Homoeroticism in Whitman The most of so-called homosexual texts written by Walt Whitman were created well before the very term homosexual or homoeroticism was coined. Whitmans texts were written well before the moment when the birth of homosexual species was announced by Foucault (1870).
Before homosexuals and before homosexuality Walt Whitman had persistently, insistently, and inquisitively asked questions about love, wondering about young beings, strangers, who seem to touch the fountains of our love, and draw forth their swelling waters. (Fone 1) Whitman asked: Why be there men I meet…that while they are with me, the sunlight of Paradise…expands my blood…that when they leave me the pennants of joy sink flat and lank. and though we may never meet…again, we know…that we two have…exchanged the…mysterious unspoken password… and…are thence free…comers to…each other’s…most interior love?” (DBN 3:764-65).
He spoke about the secret of his nights and days he wanted to reveal; however, it is obvious what was the secret that was concealed within Whitmans life, for all who are or have been young men, the most famous of Americas homoerotic texts (Fone 1).
While reading his texts, one can hardly disprove Whitmans homoeroticism in his texts. The poet insisted that literature has to be “the courageous wrestle with live subjects – the strong gymnasia of the mind” (Fone 2), and was firmly convinced that poems should be written in order to awake the feelings, to give freedom and arouse the reason, and help the reader to see the realities for himself in his own way, with his own individuality and after his own fashion.” (NUPM 4:1561, 1563) His poems are perfect illustration to these words. One of the most powerful icons in Whitmans texts is Fierce Wrestler, who dominates Whitmans texts and obsesses the poet. Wrestler inhabits Whitmans thoughts and comments about the literature, and claims that he wants to bring the reader into the atmosphere of thought or theme in order to pursue the readers own fight. In the poets works one can clearly notice the conversion of homoerotic desire into an informing aesthetic which is governed as much by what the poet doesn’t tell as by what Whitman tells.
The Essay on Main Character Reader Love Story
Though the similarities and differences of characterization in Chekhov and Oates's different versions of "The Lady with the Pet Dog" are evident, the purpose only becomes clear for the reader when the two versions are read and compared. The stories have different settings, but the characters in the story remain the same. There is Anna, Dmitry, and their families. Although their families are ...
His intratextual and intertextual dialogues enable creating homoerotic fantasy and to bring additional sexuality into his texts. By the period when the term homosexual entered sexual, medical, and legal discourse, the poet had already explored what he called manly love, adhesiveness, and comradeship (Fone 4).
He raised all these questions in his texts, with no evident attempt to define homosexuality within any given historical, social or cultural frame, but rather to pursue both accident and essence, to share his emotional experiences and to awake the reader’s emotions. In The Childs Champion written in 1841, the poet invokes the muse, who will be consistently present in almost all his texts. This stranger is embodied in “young beings, strangers who seem to touch the fountains of our love, and draw forth their swelling waters” (EPF74 n. 23) and appears in almost all poets texts.
Whitman names this muse Fierce Wrestler, and mentions Wrestler in one of his notebooks that were written shortly before Song of Myself as the one who struggles “at the threshold with spasms more delicious than all before.” (NUPM 1:77) Whitman portrays him as a fully eroticized muse, who becomes a “blind loving wrestling touch in Section 29 of his Song of Myself and tells that Fierce Wrestler filled him with a “library of instant knowledge.” (NUPM 1:75) Walt Whitmans texts are vivid, powerful and violent. They invoke the feelings and provide a completely another context for the poetry. His texts are focused on male lives, and male beauty, male sexuality and male relationships, and often awake the preliminary version of the genital textuality, displaying a strong context of fluid imagery, creating a powerful and generalized atmosphere of homoeroticism. His texts create an image of a lover, as an archetype of the lover and the ideal friend. The images of young men in Whitmans texts are different, as some of them are sexually desirable and hot-blooded, some of them are effeminate, weak and in need for protection, however, all these images have much in common, as all of them are sensual and evoke eroticism. Their lover, savior or protector is manly and noble, he is older than they are, and as handsome as they are androgynously sensual.
The Essay on Lines Of Iambic Pentameter Sonnet Love Poet
A poet called Petrarch developed the sonnet form in Italy. It is a poem made up of 14 lines of iambic pentameter. An Italian rhyme scheme is ABBA ABBA in the first octave. The sestet can be CDC DCD which was the original scheme, or CDE CDE. The sonnet was brought to England by Sir Thomas Wyatt and The Earl of Surrey who visited Italy during the Renaissance. Sonnets were originally wrote in Latin ...
(Fone 53) The young men in Whitmans poetry are all beset by a cruel employer or a parent, or the cruel world around them. Many of them symbolically rebel against the power, either it is embodied by a strict father, patriarchal family, or social order. All these young men are described by the poet with an emphasis on their physical attraction instead of focusing on their characters. Almost all Walt Whitmans texts are the most fully realized and the most suggestive examples of what should obviously be seen as a homoerotic genre. Whitmans stories are interesting and fascinating, with their themes of the regenerative power of love, the love of a man for a man. His texts contain a substantial homoerotic subtext, with a light flavor of sentimentality and the language of desire.
Works Cited Fone, Byrne R. S. Masculine Landscapes: Walt Whitman and the Homoerotic Text . Carbondale, IL: Southern Illinois University Press, 1992..
