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Dara Miller
Professor Dinius
ENG 464
11 May 2013
Critical Synopsis of Sowders Walt Whitman, The Apostle
In his article Walt Whitman, The Apostle, Michael Sowder seeks to highlight
the existence of the religious-oriented concepts of negation and conversion that lie
beneath Whitmans constant claims of affirmation. Although he acknowledges that
Whitman often wrote in apparent defiance of the Christian culture of religious
preachingfrom the Great Awakening, he claims that Whitmans rhetorical reliance on
traditional Christian religious structures pervades his poetry, and that his work operates
much like the powerful oratory of a sermon (202). He further contends that the religious
structures and undertones in Whitmans work purposely produce conversion experiences
in his readersby which [they] would be reborn into Whitmans image of a new
American personality (202). Sowder further shapes this contextual argument through a
brief discussion of Whitmans writing in relation to Hegelian philosophy and a more
extended close reading of excerpts from two of Whitmans essays and sections from
Leaves of Grass.
Sowder begins by briefly attempting to define the relationship between negation
and affirmation in order to explain the validity of this unlikely model for reading
Whitmans poetry as a call to conversion (202). He cites, in agreement with
contemporary scholarship, several examples of the affirming language in Whitmans
poems that indicate that Whitmans version of religion is not traditionally Christian, but
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rather carved in relief against a religious culture that focused almost entirely on sin,
renunciation, and a rejection of self and the world (203). However, according to his
analysis, Whitmans affirmations cannot stand separate from underlying tension[s] that
originate from the poetrys persistent desire to reform (203).
From this claim, Sowder moves into a philosophical examination of the concept
of negation, specifically as it is connected to reformation. Drawing on Hegel and
Alexander Kojeves interpretation of Hegel, Sowder equates the negation and
transformation, although he maintains that this negation is not purely destructive, as it
produces a new reality (203). This transformative negation, then, lies dormant in
Whitmans poetry; behind each affirmed and redeemed version of his subjects is a
version who must initially have possessed some kind of imperfection (203) that first
needed to be negated and transformed. Through this logic, Sowder implies that
Whitmans subjects the self, the reader, and Americamust experience a
transformative conversion experience before they can be affirmed (203).
After this discussion of why he wants to focus on the absent presence of
negation, Sowder shifts to a brief examination of two essays written by Whitman, which
he intersperses with biographical information about the poet. He specifically isolates
quotes that demonstrate Whitmans fascination with the power of religious oratory, and
notes that Whitman tends to remark positively on examples of religious rhetoric that
characterizes people as passive, moldable recipients of enlightenment handed down by a
powerful preacher figure. He connects this preoccupation with making men victims
(204) of the power of oratory back to the food image he mentioned in his discussion of
Hegel, pointing out Whitmans desire to seek out those he could devour (204) with his
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lectures and poetry. Sowder differentiates himself from other critics, whom he recognizes
have long noted how Whitmans fascination with oratory transferred to his poetry, by
claiming that it was specifically the power of religious oratory that captivated Whitmans
imagination. According to Sowder, Whitman sought to produceconversions (204)
much like the other great preachers of his day. Sowder further notes that the metaphors
Whitman uses to describe [religious] oratory surgery, penetration, agon, war,
victimization, and devouring suggest a fascination with rhetoric thatoverwhelms,
conquers, and negates (204), and he connects this to the benevolent violence of the
rhetoric that pervaded revivals during the Great Awakening.
After establishing the context of his reading, Sowders narrows his focus down to
the element of negation at work in the celebration of [Whitmans] own conversion
based on the idea that the poets testifying of his own experience would, following
evangelical tradition, (206) lead to a variety of subsequent conversions in his readers.
He claims that Whitman describes his personal conversion in Sections 4 and 5 of Song
of Myself, and that Whitmans figure of Me myself, rather than celebrating himself in
his natural form, instead lauds a redeemed version of himself. His reading of Whitmans
line ending what I am leads him to connect the poetic figure to the God of the Old
Testament, and describes the process of redemption for Whitman as one in which the
details [of his] ordinary, everyday, historical life are negated and transformed into this
God-like, gazing Self (206). He then shifts into his first analysis of tense in the poem,
claiming that the use of the past tense in Section 5 proves that the version of himself that
Whitman affirms is an already redeemed Self (206). He also continues his comparison
between Whitmans poetry and the rhetoric of preaching and claims that Whitmans
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naming of himself as Walt Whitman, one of the roughs, a kosmos, (206) constitutes a
conversion experience through the transformative power of names.
The remainder of Sowders argument relies tracing the underlying negating
impulse (206) that he claims are apparent throughout the entire poem. He specifically
points to the Biblical pattern of prophecy and fulfillment (206) that he sees in the
relationship between the 1855 preface and the opening lines, but complicates this idea
through an analysis of the proleptic present (207) tense of the preface that he sees as
preparing the reader for the simple present of perfection of Whitmans opening line
(207). Even in this line, however, Sowder seeks negation, turning to the polysemy of the
word celebrate to reveal a religious meaning often connected to ritual transformations
and conversions (207), thus endowing Whitman with the power to redeem himself. At
the same time as he gives himself this power, according to Sowder, he seems to shy away
from truly allowing that power to others. By keep[ing] us outside the doors of the
celebration (208) and shifting back into the suppositional, the future, [and] the
proleptic tenses, and through using diction that keeps our possession just out of reach
(208), Whitman thus undermines the sense of affirmation generally read within this
section. Sowder concludes by drawing on several lines from Whitman to support the idea
that Whitmans conversion requires[a] self-abandonment which when realized allow
the greatest poetto fill the empty space opened by that self-negation and create a
conversion experience.
In my own reading of Whitman, I found Sowders argument only partially
convincing. Although it does work in the sections he stressed, and the analysis of tense is
compelling, his larger argument does not seem to be something that appear[s]
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throughout the poem as he claims. Near the beginning of Song of Myself he does
seem to see himself as a transformative figure, promising readers that if they Stop this
day and night with [him] they will possess the origin of all poems and will be able to
listen to all sides and filter them (Whitman 28) on their own through what appears to be
their newly transformed state. However, this instance of transformation is almost
immediately followed by There was never any more inception than there is nowAnd
will never be any more perfection than there is now, (Whitman 28), and while Sowder
might argue that the now is the redeemed state, it seems equally plausible that this is an
expression of satisfaction with the natural state of man. Similarly, the poets claim of
Knowing the perfect fitness and equanimity of things(Whitman 29) does not seem to
require any type of negation.
Sowders reading, although attempting to open up a new point of entry into
Whitmans poems, seems prepared to shut out interpretations of Whitman that do not
agree with this underlying concept of negation. But Whitman, as we know, contains
multitudes. Therefore he can say with ease I exist as I am, that is enough as well as
claim to graft and increase upon myself the pleasures of heaven and pains of hell
(Whitman 46). He can channel the rhetoric if repentance in O Me! O Life! and then call
for an idiot or insane person appear in the place of reformers in Transpositions; he
can both sing of himself and chant the square deific as a God-figure. Negation and the
subsequent conversion experience, then, exists within Whitman as a part of the paradox
of life he explores; however, while it may explain elements of his texts, it can hardly
contain the whole.