Walt Whitman and Expansionary Idealism

Humanities and Social Sciences Walt Whitman and Expansionary Idealism

Brian J. Rizzo College of Arts and Science, Vanderbilt University Most literary criticisms of Calamus, often read as Walt Whitman’s most obvious display of homoeroticism, bring readers to a rather shallow conclusion — the restorative, transcendental power of personal, visceral connections that bridge the gaps between human beings dwarfs any inner turmoil resulting from uncertainties of life and pretenses of society. This shoddy analysis runs a delicate acknowledgement of homosexual love though the core vein of Whitman’s work. Brian J. Rizzo, a sophomore in the Vanderbilt College of Arts and Science, argues that these readings are myopic and limit Whitman to the realm of theory, failing to acknowledge the true purpose of his writing. Rizzo continues, maintaing that Whitman dismisses society’s narrow schemas of Americanism and homosexuality, renounces the singularity of these terms, and seeks to transition from American exclusivity to American inclusivity. Embarking on a rhetorical examination and eventual redefinition of the very terms Americanism and homosexuality, Walt Whitman expands America into a society where there are multiple normalities — both of sexuality and of personhood — as modes of human existence. The middle of the nineteenth century saw a split and political hypophora, a surreptitious question that is in America – a war about America – other than that answered is the most obvious of ways. This theorized between the Union and the Confederacy. This tension, hypophora works to prove null a debate between the a conflict that traditionally goes necessarilyun noticed poles – between the questions of the oppressed and but that should be unnecessary in and of itself, is seen in the questions of the oppressor, between the definition Walt Whitman’s Calamus and most clearly in his poem of homosexuality as rebellious and the definition of “Of the Terrible Doubt of Appearances.” A haphazard America as heterosexual. Whitman dismisses strife or a reading of this poetry often leads readers to consider debate between homosexuality and Americanism, rejects it an attempt to acknowledge intimate relationships the notion that one is pitted against the other, renounces and transcendental camaraderie in their abilities to the definitionally exclusive language where the shoddy make bearable the uncertainties of life, the clashes of discourse has been built, and expands the American values, and the artifices of society at large. Likewise, an ideal to include homosexuality as a potential norm for a elementary education of Whitman’s contradictory role as mode of existence. a homosexual man in nineteenth century America often In Calamus, a collection widely but haphazardly leads readers to judge the poetry as a subtle attempt to regarded by literary critics as Whitman’s most evident antagonize an officious and heterosexualized state with celebration of extreme homoeroticism, the attempt an affront of sensual and homoerotic language. to remove mutual exclusivity from Americanism and Each view is narrow and lacking in homosexuality is clearly raised in “Of the Terrible imagination. Individually, they do not recognize the Doubt of Appearances.” Though it is a sixteen line possibility of more nuanced readings. Calamus aims poem, it can essentially be read as a poem of two neither to vaguely reject artifice and nationalization trains of thought or stages of development, separated nor to idealistically celebrate love and same-sex by a climax and radical shift in diction. It is because companionship, and if it does reject one and celebrate of this that the poem requires a chronological analysis. the other to any degree, it does so in the service of a In the title and first line of the poem, “Of the Terrible more difficult endeavor. Chronological readings of the Doubt of Appearances,” there seems to be a hidden poems allow us to uncover more complex effects of and ambiguous use of language. Is Whitman meant to Whitman’s very intentional use of ambiguous language, be read as the subject expressing a “terrible doubt of absence of clear punctuation, control of anaphora, [social] appearances” and calling attention to them, and construction of free verse stanzas. Running or are the “appearances” meant to be interpreted as parallel to this uncanny ambiguity is his distinct and a larger, metaphorical subject expressing a “terrible climactic diction that forge his poetry into a masked doubt” of something unknown? In the first case, a more

Spring 2012 | Volume 8 | © 2012 • Vanderbilt University Board of Trust 1 Vanderbilt Undergraduate Research Journal apparent and explicit interpretation, it can be argued that America. He is an American. He writes so often and so Whitman, the subjugated homosexual, is attempting to clearly of his love for his country. But he is also a sexual tear down the oppositional power structure of that which deviant. In order to live happily, as a free individual in a is apparent, of that which is his objectified society. In the free society, he must expand the definition of those who second case, a more obscure and implicit interpretation, it are accepted and celebrated in America by removing the can be argued that America, the objectified society, is able perception of deviance from sexual practices that do not and “may-be” even willing to question the oppositional fit within the traditional canon. If “the things [humans] power structure established by its own system of binary perceive,” the inescapable norms of physical existence, definitions.1 In both cases, the possible legitimacy of the are explicitly questioned, then the very words by which opposite interpretation is maintained; the very ambiguity humans define themselves must also be questioned. A of the title of the poem, therefore, dismisses the perceived chronological analysis of the poem continues, as the solidarity behind Americanism and homosexuality, climax will call for this necessary shift in diction, this leaving their definitions open to new norms. That which is unknown but essential change to and redefinition of traditionally viewed as American, for example, is left open America. to a potential revival through the broadening of its norms In a continued reading of the poem as one of two to include “he” who is homosexual. metaphorical lines, a break must appear obvious where The first line of the poem, a restatement of the Whitman changes course. This occurs where he claims, title, reiterates the intended ambiguity and sublime “To me these and the like of these are curiously answer’d nature behind Whitman’s language. The following nine by my lovers, my dear friends.”4 After spending nine lines lines question the physical world – the landscape of the questioning all that he observes and all that surrounds American continent and the history of the American his existence, Whitman definitively strips away all context – and hypothesize that humanity is “deluded.”2 questionability by stating that the questions are “curiously Whitman’s use of anaphora works in conjunction with his answer’d.” How the questions are answered is made free verse stanza construction within the first half of the visible by the climax: “When he whom I love travels with poem, within the first train of thought, and analogously me or sits a long while holding me by the hand.”5 Not only within the definition of theAmerican discourse, and it is there an unanticipated change in topic, as evidenced by creates a feeling of endlessness, a notion that neither a a shift from outward perceptions to intimate relationships, beginning nor an end exists in the discourse: but there is an unanticipated use of the word “he.” Why, Of the uncertainty after all, that we may be in America, where heterosexuality is the unstated and deluded, / That may-be reliance and hope obvious norm, and during the nineteenth century, when the are but speculations after all, / That may- term homosexual had yet to be included in the dictionary be identity beyond the grave is a beautiful or even to be printed in text, would Walt Whitman, a fable only, / May-be the things I perceive, man, speak of love in correlation with the word “he?” the animals, plants, men, The very nature of the climatic diction is, therefore, hills, shining and flowing waters, / The how “the uncertainty...that [humans] may be deluded” is skies of day and night, colors, densities, “curiously answer’d.” This is where traditional criticism, forms, may-be these are (as doubtless they that only a broad conceptualization of love can confirm are) only apparitions, and the real reality, fails. It is not a broad conceptualization of love; something has yet to be known3 it is an expansion of the acceptability of variance in love. The anaphora and free verse here is intentional and It is not a confirmation of reality; it is a rejection and enables the appearances to be doubted and redefined. If reorganization of reality. there is no clear line, no clear distinction, no clear end If Whitman wanted to have confirmed rather to a concept or to an appearance, said concept can be than rejected the current reality or to have remained easily molded in order to bring about the greatest sense subservient to the uncertain and traditional discourse, he of inclusion. The doubt of the appearances in the physical would have simply used the word “she.” If this were the world must be paralleled to a doubt of the appearance, case, the entire essence of the poem would be changed, and thereby definition, ofAmerica . Whitman is writing in because American exclusivity would go unchanged. The 1 Walt Whitman, “Of the Terrible Doubt of Appearances,” in paradox for the American-homosexual would remain. So, Leaves of Grass (New York: Penguin Group, 2011.) 274-75, 9. 2 Whitman, “Of the Terrible,” 2. 4 Whitman, “Of the Terrible,” 10. 3 Whitman, “Of the Terrible,” 2-5. 5 Whitman, “Of the Terrible,” 11. 2 Spring 2012 | Volume 8 | © 2012 • Vanderbilt University Board of Trust Walt Whitman and Expansionary Idealism simply, Whitman rejects the debate in and of itself. He context. Solutions often come to assimilationist theories. rejects and redefines the definitions of terms on which the This is not enough, for they maintain hierarchical rank debate is founded. But how does be do this? How does he orderings. Quite contrarily, Whitman proposes a complete fill in the space, expand the norms, expandAmericanism ? reorganization of the structure through a redefinition of How does he strip away secrecy from homosexuality? terms; both heterosexuality and homosexuality become How does he strip away deviance from homosexuality? equalized normalities. This is where elementary readings He gives give it personhood. of Whitman continue to fail. To correct one side, to correct He lets the homosexual be a person in America one line of the argument – to see in his poetry only the – simply by acknowledging his existence. It all comes American flag waving in the face of the Civil War or through a careful, deliberate, and terribly gutsy omission only an unusual homoeroticism flaunting in the face of a of a single letter. heterosexualized society – is to keep the lines drawn and As the thoughts of a same sex partner and, unable to meet or cross or pulsate together, to keep the more broadly, those of definitional deviation are carried homosexual to the side as the one who is not celebrated at throughout the rest of the poem, Whitman rhetorically the American picnic of brotherhood. strengthens confidence in and indifference to the The piece is just as much political as it is poetic; previously doubted uncertainties. He switches from it constitutes a hypophora, a rhetorical question that he the rhetorical appeal of lists to the rhetorical appeal of blatantly answers. The endless perceptions of reality explanation in order to describe that he is now, under his in the first metaphorical line of the poem position this newly enforced discourse, indifferent to said uncertainties: metaphorical question: When the subtle air, the impalpable, the May-be seeming to me what they are (as sense that words and reason hold not, doubtless they indeed but seem) as from surround us and pervade us, / Then I my present point of view, and might prove am charged with untold and untellable (as of course they would) nought of what wisdom, I am silent, I require nothing they appear, or nought anyhow, from further, / I cannot answer the question of entirely changed points of view7 appearances or that of identity beyond the In other words, the “present point of view” that he who grave, / but I walk or sit indifferent, I am is American must be heterosexual in order to solidify satisfied6 his American identity requires “changed points of view” Through omitting any end punctuation mark to this point that see those who are American as able to be either of the poem, Whitman upholds the inextricable nature heterosexual or homosexual. Whitman is attempting between Americanism and homosexuality. By failing to political movement through literary efforts, and he does end any thought, by creating what appears to be an endless it by expanding definitions. It is he – the inclusion, most pulsation of ideas, he rejects the notion that the answer importantly, of “he” – who provides a “curious answer” is separated from the question, that the second line is to the rhetorical question of political necessity. It is this separated from the first line, that intimate love is separated change, this answer, this inclusion, this broadening of from outward perception, that homosexuality is separated definition that ultimately allows Whitman to be “satisfied” from Americanism, and ultimately, that the discursive in the American ideal.8 language and binary definitions of any of these ideas are It is of vital importance that we do two things set in stone. at this time. We must survey Calamus for other poems The conception of an endless pulsation of ideas that will adjoin the expansion of the American ideal, is perhaps a difficult one to grasp and one that requires and we must clearly define the terms “homosexual” careful unpacking and elaboration. If the poem, especially and “heterosexual,” both in our own time and in the this first half or thought or line of dialogue, were not time of the nineteenth century. To begin, Whitman some endless pulsation of ideas – if punctuation were was dead before either term was really used; the terms used and concepts subsequently separated – there would “heterosexual” and “homosexual” were first printed in the be clear and distinct lines of demarcation. Traditionally, United States in May of 1892, two months after Whitman this is the case. For one to be a celebrated American, died.9 They were used in James Kiernan’s English one must be heterosexual. For one to be homosexual, 7 Whitman, “Of the Terrible,” 9. one is definitionally deviant within said American 8 Whitman, “Of the Terrible,” 16. 9 Jonathan Ned Katz, The Invention of Heterosexuality 6 Whitman, “Of the Terrible,” 12-15. (New York: Dutton, 1995), 20. Spring 2012 | Volume 8 | © 2012 • Vanderbilt University Board of Trust 3 Vanderbilt Undergraduate Research Journal translation of Psychopathia Sexualis, a work produced by of a selection of other poems in Calamus, we will gain Richard von Krafft-Ebing of the University of Vienna in greater perspective on Whitman’s treatment of the 1886. In Psychopathia Sexualis, homosexuality is defined: word “he,” enabling us to answer the question posed by “The essential feature of this strange manifestation of the Thoreau. We will discover that the question is answered sexual life is the want of sexual sensibility of the opposite in various poems with nearly the same intentions and sex, even to the extent of horror, while sexual inclination strategies. and impulse toward the same sex are present.”10 Whitman begins Calamus with a poem Homosexuals, therefore, were defined as those who did appropriately titled “In Paths Untrodden.” It is a symbolic not fit within traditional masculinity or femininity and as move, for it is on “paths untrodden” that he escapes those who deviated from procreative norms. The concept “from the life that exhibits itself, / From the standards of heterosexuality was also described in this work. This is hitherto publish’d, from...conformities.”12 He continues very important, for it shows both the progressiveness and in an advocation of an escape from the current tradition the universalism of the inclusion of the word “he” in “Of and, to use language from “Of the Terrible Doubt of the Terrible Doubt of Appearances.” It is progressive in Appearances,” from the “present point of view.”13 In a the sense that it is revolutionary and before its time. It is classic move of transcendentalism, he implies that this universal because homosexuality was a foreign concept; occurs when one returns to nature. The implication can be by including the word “he,” Whitman expands sexuality, read either literally or metaphorically, and both readings an active expression of love rather than a passive have flaws. Literally, it is fairly impossible to exist as expression of gender, in America. one in nature for a prolonged period of time. Even if it In 1856, three decades before the publication were to simply be for a day, the argument that the one of Psychopathia Sexualis, Henry David Thoreau, one is more vital than the whole in the persuasion of a new of the most celebrated American transcendentalists and definition of terms is simply absurd. From the moment philosophers in all of history, wrote a letter to Harrison of birth, humans need other humans to survive, let alone Blake, a Unitarian minister in Worcester, Massachusetts. obtain knowledge. Metaphorically, it is fairly impossible In it, Thoreau sheds valuable insight into the nature of to unlearn what has been learned. It is also a ludicrous Whitman’s engagement with the same sex: reading to make, because Whitman wants real changes He does not celebrate love at all. It is as to the physical world, not just imagined ones. It is not, if the breasts spoke. I think that men have therefore, the process of unlearning what has been learned not been ashamed of themselves without that Whitman champions. It is the process of examining reason. No doubt, there have always been what has been learned in order to change what is taught. dens where such deeds were unblushingly As described at length, Whitman takes Ockham’s recited...But even on this side, he has razor to the theorized war between a heteronormative spoken more truth than any American America and a more inclusive America, and he does it or modern that I know. I have found this most strictly by a slashing of the terms traditionally used poem exhilirating encouraging. As for to describe the sides that wage said war. Once this is done, its sensuality, – & it may turn out to be once we examine the learning of these faulty terms – and less sensual than it appeared – I do not here lies the importance of it all – we are able to teach so much wish that those parts were not the terms to future generations with greater subtlety and written, as that men & women were so pure greater accuracy, allowing for the evolution and progress that they could read them without harm, of humankind, allowing for humankind to achieve our that is, without understanding them...if we greatest potential as a species that coexists and coincides. are shocked, whose experience is it that we There are three poems in Calamus that can be are reminded of?11 read as direct arguments for why the physical reality Thoreau poses an interesting rhetorical question that in “Of the Terrible Doubt of Appearances” should be parallels the hypophora in “Of the Terrible Doubt of interpreted as representative of America and why it should Appearances.” In a purposeful and careful examination be made more broad, more inclusive of new norms. In 10 Richard von Krafft-Ebing, Psychopathia Sexualis, trans. “The Prairie-Grass Dividing,” Whitman explicitly calls Franklin S. Klaf (New York: Stein and Day, 1965), 221. 11 Henry David Thoreau, The Correspondence of Henry 12 Walt Whitman, “In Paths Untrodden,” in Leaves of Grass David Thoreau, ed. Walter Harding and Carl Bode. (Washington (New York: Penguin Group, 2011.) 268, 1-4. Square: New York University Press, 1958), 444. 13 Whitman, “Of the Terrible,” 9. 4 Spring 2012 | Volume 8 | © 2012 • Vanderbilt University Board of Trust Walt Whitman and Expansionary Idealism for people “of inland America” to experience a “spiritual he steps in the same direction. The future will be different. corresponding,” a “copious and close companionship The nature of love will be reevaluated. It is not, however, of men.”14 In “A Promise to California,” he explains simply the future that will be made different. It is the his intentions to bring the expansion of America to all nature of the American ideal that will be made different. parts of America: “Sojourning east a while longer, soon It is not simply a reevaluation of love that will occur. It is I travel toward you, to remain, to teach robust American an expansion, an inclusion of more types of love that will love, / For I know very well that I and robust love belong occur. among you.”15 It is necessary to note his desire to “teach This is not a hopeless endeavor. Whitman theorizes robust American love,” to “teach” the broadening of the a strange encounter with someone or something in “To a American definition to be made more “robust,” to be made Stranger.” Oddly and necessarily enough, the “stranger” is more inclusive. This supplements his practical intentions, not a person, and the “you” he describes is not a physical his pragmatic call that is necessary for the progress of body, per se.18 It constitutes that which is currently humankind. In “To the East and to the West,” he continues unknown, that which is able to be the future, that which is to support the same exact message: “I believe the main the redefinition and redrawing of theAmerican image: purport of these States is to found a superb friendship, You must be he I was seeking, or she I exaltè, previously unknown, / Because I perceive what was seeking...You grew up with me, were waits, and has been always waiting, latent in all men.”16 a boy with me or a girl with me...I am not I do not mean to overload direct quotation here with to speak to you, I am to think of you when the absence of close analysis, nor do I mean to imply I sit alone or wake at night alone, / I am that I have no analysis thereof. Whitman’s words stand to wait, I do not doubt I am to meet you alone as self explanatory; the desire for Americanism again, / I am to see to it that I do not lose and homosexuality to be expanded, for one to inform the you.19 other, is one that he explicitly intends to be made real for Whitman waits in dark times, “at night alone,” waiting, the American continent and one that he explicitly carries wishing, hoping that the night will pass and a day will throughout it. come when the “he” and the “she” and the “you” are D.H. Lawrence, whose own works also contain not unspoken. It is interesting and obviously necessary an overarching theme that runs against the influences of that he uses these terms to refer to the expansion of the modernity and who wrote many literary criticisms, offers definition ofsexuality in America. Perhaps it is even more what may be nice support of this argument. It is essential interesting, though it may be expected by this point, that to note that my own interpretation of Whitman’s effects of in the discussion of a sensuously yearned after stranger, love does not run parallel to that of Lawrence, but I feel it the label “she” comes after that of “he,” though it is vital is necessary to include Lawrence’s acknowledgement of to remember that the “he” and that the “she” and that the the nuanced yet revolutionary attempts made in Calamus: “you” refer to an a idealized representation of American [Whitman] hesitates: he is reluctant, inclusiveness rather than to any particular being. He wistful. But none the less he goes on. champions this potential inclusiveness, this day that he And he tells the mystery of manly love, is able “to speak to you.” This becomes evident in “I the love of comrades. Continually he tells Dream’d a Dream:” us the same truth: the new world will be I dream’d in a dream when I saw a city built upon the love of comrades, the new invincible to the attacks of the whole of great dynamic of life will be manly love. the rest of the earth, / I dream’d that was Out of this inspiration the creation of the the new city of Friends, / Nothing was future.17 greater there than the quality of robust Lawrence offers a less progressive reading than I do, but love, it led the rest, / It was seen every hour in the actions of the men of that city, / 14 Walt Whitman, “The Prairie-Grass Dividing,” in Leaves of And in all their looks and words.20 Grass (New York: Penguin Group, 2011.) 281, 2-10. 15 Walt Whitman, “A Promise to California,” in Leaves of There lies the solution – in a redefinition of concepts, in Grass (New York: Penguin Group, 2011.) 282, 3-4. 18 Walt Whitman, “To a Stranger,” in Leaves of Grass (New 16 Walt Whitman, “To the East and to the West,” in Leaves of York: Penguin Group, 2011), 280, 1-3. Grass (New York: Penguin Group, 2011.) 285, 5-6. 19 Whitman, “To a Stranger,” 2-10. 17 D.H. Lawrence, “Whitman,” in Leave of Grass and Other 20 Walt Whitman, “I Dream’d a Dream,” in Leaves of Grass Writings (New York: Norton & Company, 2002), 828. (New York: Penguin Group, 2011), 284, 1-5. Spring 2012 | Volume 8 | © 2012 • Vanderbilt University Board of Trust 5 Vanderbilt Undergraduate Research Journal a new teaching of “words.” His language is not terribly a concept in his time, has defined and objectified the sexual. It is not erotic. It does not throw homosexuality American ideology. The notion, therefore, that one is in the face of America or pathetically and resentfully try pitted against the other, that the two are at warring odds, is to stick it to the man. Rather, there is a very acute theory doubted and rejected, not on the grounds of the historical in happiness and epistemology happening here. Whitman context or discourse, but on the grounds of the thoughts examines what he knows and what he perceives to be used within the context, of the definitions used within the wisdom. He concludes that America has failed in this discourse. regard, and he argues vehemently for his dream of mutual John Addington Symonds, an English literary inclusiveness between the concepts of Americanism and critic and poet, published an account of Whitman in 1893, homosexuality to be realized. the year of his own death and a year after the death of Many critics argue that Whitman is not making Whitman. Twenty years earlier, he wrote to Whitman any clear calls about homosexuality. Well, he certainly concerning the nature of the relationships between males could not. The word had yet to exist. As Thoreau earlier in Calamus.23 Whitman refused to answer. In 1890, nearly wrote, “He does not celebrate love at all. It is as if the two decades after Symonds tried to elicit a response, breasts spoke.”21 This is the long-running argument, that Whitman offered Horace Traubel, a biographer of the Whitman transcends physical reality and speaks of love poet’s later years, an ambiguous explanation: as if it were an unusual, amorphous creature, as if the [Symonds] has a few doubts yet to be one became all and all became the one. Not only is this quieted – not doubts of me, doubts rather reading impractical and in the possession of no tangible of himself. One of these doubts is about effects, but it is made within the American context that Calamus. What does Calamus mean? What Whitman rejects, within an American discourse where do the poems come to in their round-up?24 homosexuality is invisible. Whitman had numerous Whitman does not answer these questions in explicit relationships with men and boys; in the most realistic terms. They are left open to our own readings and and physical sense, why would he want that to be an interpretations. It is true: Calamus can be read as the unacceptable practice in the country he calls his own? theoretical, as the broad conceptualization of love in a This analysis, as unorthodox as it may be, transcendental project. But is this not a last-ditch attempt ultimately circles back to my initially questioned to hold to the America that Whitman rejects? Is it not a ambiguity of Whitman’s language. The title and first line pathetic attempt to constrain homosexuality within the of the poem I have most thoroughly analyzed, “Of the framework that Whitman rejects? Terrible Doubt of Appearances,” is a perfect example. The American and homosexual identities are, in What seems so dark, heavy, and “terrible,” is oddly social construction, both similar and oppositional. They contrasted by a concluding sense of satisfaction: “He are both aggregate identities with barriers that conflict, ahold of my hand has completely satisfied me.”22 Has but the state of their opposition has more to do with how satisfaction, an obvious triumph in emotionalism over they are socially defined than how they actually – or dissatisfaction, been created by a lover, or should it be potentially could – exist. The contradictory interests read as the forgery of questioning and realization? More concerning Americanism and homosexuality come only basically, why is the poem even titled, “Of the Terrible if their definitions are acutely opposed so that one must Doubt of Appearances?” be lowered to heighten the other. Calamus and “Of the It is not merely a doubt of appearances. It is Terrible Doubt of Appearances” represent poetry in a rejection of appearances and, more specifically, a which the natures of Americanism and of homosexuality rejection of the appearances of definitions – of the are essentially redefined, allowing Walt Whitman to belief that Americanism implies heterosexuality and synthesize a more happy and more fulfilling and more that homosexuality implies treason. Whitman fights the worthwhile experience of life for people – like himself appearances by more than explicitly doubting them. The – who sway between the two. With the stroke a pen, language he employs uncovers the operations behind Whitman redefines and resolves two wars – one fought traditional discourse; it exposes how the American in a brutal gore of the physical reality, one waged in a ideology has defined and subjected homosexuality definitional exclusivity of the rhetorical realm – as those and how homosexuality, however socially invisible of 23 David S. Reynolds, Walt Whitman’s America: A Cultural 21 Thoreau, The Correspondence of, 444. Biography (New York: Alfred A. Knoff, 1995). 521. 22 Whitman, “Of the Terrible,” 16. 24 Reynolds, Walt, 527. 6 Spring 2012 | Volume 8 | © 2012 • Vanderbilt University Board of Trust Walt Whitman and Expansionary Idealism of the ultimate unnecessary.

Bibliography 1. Katz, Jonathan Ned. The Invention of Heterosexuality. New York: Dutton, 1995. 19-21. 2. Krafft-Ebing, Richard von. Psychopathia Sexualis. Trans. Franklin S. Klaf. 221-57. New York: Stein and Day, 1965.. 3. Lawrence, D.H. “Whitman.” Leaves of Grass and Other Writings. 823-30. New York: Norton & Company, 2002. 4. Reynolds, David S. Walt Whitman’s America: A Cultural Biography. 521-45. New York: Alfred A. Knoff, 1995. 5. Thoreau, Henry David. The Correspondence of Henry David Thoreau. Ed. Walter Harding and Carl Bode. 444-45. Washington Square: New York University Press, 1958. 6. Whitman, Walt. “A Promise to California.” Leaves of Grass. 282. New York: Penguin Group, 2011. 7. Whitman, Walt. “I Dream’d in a Dream.” Leaves of Grass. 284. New York: Penguin Group, 2011. 8. Whitman, Walt. “In Paths Untrodden.” Leaves of Grass. 268. New York: Penguin Group, 2011. 9. Whitman, Walt. “Of the Terrible Doubt of Appearances.” Leaves of Grass. 274-75. New York: Penguin Group, 2011. 10. Whitman, Walt. “To the East and to the West.” Leaves of Grass. 285. New York: Penguin Group, 2011. 11. Whitman, Walt. “The Prairie-Grass Dividing.” Leaves of Grass. 281. New York: Penguin Group, 2011. 12. Whitman, Walt. “To a Stranger.” Leaves of Grass. 280. New York: Penguin Group, 2011.