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Walt Whitman, Phrenology, and the Language of the Mind City University of New York (CUNY) CUNY Academic Works All Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects 6-2014 A Chant of Dilation: Walt Whitman, Phrenology, and the Language of the Mind Anton Borst Graduate Center, City University of New York How does access to this work benefit ou?y Let us know! More information about this work at: https://academicworks.cuny.edu/gc_etds/173 Discover additional works at: https://academicworks.cuny.edu This work is made publicly available by the City University of New York (CUNY). Contact: [email protected] A Chant of Dilation: Walt Whitman, Phrenology, and the Language of the Mind by Anton F. Borst A dissertation submitted to the Graduate Faculty in English in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy, The City University of New York 2014 Borst& ii& © 2014 Anton F. Borst All Rights Reserved Borst& iii& This manuscript has been read and accepted for the Graduate Faculty in English in satisfaction of the dissertation requirement for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. Prof. Joan Richardson Date Chair of Examining Committee Prof. Mario DiGangi Date Executive Officer Prof. William P. Kelly Prof. David S. Reynolds Prof. Joshua Wilner Supervisory Committee The City University of New York Borst& iv& Abstract A Chant of Dilation: Walt Whitman, Phrenology, and the Language of the Mind by Anton Borst Adviser: Professor Joan Richardson A Chant of Dilation analyzes Walt Whitman’s poetic engagement with two very modern ideas: the materiality of the mind and the discursive nature of science. During the antebellum period these ideas found expression in the popular science of phrenology, the theory that the mind was divided into various faculties physically located in different parts of the brain. This theory would find a ready audience in Whitman, a poet preoccupied with the body, the soul, and their connection. The writings and publications of premier American phrenologists Orson and Lorenzo Fowler, surveyed in this project, rhetorically mediated emerging conceptions of the brain-embodied self by exploring the relationship between religion and materialism. Phrenology also provided Whitman and its many followers with an empowering sense of self-knowledge based on its rich vocabulary of dozens of mental faculties. At the same time, by equating mind and brain and claiming the existence of innate, inheritable faculties, phrenology raised the possibility of biological determinism, unsettling seemingly essential beliefs in the soul, agency, and moral responsibility. In Whitman’s correspondingly complex deployments of phrenological terms and themes, the poet embraces, confronts, and answers the implications of a material mind through the means most readily available to him as a Borst& v& poet: metaphor, ambiguity, and the performative use of language. By situating Whitman’s response to phrenology alongside a number of Romantic and post-Romantic intellectuals similarly occupied by its language, including Georg Friedrich Hegel, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr., and William James, I demonstrate its hitherto overlooked cultural significance as a discourse that prompted philosophical concerns about the relationship between science, language, and the mind. Borst& vi& Acknowledgements First and foremost, I would like to thank my dissertation director Joan Richardson, whose erudition, exactitude, and encouragement have been a guiding light to me from my very first day of class in graduate school all the way through the completion of this project. For invaluable support and inspiration I am further indebted to dissertation committee members William Kelly, David Reynolds, and Joshua Wilner. To have been able to work with these superlative scholars has been among my greatest fortunes and I continue to learn from their engagements with my work. Additional thanks go to Joseph Wittreich for his generous mentorship as I began my studies and to Ed Folsom, who readily responded to email queries regarding Whitman from a graduate student he had never met. Much of this project would not have been possible without the Trent Collection of Whitmaniana at Duke University and the aid of its expert librarians, who provided access to the documents relating to Whitman’s phrenology chart. My research also received immeasurable benefit from the collections at the American Antiquarian Society in Worcester, Massachusetts, and at the New York Public Library, particularly its Rare Book Division. For both books and a most beautiful place to read them, I am grateful to the Wertheim Study, also at the New York Public Library. Thanks to my friends and colleagues Mark Cirino, James Hoff, Lauren Klein, and Karen Weiser for reading almost every word of this dissertation, but, more important, for always being ready with kind words of their own. Borst& vii& To my brother, Stephen, and my mother, Mary, for never flagging in their support. To my father, Fred, whose early expressions of faith in me remained alive in memory throughout this process. And to Pamela Burger, my partner, whose confidence and brilliance were at my side with every step.& & & & Borst& viii& When we employ the term Phrenology it conveys to our mind no such idea as a science of bumps, as it is vulgarly called; nor is it Craniology or a science of the skull. It is the science of the mind. It includes within its circle the nature, conditions, and habits of the human mind, as far as they are known. The Independent, New York, September 13, 1855 Borst& ix& Table of Contents Introduction Walt Whitman and Phrenology 1 Chapter I Phrenology’s Song of the Self: Harmonizing Mind with Matter 31 Chapter II Whitman’s Answer: Philosophical Responses to Phrenology’s Language Experiment 89 Chapter III Phrenology Revised: Walt Whitman’s Altering Eye 147 Bibliography 206 Borst& 1& Introduction Walt Whitman and Phrenology A Chant of Dilation analyzes Walt Whitman’s poetic engagement with two very modern ideas: the materiality of the mind and the discursive nature of science. During the antebellum period these ideas found expression in the popular science of phrenology, the theory that the mind was divided into various faculties physically located in different parts of the brain. This theory would find a ready audience in Whitman, a poet preoccupied with the body, the soul, and their connection. The writings and publications of premier American phrenologists Orson and Lorenzo Fowler, surveyed in this project, exhibit a frequent concern over the supposed antithesis between religion and materialism. In addition to rhetorically mediating emerging conceptions of the brain-embodied self, phrenology empowered Whitman and its many followers with self-knowledge accompanied by a rich vocabulary for its expression. Positing dozens of mental faculties, phrenologists created a psychological lexicon encompassing intellect and instinct, reason and emotion, the moral and the sexual. At the same time, by equating mind and brain and claiming the existence of innate, inheritable faculties, phrenology raised the possibility of Borst& 2& biological determinism, unsettling seemingly essential beliefs in the soul, agency, and moral responsibility. In Whitman’s correspondingly complex deployments of phrenological terms and themes, the poet embraces, confronts, and answers the implications of a material mind through the means most readily available to him as a poet: metaphor, ambiguity, and the performative use of language. Read through the lens of the phrenology texts directly influencing their production, “Song of Myself,” “Faces,” and other canonical works by Whitman thus take on new meaning and sophistication, while such seeming ephemera as his phrenological chart, included in early editions of Leaves of Grass, acquire central importance. The extravagant claims of phrenology’s practitioners to be able to read character through the shape of the skull still tend to overshadow the actual richness of its cultural reception during the antebellum period. Though from today’s perspective easily categorized as a pseudoscience, phrenology offered explanations of personality, behavior, human development, and hereditary inheritance that its numerous adherents and sympathizers found entirely credible. In addition to surveying the works of the Fowlers, I situate Whitman’s response to phrenology alongside a number of Romantic and post-Romantic intellectuals similarly occupied by its language, including Georg Friedrich Hegel, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr., and William James. In so doing, I demonstrate phrenology’s nineteenth-century cultural significance as a discourse, a language of the mind, which articulated a harmony between science and religion for some, while raising critical questions about the relationship between language and science for others. Before explaining in greater detail Whitman’s absorption of and response to phrenology at the conclusion of this introductory essay, I provide an Borst& 3& overview of phrenology’s European origins and development, emphasizing the increasing attention in recent scholarship paid to its importance to nineteenth-century social reform, as well as an overview of past discussions of Whitman and phrenology. Borst& 4& The Brain is the Organ of the Mind Phrenology began with Franz Joseph Gall. While practicing medicine in Vienna in the 1780s and 90s, Gall turned down an offer to become the emperor’s physician for the sake of his own research, the results of which he
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