INFORMATION TO USERS This material was produced from a microfilm copy of the original document. While the most advanced technological means to photograph and reproduce this document have been used, die quality is heavily dependent upon the quality of the original submitted. The following explanation of techniques is provided to help you understand markings or patterns which may appear on this reproduction. 1. The sign or "target" for pages apparently lacking from the document photographed is "Missing Page(s)". If it was possible to obtain the missing page(s) or section, they are spliced into the film along with adjacent pages. This may have necessitated cutting thru an image and duplicating adjacent pages to insure you complete continuity. 2. When an image on the film is obliterated with a large round black mark, it is an indication that the photographer suspected that the copy may have moved during exposure and thus cause a blurred image. You will find a good image of the page in the adjacent frame. 3. When a map, drawing or diart, etc., was part of the material being photographed the photographer followed a definite method in "sectioning" the material. It is customary to begin photoing at the upper left hand corner of a large sheet and to continue photoing from left to right in equal sections with a small overlap. If necessary, sectioning is continued again — beginning below the first row and continuing on until complete. 4. The majority of users indicate that the textual content is of greatest value, however, a somewhat higher quality reproduction could be made from "photographs" if essential to the understanding of the dissertation. Silver prints of "photographs" may be ordered at additional charge by writing the Order Department, giving the catalog number, title, author and specific pages you wish reproduced. 5. PLEASE NOTE: Some pages may have indistinct print. Filmed as received. Xerox University Microfilms 300 North Zoob Road Ann Arbor, Michigan 48106 74-3243 MARSHALL, Jon Eldon, 1945- THE WHITMAN TRADITION IN TWENTIETH CENTURY AMERICAN POETRY. The Ohio State University, Ph.D., 1973 Language and Literature, modem University Microfilms, A XEROX Company, Ann Arbor, Michigan © 1973 JON ELDEN MARSHALL ALL RIGHTS RESERVED THE WHITMAN TRADITION IN TWENTIETH CENTURY AMERICAN POETRY DISSERTATION Presented in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Doctor of Philosophy in the Graduate School of The Ohio State University By Jon Elden Marshall, B.A*, M*A. The Ohio State University 1973 Reading Committee: Approved by Gordon K. Grigsby Daniel R. Earaes John Muste 7 Advseo^ 7 Department of English Q Copyright 1973 by Jon Elden Marshall Excerpts from: Ezra Pound. "What I Peel About Walt Whitman." Copyright 1955 by Ezra Pound. Copyright 1973 by the Estate of Ezra Pound. "I Gather the Limbs of Osiris." Copyright 1911- 1912 by The Mew Age. Copyright 1973 by the Estate of Ezra Pound. '. A Lume 5pento. Copyright 1965 by Ezra Pound and New Directions Publishing Corporation. __________ . The Classic Noh Theatre of Japan. Copyright 1959 by'lsrew Directions Publishing Corporation, Ezra Pound, and Ernest Penollosa. _________ Lustra. Copyright 1917 by Ezra Pound. Personae. Copyright 1926 by Ezra Pound. Guide to Kulchur. All Rights Reserved. Copyright 1976 by Ezra Pound. __________ . Literary Essays. Copyright 1918# 1920, 1935 by Ezra Pound. __________ ^ Confucius: The Great Digest and Unwobbling Pivot- The Analects. Copyright 1956 by Ezra Pound. The Selected Letters of Ezra Pound, 1907-1941. Copyright 19^0 by Ezra Pound. __________ . Patrla Mia. All Rights Reserved. Copyright 19^6 by Ralph Fletcher Seymour. Guardla-Brzseka— A Memoir. Copyright 1970 by Ezra Pound. William Carlos Williams. "America, Whitman,, and the Art of Poetry." Copyright 1917 The Poetry Journal. ____________ |__• Collected _ Earlier Poems. Copyright 1938 by New Directions Publishing Corporation. Pictures Prom Brueghel and Other Poems. Co d v - rlgEt i ^ - f"T955; 196S"Ty ' Carlos Williams. _______________ .. Imaginations. Copyright 1970 by Florence H. Williams. _______________. Selected Essays. Copyright 1954 by William Carlos williams. _______________. Selected Letters. Copyright 1957 by William Carlos Williams. _______________• The Autobiography. Copyright 1948, 1949, 1951 by William Carlos Williams. ________ ______ . Paterson. Copyright 1946, 1948, 1949, 1951, 195B by William Carlos Williams; Book VI copyright 1963 by Florence H. Williams. Quotations from Ezra Pounds* LUSTRA* PERSONAE* GUIDE TO KULCHUR* LITERARY ESSAYS* PATRIA MIA* THE CANTOS OP EZRA POUND, GUARDIA-BRZSEKA: A MEMOIR and from William Cerolos Williams* COLLECTED EARLIER POEMS, SELECTED ESSAYS* THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY* and PATERSON* reprinted by permission of New Directions Publishing Corporation. A C O O WLEDGEtfENTS / Many people have made this dissertation possible. I was aided in my research by a travel grant from the English Department of the Ohio State University. Permission to study the unpublished papers of E2 ra Pound and William Oarlos Williams kindly was extended by James Laughlln. For permission to study the unpublished letters of Ezra Pound In its collection, I am indebted to The Houghton Library, Harvard University. Por permission to study the collection of Dr. Williams1 papers in the Lockwood Memorial Library Poetry Collection, State University of Hew York at Buffalo, 1 am Indebted to the Curator, Mr. K. C. Gay. Por permission to study unpublished papers by Hart Crane, Ezra Pound, and William Carlos Williams in The Beinecke Rare Book and Manu­ script Library, Yale University, I am Indebted to the Cura­ tor of the American Literature Collection, Mr. Donald Gallup. Permission to quote from the published work3 of Ezra Pound and William Carlos Williams has been granted by James Laughlln and Hew Directions. Finally, I should like to acknowledge the aid of two persons in the composition of this book. I am Indebted to Professor Daniel R. Barnes; his Industry and his criticisms proved invaluable for the composition of this study. Most of all, I am indebted to Professor Gordon K. Grigsby for his faith in this work and his Insight Into its problems. VITA January 7, 1945 . Born - Columbus, Ohio 1966 . • B.A., Oherlln College, Oberlln, Ohio 1967 • * . ........ M.A., University of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois 1968-1973 . Teaching Associate, Department of English, The Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio FIELDS OF STUDY Major Field : Twentieth Century British and American Literature 111 TABLE OF CONTENTS Page ACKNOWLEDGMENTS.................................. ii VITA ............................ iii Chapter I. WHITMAN AND THE SOURCES OF AMERICAN POETIC EXPRESSION........................ 1 II. WHITMAN AND THE POETS OF THE CHICAGO RENAISSANCE.................................. 22 Edgar Lee Masters. ................ 26 Vachel Lindsay ............................ 36 Carl Sandhurg. .................. ^3 Conclusion.................................. III. EZRA POUND AND WALT WHITMAN..................... & IV. HART C R A N E .......... 9^ V. WILLIAM CARLOS WILLIAMS........................... 121 BIBLIOGRAPHY.................. «T...................... 161 iv CHAPTER I WHITMAN AND THE SOURCES OF AMERICAN POETIC EXPRESSION Whitman himself defines the subject of this study* Poets to cornel orators, singers, musicians to cornel Not to-day is to justify me and answer what I am for, But you, a new brood, native, athletic, con­ tinental, greater than before known, ArouseI for you must justify me, I myself but write one or two indicative words for the future, I but advance a moment only to wheel and hurry back in the darkness. t ■ I am a man who, sauntering along without fully stopping, turns a casual look upon you and then averts his face. Leaving it to you to prove and define it, Expecting the main things from you.* My intention is to examine the "new brood" of poets who advance and justify the work he began, who try to "prove and define it." The proofs and the definitions offered by these poets will be of several kinds, some more stim­ ulating and productive than others. One thing is cer­ tain, however, the immediate response to Whitman's poetry was a direct but superficial imitation of his form. Whitman's impact on the American poetry of the late nineteenth century was negligiblei it remained confined 2 to the disciples of Whitman's circle and a small number of radicals who dissented from the complacent norms of genteel society. These imitators— disciples like Horace Traubel and Edward Carpenter, the Protestant reformer the Reverend William Davenport, and minor poets like Ernest Crosby, Frank Cowan, and J. William Lloyd— preoccupied by his ideas and not by his formal innovations, merely utilized the form as a vehicle for their ideas and did little to justify his work. Those attracted to Whitman, as Gay Wilson Allen has observed, praised his poetry, but as Scripture, not as literature. • [What they celebrated were] the standard ideals of nineteenth century romanticism and democratic liberalism* the sacredness of the individual and the Godhead in every man, the rights of the "common man," more humanitarian laws and government, the beauty of the human body, the need for a demo­ cratic esthetics. 2 His disciples and followers regarded Whitman's free verse technique as no more than a fixed and useful convention they could oppose to the traditional forms of the day. Once they had taken this step, each was committed to the error of substituting for the specific bodying forth that is the nature of a poetic argument the generalities of his own thought. In other words, poetry for these men was the versification of ideas. But the ideas expressed by Whitman, save with regard to sex, had been proclaimed by the romantics of an earlier time. So long as these 3 writers affirmed the warmed-over generalities of a pro- gessively moribund romantic idealism, they remained tied to abstractions that no longer had any suasion with the mass audience they desperately wished to reach. Whitman's disciples and followers succeeded in com­ posing only long untalented pastiches of Whitman's work because they never considered the potentials of the free verse form but saw it as merely a handy convention for disseminating radical social ideas.