If Walt Whitman were a beer……

Apparently he is Two beers!  I am a huge foodie, and along with that I am very interested in my beers and wines.  Upon stepping into a local bar near my home, I came across a bottle of beer called Walt Wit.   My first thought was, if Walt Whitman were a beer, what would he taste like?  After reading the various selections from Children of Adam and Calamus, I’m beginning to wonder if he shouldn’t be some sort of aphrodisiac instead of a beer…. but I haven’t come across anything of the sort as of right now.

Regardless, I couldn’t help but order a bottle.  Walt Wit is a wheat beer (which is what “Wit” really means) and is quite fruity and light on the pallet.  I enjoyed it, and found myself wondering what the Philadelphia Brewing Company’s opinion was of Walt Whitman, and how Whitman influenced the flavor of the beer.  Their web site description is as follows:

Walt Wit

The American poet Walt Whitman once portrayed a sunset over Philadelphia as,“…a broad tumble of clouds, with much golden haze and profusion of beaming shaft and dazzle.” Pour yourself a bottle of Walt Wit Belgian Style White Ale and see what he was talking about . A pinch of spice and a whisper of citrus lend complexity to this fragrant, satisfying ale.

Walt Wit – it’s transcendentally delicious.

4.2%ALC/VOL

I find this very amusing, and quite clever.  I was impressed with the description of it being “transcendentally delicious”, and was glad they had a line from one of his poems that inspired the beer.

I researched further and came across another beer called “Old Walt Smoked Wit Beer”, which has a picture of Walt Whitman on the front reading, in what was purportedly his favorite spot in West Hills, where he lived in New York City.

I would be very interested to try this beer as well, and wonder what the inspiration for the flavors are that deem it worthy of Whitman’s name.  The brewery’s web site (Blind Bat Brewery) was not working, so I could not find a detailed description from them, or what their inspiration was for naming the beer as such.  One site described it in quite a similar fashion to the Walt Wit, as a smoky spiced beer with a citrus suggestion.  If anyone happens to come across a bottle I would love to try it.

The only thing missing now is a beer from the D.C. area.

                 In the beginning of Leaves of Grass Whitman explicates that all things in the universe are necessary for each other, and come from each other, and go from one another.  He wrote that all things in this universe were created for each other.  He then uses this same idea to prove the value of all human beings, even slaves.             

                     Whitman’s stand on slavery is so interesting.  For the time period he is so forward thinking, and so liberal one wonders if other people felt the same way as he did at the time, but just weren’t able to express it in the same manner that he did.  In the second part of Leaves of Grass a very interesting passage is as follows:

     “A slave at auction!

      I help the auctioneer . . . . the sloven does not half know his business.

     Gentlemen look on this curious creature

     Whatever the bids of the bidders they cannot be high enough for him,

     For him the globe lay preparing quintillions of years without one animal or

          plant,

     For him the revolving cycles truly and steadily rolled.

     In that head the allbaffling brain,

     In it and below it the making of the attributes or heroes.

     Examine these limbs, red black or white . . . . they are very cunning in

          tendon and nerve;

     They shall be stript that you may see them.

     Exquisite senses, lifelit eyes, pluck, volition,

     Flakes of breastmuscle, pliant backbone and neck, flesh not flabby,

          goodsized arms and legs,

      And wonders within there yet,

     Within there runs his blood . . . . . the same old blood . . . . the same

          red running blood;

     There swells and jets his heart . . . . There all passions and desires . . . .

          all reachings and aspirations:

     Do you think they are not there because they are not expressed in parlors

           and lecture-rooms?”                (Whitman, 124).

                Whitman says that all men, “red black or white” are made up of the same things,  and were created from the same things, and through all their veins runs the same red blood.  Whitman says that although it may not be apparent to others, through all men run the same passions and desires,  reachings and aspirations, and it is just unfortunate all men are not given the same mediums to express themselves.  Just because white men, and free men are given the freedom to express their opinions, passions, and desires “in parlors and lecture-rooms” doesn’t mean that black men, and enslaved men aren’t also emblazoned  with these same ideas.

     This is very interesting to observe.  During the time period many people argued that blacks were “lesser” people, which was how they justified enslaving them.  Whitman here is saying, a hundred years before Martin Luther King Jr., that all men are created equal.  Whitman is saying that given an equal chance, people would find that within all men, even slaves, there are brilliant ideas to be heard and strong passions and desires to be felt and acted upon. 

             Whitman was so bold as to be saying these things during the time period he was writing.  It is no wonder that so many people were outraged by what he was writing.  This can be seen in the reviews of Leaves of Grass  that we read in class last week.

In “Leaves of Grass” on page 74 Whitman begins a catalogue of different gods, one of which I mentioned in my imagegloss (Odin).  He says, “With Odin, and the hideous-faced Mexitli, and all idols and images…”.  When I began my research on the image gloss I started with Mexitli, only to find that there are no images, and little to no information about this “God” named Mexitli.  On Wikipedia the entry for Mexitli is as follows: “Mexitli was a legendary great leader and war god of the Aztecs (before they became known as the Mexica, possibly in his honour) during the wandering years. The name derives from the Nahuatl metztli (the moon) and xictli (navel) and thus means “navel (probably implying ‘child’) of the moon”.  I googled Mexitli and found no leads; I checked the OED online, and I even searched in Academic Search Premier for “Whitman and Mexitli” and still came up with nothing. 

    As I read the poem further I came across another image that I was interested to research.  On page 77 Whitman says, “Walking the teokallis, spotted with gore from the stone and knife-beating the serpent-skin drum…”.  A globe trotter myself, I wondered what the teokallis could be.  So, I got back online and looked up “teokallis”.  Again, I came to many dead ends here.  After some research I found the term “teocallis” mentioned in some places.  I wondered if this was what Whitman was referring to, and why it is spelled different.  Did he spell it wrong, is it spelled differently in different cultures, is Whitman going with a native or primitive spelling of the location?  Wikipedia’s entry on “Teocalli” is as follows:  A teocalli (Nahuatl: “God-house”) is a Mesoamerican pyramid surmounted by a temple. The pyramid is terraced, and some of the most important religious rituals in Pre-Columbian Mexico took place in the temple at the top of the pyramid.
The famous, although no longer extant, Aztec Huey Teocalli (“Great Temple,” Spanish, Templo Mayor) was located next to what is now Mexico City’s main square, the Zocalo. A famous 1848 painting by Emanuel Leutze depicts “The Storming of the Teocalli by Cortez and His Troops,” which Leutze painted four years before his classic “Washington Crossing the Delaware.”

          Again we are brought to an Aztec term, or something that leads us to the Aztec culture.  I looked for articles relating Whitman to the Aztecs, Mexitli, Mesoamerica, etc and found nothing.  I now find myself quite interested in knowing what Whitman’s interest or expertise is in regards to the Aztecs, or Mesoamerica.  Has he ever traveled to Central or South America?  Did he have a personal interest in the history or the culture of Mesoamerica?  Why does he mention the culture twice within this poem?  What does he know and why don’t we know it now??  Can anyone help me with my quest?

“Odin, the Wanderer” (1886) by Georg von Rosen.

“With Odin, and the hideous-faced Mexitli, and all idols and images, Honestly taking from them all for what they are worth, and not a cent more, Admitting they were alive and did the work of their day…”  (Whitman, 74)

Odin, who strangely looks a bit like Whitman himself, is the cheif god in Norse paganism.  “The Norwegian anthropologist Thor Heyerdahl says the Norse god Odin is based on a real chieftain who led a band of warriors from his kingdom in southern Russia to Sweden almost 2,000 years ago” (Gibbs, 16).  In this section of the poem Whitman names many different Gods from different religions around the world.  Some of them are well known and others, like Odin, are not. 

Throughout “Leaves of Grass” Whitman catalogues different things.  John B. Mason, in his article “Walt Whitman’s Catalogues: Rhetorical Means for Two Journeys in ‘Song of Myself'” claims that Whitman uses catalogues to manipulate the reader’s involvement.  In this particular passage, Mason claims that Whitman intentionally blurs the images, so that the reader barely has time to respond to the images.  Mason says, “The alliteration helps to blur the names, and the personality of the individual God is robbed by the poet’s treatment of the gods as postage stamps in an album.  The reader is to see the God who is unnameable” (Mason, 44). 

Manipulation or not, Whitman is using these images in a catalogue, or a blur, to help the reader see a God who is unnameable.   Whitman juxtaposes well known religious figures with little known ones, such as Odin, to show that the significance is not in which God one worships, but that we all worship one type of God or another, and all of these Gods represent the same thing, a spiritual connection to the universe.  Whitman says that with these Gods we should “[take] them all for what they are worth, and not a cent more, [admit] they were alive and did the work of their day…” (Whitman 74).  Whitman uses different Gods from different time periods and coutries to show that each culture in each time period ascribes power to a god or an “idol”, simply as a representation, giving the people something to worship, but all of them representing a power in nature, the divinity of the universe. 

http://aesthetictraditionalist.wordpress.com/2008/12/04/the-old-gent/

Gibbs, Walter (NYT). “World Briefing | Europe: Norway: New Theory On Norse God.” New York Times (30 Nov. 2001): 16. Academic Search Premier. EBSCO. [Library name], [City], [State abbreviation]. 16 Sep. 2009 https://login.proxy.libraries.rutgers.edu/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com.proxy.libraries.rutgers.edu/login.aspx?direct=true&db=aph&AN=29003216&site=ehost-live.

Mason, John B. “Walt Whitman’s Catalogues: Rhetorical Means for Two Journeys in “Song of Myself”.” American Literature 45.1 (Mar. 1973): 34. Academic Search Premier. EBSCO. [Library name], [City], [State abbreviation]. 16 Sep. 2009 https://login.proxy.libraries.rutgers.edu/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com.proxy.libraries.rutgers.edu/login.aspx?direct=true&db=aph&AN=10052974&site=ehost-live.

Song of Myself embodies Whitman’s feelings about the idea of “self” as a spiritual entity.  Whitman begins by stating that all of the components of his life are not what makes up his “self” or his identity.  He says, “My dinner, dress, associates, looks, business, compliments, dues, The real or  fancied indifference of some man or woman I love, The sickness of my folks-or myself …. Or ill doing…. Or loss or lack of money ….. or depressions or exhaultations, They come to me days and nights and go from me again, But they are not Me myself .”  Whitman is saying that his social world, his clothes, his family, his lovers, are not the things that make him who he is.  These things do not define him or his idea of self.  Whitman is saying that his self is part of the greater chain of existence in the Universe. 

Whitman relates himself to every man and every woman in every social, economic, and geographic position.  He is saying that in order for one to understand ones “self”, and ones position in this universe, one must understand the position of everyone in this universe.  “I am not an earth nor an adjunct of an earth, I am the mate and companion of people, all just as immortal and fathomless as myself; They do not know how immortal, but I know.  Every kind for itself and its own …. For me mine male and female, for me all that have been boys and that love women, for me the man that is proud and feels how it stings to be slighted, for me the sweetheart and the old maid …. For me mothers and the mothers of mothers, for me lips that have smiled, eyes that have shed tears, for me children and the begetters of children”.  Whitman is saying that all these different forms of self are important to the universe, and that he is all of these things because he is part of the universe.  “In all people I see myself, none more and not one a barleycorn less, and the good or bad I say of myself I say of them.  And I know I am solid and sound, to me the converging objects of the universe perpetually flow, all are written to me, and I must get what the writing means”. 

The entire poem is written in this philosophical manner,  and makes the claim that we all exist as we are, and were, forever in part of this whole complete structure that is the universe.  It seems that Whitman is saying that everything and everyone has his place in this universe, and that everyone is important to the universe because of one’s role.  “I resist anything better than my own diversity, and breathe the air and leave plenty after me, and am not stuck up, and am in my place.  The moth and the fisheggs are in their place, the suns I see and the suns I cannot see are in their place, The palpable is in its place and the impalpable is in its place”.  All of these things have their role in the universe just as every person does, and one should try to recognize that he is important to the universe whatever his role may be. 

The poem has a whimsical air about it that speaks to the reader on a very personal level.  Many of the lines were personally moving, and the connectedness of the individual to nature was quite apparent throughout the poem.  These parts of the poem were reminiscent of Wordsworth because it seemed as though Whitman was trying to exemplify that one can see the transcendence not of the heavens, but the beauty and power of the universe through our connection to nature.  “Smile O voluptuous coolbreathed earth!…. Prodigal! you have given me love! . . . . therefore I to you give love!”. 

The style of the poem is stream of consciousness in a sense, but does seem to have a governing idea throughout, this idea of self, and the position of self in the universe.  It is a very powerful poem about the nature of being, and about considering ones self in relation to the entire universe.  “Let up again to feel the puzzle of puzzles, And that we call Being”.

Smile O voluptuous coolbreathed earth!

Earth of the slumbering and liquid trees!

Earth of departed sunset!  Earth of the mountains misty-topt!

Earth of the vitreous pour of the full moon just tinged

with blue!

Earth of shine and dark mottling the tide of the river!

Earth of the limpid gray of clouds brighter and clearer for

                my sake!

Far-swooping elbowed earth!  Rich apple-blossomed earth!

Smile, for your lover comes!

Prodigal!  you have given me love! . . . . therefore I to you

                give love!

O unspeakable passionate love!

Thruster holding me tight and that I hold tight!

We hurt each other as the bridegroom and the bride hurt

                each other.

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