronts, you know--
1506
01:33:51,932 --> 01:33:54,700
intellectual, political,
personal--
1507
01:33:54,768 --> 01:33:57,770
saw some debilitating changes.
1508
01:33:57,838 --> 01:34:01,140
WHITMAN (dramatized):
Approaching,
1509
01:34:01,208 --> 01:34:05,177
nearing, curious,
1510
01:34:05,245 --> 01:34:09,915
thou dim uncertain specter--
1511
01:34:09,983 --> 01:34:13,386
bringest thou life or death?
1512
01:34:15,389 --> 01:34:20,693
Strength, weakness, blindness,
1513
01:34:20,761 --> 01:34:24,563
more paralysis and heavier?
1514
01:34:24,631 --> 01:34:27,666
Or placid skies and sun?
1515
01:34:27,734 --> 01:34:29,668
Wilt stir the waters yet
1516
01:34:29,736 --> 01:34:34,640
or haply cut me short for good?
1517
01:34:34,708 --> 01:34:37,843
Or leave me here as now,
1518
01:34:37,911 --> 01:34:44,350
Dull, parrot-like and old,
1519
01:34:44,418 --> 01:34:50,156
with crack'd voice harping,
screeching?
1520
01:34:52,592 --> 01:34:54,693
KARBIENER:
You have poems
that are complaining
1521
01:34:54,761 --> 01:34:57,496
about old age
and about cricketiness
1522
01:34:57,564 --> 01:35:00,332
and, you know, he even writes
about his body's condition.
1523
01:35:00,400 --> 01:35:02,435
You learn he's got diarrhea,
you know,
1524
01:35:02,502 --> 01:35:04,003
but to him that's important.
1525
01:35:04,071 --> 01:35:06,138
He's putting his body on paper.
1526
01:35:08,275 --> 01:35:10,743
But there's something else, too.
1527
01:35:10,811 --> 01:35:12,211
There's... there's an idea
1528
01:35:12,279 --> 01:35:15,081
that there's something
beyond the body.
1529
01:35:15,148 --> 01:35:18,951
It's as if he knows he's got
to leave that shell behind,
1530
01:35:19,019 --> 01:35:22,288
and yet there's something
to look forward to, also.
1531
01:35:24,324 --> 01:35:27,526
WHITMAN (dramatized):
Ah, whispering,
1532
01:35:27,594 --> 01:35:31,497
something again unseen.
1533
01:35:33,633 --> 01:35:36,435
Where late this heated day
1534
01:35:36,503 --> 01:35:39,405
thou enterest at my window.
1535
01:35:41,541 --> 01:35:44,977
Thou laving, tempering all,
1536
01:35:45,045 --> 01:35:47,980
cool-freshing,
1537
01:35:48,048 --> 01:35:50,950
gently vitalizing.
1538
01:35:51,017 --> 01:35:54,987
Me, old,
1539
01:35:55,055 --> 01:35:58,324
alone, sick,
1540
01:35:58,392 --> 01:36:01,293
weak-down, melted,
1541
01:36:01,361 --> 01:36:04,263
worn with sweat.
1542
01:36:06,366 --> 01:36:08,634
Thou, nestling,
1543
01:36:08,702 --> 01:36:13,105
folding close and firm yet soft.
1544
01:36:15,242 --> 01:36:18,511
Companion better than talk,
1545
01:36:18,578 --> 01:36:21,047
book,
1546
01:36:21,114 --> 01:36:24,116
art.
1547
01:36:24,184 --> 01:36:27,119
ESPADA:
What's striking to me
1548
01:36:27,187 --> 01:36:29,688
is how he lets down his guard
1549
01:36:29,756 --> 01:36:33,092
and how he honestly
expresses himself
1550
01:36:33,160 --> 01:36:36,629
as a... a sick, old man,
1551
01:36:36,696 --> 01:36:40,032
grateful for a moment's breeze
1552
01:36:40,100 --> 01:36:43,035
which may
or may not be indicative
1553
01:36:43,103 --> 01:36:45,971
of something out there
in the universe.
1554
01:36:47,474 --> 01:36:50,676
WHITMAN (dramatized):
So sweet thy primitive taste
1555
01:36:50,744 --> 01:36:53,279
to breathe within.
1556
01:36:53,346 --> 01:36:58,150
Thy soothing fingers
on my face and hands.
1557
01:37:00,053 --> 01:37:03,989
Thou, messenger,
magical strange bringer
1558
01:37:04,057 --> 01:37:06,826
to body and spirit of me.
1559
01:37:06,893 --> 01:37:08,794
Distances balked,
1560
01:37:08,862 --> 01:37:11,831
occult medicines penetrating me
1561
01:37:11,898 --> 01:37:14,800
from head to foot.
1562
01:37:14,868 --> 01:37:18,170
I feel the sky,
1563
01:37:18,238 --> 01:37:20,373
the prairies vast.
1564
01:37:20,440 --> 01:37:24,310
I feel the mighty
northern lakes,
1565
01:37:24,378 --> 01:37:28,314
I feel the ocean and the forest,
1566
01:37:28,382 --> 01:37:31,817
somehow I feel the globe itself
1567
01:37:31,885 --> 01:37:35,855
swift swimming in space.
1568
01:37:35,922 --> 01:37:39,925
Thou blown from lips so loved,
1569
01:37:39,993 --> 01:37:44,697
now gone haply
from endless store,
1570
01:37:44,765 --> 01:37:47,199
God-sent.
1571
01:37:47,267 --> 01:37:51,137
For thou art spiritual, Godly.
1572
01:37:52,906 --> 01:37:55,975
Minister to speak to me,
here and now,
1573
01:37:56,043 --> 01:37:59,979
what word has never told
and cannot tell,
1574
01:38:00,047 --> 01:38:02,915
hast thou no soul?
1575
01:38:04,851 --> 01:38:07,820
Can I not know,
1576
01:38:07,888 --> 01:38:10,756
identify thee?
1577
01:38:27,307 --> 01:38:30,076
NARRATOR:
Walt Whitman died
in Camden, New Jersey,
1578
01:38:30,143 --> 01:38:32,878
in 1892.
1579
01:38:32,946 --> 01:38:35,648
His life's work,
Leaves of Grass,
1580
01:38:35,716 --> 01:38:39,118
which he had tended obsessively
for 35 years,
1581
01:38:39,186 --> 01:38:41,854
through seven separate editions,
1582
01:38:41,922 --> 01:38:45,858
had grown from 95 pages
and 12 poems
1583
01:38:45,926 --> 01:38:51,530
to 400 pages
and more than 300 poems.
1584
01:38:51,598 --> 01:38:56,202
No wife survived him,
and no children;
1585
01:38:56,269 --> 01:38:58,504
he left
his most cherished possession,
1586
01:38:58,572 --> 01:39:02,441
Leaves of Grass,
to anyone who would have it.
1587
01:39:04,845 --> 01:39:08,681
WHITMAN (dramatized):
I depart as air.
1588
01:39:10,117 --> 01:39:14,053
I shake my white locks
at the runaway sun,
1589
01:39:14,121 --> 01:39:19,759
I effuse my flesh in eddies
and drift it in lacy jags.
1590
01:39:22,062 --> 01:39:25,331
I bequeath myself to the dirt
1591
01:39:25,399 --> 01:39:28,934
to grow from the grass I love.
1592
01:39:29,002 --> 01:39:31,537
If you want me again,
1593
01:39:31,605 --> 01:39:34,573
look for me
under your boot soles.
1594
01:39:41,081 --> 01:39:46,018
You will hardly know who I am
or what I mean,
1595
01:39:46,086 --> 01:39:48,854
but I shall be good health
to you nevertheless,
1596
01:39:48,922 --> 01:39:52,825
and filter and fibre your blood.
1597
01:39:54,327 --> 01:39:58,197
Failing to fetch me at first,
keep encouraged,
1598
01:39:58,265 --> 01:40:02,034
missing me one place,
search another.
1599
01:40:02,102 --> 01:40:05,705
I stop somewhere,
waiting for you.
1600
01:40:41,141 --> 01:40:42,708
ANNOUNCER:
Stay tuned for scenes
1601
01:40:42,776 --> 01:40:44,243
from the next
American Experience.
1602
01:40:44,311 --> 01:40:45,511
But first...
1603
01:40:47,814 --> 01:40:52,485
There's more about Walt Whitman
at American Experience on-line.
1604
01:40:52,552 --> 01:40:54,553
Visit Whitman's New York,
1605
01:40:54,621 --> 01:40:57,456
consider the qualities
of a national poet,
1606
01:40:57,524 --> 01:41:00,326
and watch the program on-line.
1607
01:41:00,394 --> 01:41:04,230
All this and more at pbs.org.
1608
01:41:04,297 --> 01:41:06,165
American Experience's
"Walt Whitman"
1609
01:41:06,233 --> 01:41:08,267
is available on DVD.
1610
01:41:08,335 --> 01:41:12,772
To order,
call PBS Home Video at:
1611
01:41:12,839 --> 01:41:16,542
Or visit us on-line
at shopPBS.org.
1612
01:41:19,513 --> 01:41:20,913
Next time
on American Experience...
1613
01:41:20,981 --> 01:41:23,315
On the field,
he could do it all.
1614
01:41:23,383 --> 01:41:25,551
ANNOUNCER:
The greatest right fielder
in the game of baseball,
1615
01:41:25,619 --> 01:41:26,852
Roberto Clemente.
1616
01:41:26,920 --> 01:41:30,089
But off it, he endured
racism and ridicule.
1617
01:41:30,157 --> 01:41:32,158
MAN:
He was a man who was standing up
for what is right.
1618
01:41:32,225 --> 01:41:34,493
They weren't ready
for Roberto Clemente.
1619
01:41:34,561 --> 01:41:38,631
The story of a legend whose
greatness transcended sports.
1620
01:41:38,698 --> 01:41:42,535
MAN:
He is one of those iconic
figures that lift the spirits.
1621
01:41:42,602 --> 01:41:45,738
"Roberto Clemente,"
on American Experience.
1622
01:41:50,243 --> 01:41:53,813
Captioned by
Media Access Group at WGBH
access.wgbh.org
1623
01:42:35,956 --> 01:42:39,425
American Experience
is made possible by:
1624
01:42:39,493 --> 01:42:42,628
to enhance public understanding
of the role of technology.
1625
01:42:42,696 --> 01:42:44,964
The foundation also seeks
to portray the lives
1626
01:42:45,031 --> 01:42:46,899
of the men and women engaged
in scientific
1627
01:42:46,967 --> 01:42:48,968
and technological pursuit.
1628
01:42:49,036 --> 01:42:52,171
Major corporate funding is
provided by Liberty Mutual.
1629
01:42:54,574 --> 01:42:58,044
Throughout history,
ordinary people
1630
01:42:58,111 --> 01:43:00,646
have considered it
their responsibility
1631
01:43:00,714 --> 01:43:03,149
to do something extraordinary.
1632
01:43:03,216 --> 01:43:07,520
Liberty Mutual-- proud sponsor
of American Experience.
1633
01:43:07,587 --> 01:43:12,591
This program has been made
possible by a grant from:
1634
01:43:12,659 --> 01:43:15,327
American Experience
is also made possible
1635
01:43:15,395 --> 01:43:18,030
by the Corporation
for Public Broadcasting
1636
01:43:18,098 --> 01:43:21,467
and by contributions
to your PBS station from:
1637
01:43:24,438 --> 01:43:27,873
Tell yourself as it gets cold,
1638
01:43:27,941 --> 01:43:29,875
and gray falls from the air
1639
01:43:29,943 --> 01:43:31,911
that you will go on walking,
1640
01:43:31,978 --> 01:43:35,514
hearing the same tune no matter
where you find yourself--
1641
01:43:35,582 --> 01:43:37,616
inside the dome of dark
1642
01:43:37,684 --> 01:43:40,553
or under the cracking white
of the moon's gaze
1643
01:43:40,620 --> 01:43:42,521
in a valley of snow.
1644
01:43:42,589 --> 01:43:44,256
Tonight as it gets cold
1645
01:43:44,324 --> 01:43:46,959
tell yourself what you know,
which is nothing
1646
01:43:47,027 --> 01:43:49,929
but the tune your bones play
as you keep going.
1647
01:43:49,996 --> 01:43:53,366
And you will be able for once
to lie down under the small fire
1648
01:43:53,433 --> 01:43:55,634
of winter stars.
1649
01:43:55,702 --> 01:43:57,903
And if it happens
that you cannot go on
1650
01:43:57,971 --> 01:43:59,805
or turn back
1651
01:43:59,873 --> 01:44:02,241
and you find yourself
where you will be at the end,
1652
01:44:02,309 --> 01:44:04,777
tell yourself
in that final flowing
1653
01:44:04,845 --> 01:44:06,779
of cold through your limbs
1654
01:44:06,847 --> 01:44:09,715
that you love what you are.
1655
01:44:21,161 --> 01:44:25,064
Not you alone,
proud truths of the world!
1656
01:44:25,132 --> 01:44:29,035
Nor you alone,
ye facts of modern science!
1657
01:44:29,102 --> 01:44:34,073
But myths and fables of eld--
Asia's, Africa's fables!
1658
01:44:34,141 --> 01:44:36,776
The far-darting beams
of the spirit!
1659
01:44:36,843 --> 01:44:39,111
The unloos'd dreams!
1660
01:44:39,179 --> 01:44:42,048
The deep diving bibles
and legends;
1661
01:44:42,115 --> 01:44:44,083
The daring plots of the poets,
1662
01:44:44,151 --> 01:44:46,652
the elder religions;
1663
01:44:46,720 --> 01:44:49,255
O you temples fairer
than lilies,
1664
01:44:49,322 --> 01:44:51,991
pour'd over by the rising sun!
1665
01:44:52,059 --> 01:44:54,760
O you fables,
spurning the known,
1666
01:44:54,828 --> 01:44:56,929
eluding the hold of the known,
1667
01:44:56,997 --> 01:44:58,998
mounting to heaven!
1668
01:44:59,066 --> 01:45:02,334
You lofty and dazzling towers,
pinnacled,
1669
01:45:02,402 --> 01:45:05,771
red as roses,
burnish'd with gold!
1670
01:45:05,839 --> 01:45:07,940
Towers of fables immortal,
1671
01:45:08,008 --> 01:45:10,443
fashion'd from mortal dreams!
1672
01:45:10,510 --> 01:45:12,411
You too I welcome,
1673
01:45:12,479 --> 01:45:15,081
and fully, the same as the rest;
1674
01:45:15,148 --> 01:45:18,784
You too with joy I sing.
1675
01:45:18,852 --> 01:45:21,120
Passage to India!
1676
01:45:21,188 --> 01:45:23,322
Lo, soul!
1677
01:45:23,390 --> 01:45:26,592
Seest thou not God's purpose
from the first?
1678
01:45:26,660 --> 01:45:28,661
The earth to be spann'd,
1679
01:45:28,729 --> 01:45:30,663
connected by network.
1680
01:45:30,731 --> 01:45:32,698
The races, neighbors,
1681
01:45:32,766 --> 01:45:35,401
to marry
and be given in marriage.
1682
01:45:35,469 --> 01:45:39,138
The oceans to be cross'd,
the distant brought near,
1683
01:45:39,206 --> 01:45:42,341
The lands to be welded together.
1684
01:45:42,409 --> 01:45:45,044
A worship new, I sing;
1685
01:45:45,112 --> 01:45:49,081
You captains, voyagers,
explorers, yours!
1686
01:45:49,149 --> 01:45:53,419
You engineers, you architects,
machinists, yours!
1687
01:45:53,487 --> 01:45:58,357
You, not for trade or
transportation only.
1688
01:45:58,425 --> 01:46:00,526
But in God's name,
1689
01:46:00,594 --> 01:46:03,462
and for thy sake, O soul.
1690
01:46:15,208 --> 01:46:18,878
as I was ricocheting slowly
The other day,
1691
01:46:18,945 --> 01:46:20,980
off the blue walls
of this room,
1692
01:46:21,048 --> 01:46:23,816
bouncing from typewriter
to piano,
1693
01:46:23,884 --> 01:46:27,486
from bookshelf to an envelope
lying on the floor,
1694
01:46:27,554 --> 01:46:30,289
I found myself
in the "L" section
1695
01:46:30,357 --> 01:46:32,124
of the dictionary
1696
01:46:32,192 --> 01:46:36,362
where my eyes fell
upon the word "lanyard."
1697
01:46:36,430 --> 01:46:39,899
No cookie nibbled
by a French novelist
1698
01:46:39,966 --> 01:46:43,602
could send one more suddenly
into the past.
1699
01:46:43,670 --> 01:46:46,939
A past where I sat
at a workbench, at a camp,
1700
01:46:47,007 --> 01:46:49,508
by a deep Adirondack lake,
1701
01:46:49,576 --> 01:46:52,411
learning how to braid
thin plastic strips
1702
01:46:52,479 --> 01:46:56,282
into a lanyard,
a gift for my mother.
1703
01:46:56,349 --> 01:46:59,685
I had never seen
anyone use a lanyard
1704
01:46:59,753 --> 01:47:02,421
or wear one, if that's
what you did with them.
1705
01:47:02,489 --> 01:47:03,989
(laughter)
1706
01:47:04,057 --> 01:47:07,393
But that did not keep me from
crossing strand over strand,
1707
01:47:07,461 --> 01:47:09,261
again and again,
1708
01:47:09,329 --> 01:47:12,998
until I had made a boxy,
red and white lanyard
1709
01:47:13,066 --> 01:47:14,600
for my mother.
1710
01:47:14,668 --> 01:47:18,337
She gave me life
and milk from her breasts,
1711
01:47:18,405 --> 01:47:20,239
and I gave her a lanyard.
1712
01:47:20,307 --> 01:47:21,607
(laughter)
1713
01:47:21,675 --> 01:47:24,009
She nursed me
in many a sick room,
1714
01:47:24,077 --> 01:47:27,313
lifted teaspoons of medicine
to my lips,
1715
01:47:27,381 --> 01:47:30,349
set cold facecloths
on my forehead,
1716
01:47:30,417 --> 01:47:33,919
then led me out
into the airy light,
1717
01:47:33,987 --> 01:47:36,655
and taught me to walk and swim.
1718
01:47:36,723 --> 01:47:40,059
And I, in turn, presented her
with a lanyard.
1719
01:47:40,127 --> 01:47:41,761
(laughter)
1720
01:47:41,828 --> 01:47:43,796
"Here are thousands of meals,"
she said,
1721
01:47:43,864 --> 01:47:47,633
"and here is clothing
and a good education."
1722
01:47:47,701 --> 01:47:48,968
(laughter)
1723
01:47:49,036 --> 01:47:50,736
"And here is your lanyard,"
I replied.
1724
01:47:50,804 --> 01:47:52,204
(louder laughter)
1725
01:47:52,272 --> 01:47:54,106
"Which I made
with a little help
1726
01:47:54,174 --> 01:47:55,574
from a counselor."
1727
01:47:55,642 --> 01:47:59,245
"Here is a breathing body
and a beating heart,
1728
01:47:59,312 --> 01:48:02,314
"strong legs, bones and teeth,
1729
01:48:02,382 --> 01:48:06,018
"and two clear eyes to read
the world," she whispered.
1730
01:48:06,086 --> 01:48:10,189
"And here," I said,
"is the lanyard I made at camp."
1731
01:48:10,257 --> 01:48:11,891
(laughter)
1732
01:48:11,958 --> 01:48:15,361
And here, I wish to say
to her now,
1733
01:48:15,429 --> 01:48:18,898
is a smaller gift--
not the archaic truth
1734
01:48:18,965 --> 01:48:22,268
that you can never
repay your mother,
1735
01:48:22,335 --> 01:48:24,336
but the rueful admission
1736
01:48:24,404 --> 01:48:27,540
that when she took
the two-toned lanyard
1737
01:48:27,607 --> 01:48:31,677
from my hands,
I was as sure as a boy could be
1738
01:48:31,745 --> 01:48:34,914
that this useless,
worthless thing
1739
01:48:34,981 --> 01:48:39,218
I wove out of boredom
would be enough to make us even.
1740
01:48:39,286 --> 01:48:41,153
(applause)
135255
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