Whitman's Wits

I opened the diaries expecting to find detailed notes and insight into Whitman's mind. Instead I found a bunch of various lines on a page that were at some point meant to be letters. However from the various pages I made a couple observations. First, in spite of his deliberate structure of his poems, his journals contain no structure and often has last minute cancelations or additions. Of the words I could decode I found the reoccurring theme of ships interesting. Ships and the idea of winds pushing them, alludes to a theme of change which in the time of the Civil War did offer insight into what Whitman was dealing with in the times of his publication. Also I noticed the phrase, "Ship of Libertad" and thought it was interesting associating ships and change with liberty. I think the most interesting part of the journals were the sketches on the back pages. My original thought led me to believe that the sketches were they were self portraits with an influence from Abraham Lincoln as seen by the hat in a majority of the sketches. 

But the good news is someone else can actually read Whitman's writing. What stood out to be the most was Whitman's thoughts on religion that I had not noticed before. In the journal Whitman writes, "two religions -  platforms". He goes on to describe the first religious platform as being one of philosophy and reason and the second platform being belief in an "unseen soul". Whitman puts forward a third, from my understanding, that incorporates both platforms. I think this is the most insightful entry in this journal. Knowing background into Whitman's liberal thoughts and lifestyle I think it says a lot that he finds religion to be such an important part of his life. And I tend to agree with his ideas that religion should be more than just a belief in a higher power but an internal discovery (whoa, deep stuff). The Civil War poems were interesting as well but most fascinating was the poem which finished with "and you" as if he was talking directly to Lincoln and pushing him into a class with royalty.