The prompt for this week reminded me of something I had thought about while reading about the ARG being sponsored by Levi’s right now (the GO FORTH treasure hunt game that goes along with those commercials). In the game someone was given an 1882 edition of Leaves of Grass to use as a cipher for one of the clues. I’m sure that 1882’s are easier to come by so that’s why it was used, but my initial reaction was “What? Why the heck would they use that edition, I didn’t even know that one existed!” We have talked about the “deathbed” 1892 edition, the “Walt Whitman, recently immigrated from an unknown planet” 1855 edition, and the “strange” 1867 edition, but not really much else. So I went on the Whitman archive, and read “about” section for that edition, and then I felt kind of dumb. The 1882 edition and the 1892 edition are basically the same; there are no significant changes to the text. I may have missed this in class somewhere, so maybe this is only news to me, but I found that interesting. I also found it interesting that apparently the 1882 edition was set to follow an almost narrative pattern. The clusters were arranged in such a way as to have a definite build-up, with Drum-Taps as the climax, and then resolution in the Lincoln poems and other following clusters. Originally my perception of the various editions is that they should be looked at as specific representations of different times in Whitman’s life. He adjusted each edition to his particular purpose and message at that time, so it seems logical to view them that way. Knowing that the deathbed edition doesn’t follow this thread complicates things. Many people view this edition as the “definitive” edition, and yet fundamentally it’s different from all the previous ones. The fact that it’s based in a narrative, and none of the other editions are, makes it harder to compare to the rest of them. There’s just a completely different motivation going into the assembly and ordering of this book. In essence, I don’t ever think we can say that there’s a definitive Leaves of Grass. They each mean different things to their different times. Personally, I like the 1855 Song of Myself better, but as I mentioned in my last post, the Song of Myself from 1892 is powerful in its own ways to me as well. There’s so much layering between each of these editions that by picking one of them as the text that we should go with above all the other texts seems rather unfortunate and narrow minded. I like the idea, even though it’s a frustrating one, of having to just pick things out of every edition, taking them each for what they are at each separate time. Whitman gave us something that no other poet has with these multiple works, and I think it’s important that instead of trying to whittle it down, we appreciate it in its “multitudes.”
Categories:
