Louisiana State University LSU Digital Commons LSU Doctoral Dissertations Graduate School 2003 Politicizing the reader in the American lyric-epic: Walt Whitman's Leaves of Grass and Pablo Neruda's Canto general William Allegrezza Louisiana State University and Agricultural and Mechanical College Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.lsu.edu/gradschool_dissertations Part of the Comparative Literature Commons Recommended Citation Allegrezza, William, "Politicizing the reader in the American lyric-epic: Walt Whitman's Leaves of Grass and Pablo Neruda's Canto general" (2003). LSU Doctoral Dissertations. 2962. https://digitalcommons.lsu.edu/gradschool_dissertations/2962 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the Graduate School at LSU Digital Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in LSU Doctoral Dissertations by an authorized graduate school editor of LSU Digital Commons. For more information, please [email protected]. POLITICIZING THE READER IN THE AMERICAN LYRIC-EPIC: WALT WHITMAN’S LEAVES OF GRASS AND PABLO NERUDA’S CANTO GENERAL A Dissertation Submitted to the Graduate Faculty of the Louisiana State University and Agricultural and Mechanical College in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in The Interdepartmental Program in Comparative Literature by William Allegrezza B.A., University of Dallas, 1996 M.A., Louisiana State University, 1997 December 2003 Acknowledgements I am deeply grateful to all those who have given me advice on this project, especially Bainard Cowan, my director, and the members of my committee, Gregory Stone, Joseph Kronick, and Denise Egéa-Kuehne. I am also indebted to Dotty McCaughey, who rapidly read and provided comments on this study. Most importantly, I could not have made it through any graduate program without the support of my wife Kelly. ii Table of Contents Acknowledgements ……………………………………………………………………………. ii Abstract ………………………………………………………………………………………… iv Chapter 1 The Lyric-Epic Tradition and Literary Sourcebooks ……………………………..1 2 Whitman, the Local “Loco Foco” ………………………………………………….33 3 Camaraderie and the Union: Whitman’s Manly Love ……………………….…62 4 Whitman and History’s Cyclical, Linear Stasis ………………………...………..75 5 Whitman and Poetics ………………………………………………………………96 6 Neruda’s Latin American Political Poetics …………………………………..…114 7 Camaraderie, Unity, and Communism in Canto general ………………….….141 8 History and Redemption: Neruda in Creation ………………………………...170 9 Neruda and Poetics ………………………………………………………………196 Conclusion ……………………………………………………………………………………215 Works Cited …………………………………………………………………………………..226 Vita …………………………………………………………………………………………... 235 iii Abstract Both Walt Whitman and Pablo Neruda wanted to create epic works that would distinguish American literature from the literary traditions of Europe, works that would grow organically from the native landscapes and peoples of the Americas. Part of their projects included creating works that would act as political sourcebooks for their cultures. Whitman wanted to foster a democratic culture in the United States through writing a grand poetic work, while Neruda wanted to create a communist culture in Latin America through an epic work. Soon into the project Whitman realized that the traditional epic was not a suitable form for his task, so in attempting to construct a new form, he created the lyric-epic in his Leaves of Grass. Since Neruda believed that Whitman was the first authentic literary voice of the Americas and that the lyric-epic was a native form, he used Leaves of Grass as a paradigm when writing his Canto general. In separate discussions of each work, this study examines the politics of both writers and why they wanted to write political sourcebooks; their use of camaraderie/fraternity to tie readers together for democratic or communist governments; their rewriting of history as redemption and as the progression of democracy or communism; and lastly, their endeavors to teach readers to read as democrats or communists. Ultimately, the study argues that Neruda and Whitman were the foundations and the peaks of their literary traditions and that studying Whitman’s and Neruda’s lyric-epics reveals a common form for poetic epic attempts in the Americas after Whitman; moreover, it argues that even while Neruda used Leaves of Grass as a paradigm, he wrote a work of equal standing to it in Canto general. iv Chapter 1: The Lyric-Epic Tradition and Literary Sourcebooks America is therefore the land of the future, where, in the ages that lie before us, the burden of the world’s history shall reveal itself. G. W. F. Hegel (193) Both Walt Whitman and Pablo Neruda were plagued by the desire to give creative expression to the wide and rambling landscapes and cultures of the Americas. They felt that their literary traditions were laboring under the yoke of European traditions and that without performing the task of naming in the Americas, of giving form and meaning to their societies, their cultures would remain confused, lacking in their own identities. This sense was compounded because both felt that their ideal political systems were verging on the point of dissolution. Communism, Neruda’s ideal system, was battling the long reach of Western capitalism and the legacies of European aristocratic culture. Democracy, Whitman’s ideal, was still an experiment, waiting to be proved workable or an idealistic dream destined for failure. In response to this uncertainty, Whitman felt compelled to assume the mantle of the epic bard and write a poem with a national scope to distinguish American literature and to shape a democratic culture in the United States. Such a piece of literature would breathe “into it [America] a new breath of life, giving it decision, affecting politics far more than the popular superficial suffrage, with results inside and underneath the elections of Presidents or Congresses” (Poetry 956). This new life would help the fledgling democracy stay united since he believed that a political culture, in his case democratic culture, must be in place before a political system can function for a people. Neruda, much like Whitman, wanted to write a work to “discover it [Latin America], to build it” (qtd. in Santí’s Canto General 258). He wanted to create an epic work that would found a new literary tradition in Latin 1 America, for such a work and tradition would bind together Latin Americans and lead them to a better future. Like Whitman, he believed that a political culture must be in place before a political system is set up. When Neruda began the task of creating an epic work roughly a hundred years after Whitman first published Leaves of Grass, he searched widely for writers in the Americas, trying to find some native expression that would help with his own; what he found was Whitman’s attempt to shore up democracy through his lyric-epic Leaves of Grass, a work which had already had more influence on Neruda’s poetry and politics than any other. Whitman’s goal in Leaves of Grass was similar to what Neruda was seeking, for in it Whitman attempts to create a grand poetic work to function as a political sourcebook for democratic culture, but to do that he refigures the epic with the lyric. In this combination he creates the lyric-epic, a native form from which Neruda can pattern his lyric-epic Canto general. From this foundation, Neruda attempts, in ways similar to Whitman in the United States, to create a new style, tradition, and culture that is separate from but equal to that of Europe and to help Latin Americans realize the dream of a unified Latin America. In the years since it was written, Canto general has become a foundational work for Latin American poetry as Leaves of Grass is for American poetry.1 This study attempts to understand Whitman’s Leaves of Grass as a foundational lyric-epic for the political culture of the United States and as inspiration for Neruda’s similar task for Latin America in Canto general.2 The first half of this study examines Whitman’s politics and how they helped form the political framework of Leaves of Grass; his attempt to create a spirit of camaraderie to tie citizens together; his use of history both to emphasize the natural progression of democracy and the continuation of 2 democracy once solidified; and lastly, his use of poetics in an attempt to create a reader who could read in a democratic fashion. The study’s second half concerns similar topics in Neruda’s Canto general, considering them as an inheritance of Whitman by a poet of equal worth. It explores Neruda’s politics and why he wanted to write a political sourcebook; his use of camaraderie/fraternity to tie readers together for communist regimes; his rewriting of history as redemption and as the progression of communism; and lastly, his endeavor to teach readers to read as communists. Both Whitman and Neruda aspired to the stature of the epic poet based in the tradition of Homer, Virgil, and Dante, a role that called for being both the foundation and the peak of their literary tradition. Yet both believed that the purposes of epic are larger and more organically connected to society than the European tradition they wanted to transcend. This study examines the relation between poetry and political culture that both poets sought to build, a relation that could with justice be termed organic because it retains its general goals despite drastic changes in time, language, social structure, and political ideology between the two poets. Neruda drew his faith that poetry can affect politics from Whitman's attempt to do just that in Leaves of Grass. He transformed and discarded parts of Whitman's democratic vision to suit it to the communist readers he would create through his poetry. And the creation of a new kind of reader for a new society, in turn, was a poetic purpose learned from Whitman. As organic adaptations of a common purpose, Leaves of Grass and Canto general receive separate explorations in this study, but with the understanding that examining the two together will reveal a common matrix for attempts at poetic-epics after Whitman in the Americas.