Whitman and Mysticism
What is mysticism: Mysticism is not a coherent philosophy of lifestyle, but more a mood of brain. A mystical knowledge, according to BERTRAND RUSSEL, entails perception, a sense of unity and the unreality of time and space, and a perception that evil is mere look. A mystic’s vision is intuitive he feels the existence of a divine reality guiding and within the ordinary globe of feeling perception. He feels that God and the Supreme Soul animating all items are identical. He sees an crucial identity of being among Guy, Character and God. He thinks that “all factors in the obvious world are but forms and manifestations of the a single Divine Daily life, and that these phenomena are shifting and short-term, even though the soul that informs them is eternal”. The human soul, way too, is eternal. Transcendentalism is intently connected to mysticism, for it emphasizes the unintuitive and spiritual over the empirical.
Whitman’s poetry is full of mystic and transcendental strains: He was deeply motivated by Emerson, the American transcendentalist. His believed was intuitive and not systematic like a logician’s. He wrote like a mystic:
Knowledge is of the soul, is not susceptible to evidence, is its own evidence.
Applies to all phases and objects and qualities, and is articles,
Is the certainty of the reality and immorality of issues and the excellence of things.
One thing there is in the float of the sight of items that provokes it out of the Soul.
Whitman considered the soul to be immortal. He felt identification with all animate and inanimate factors all around him. What is intriguing about Whitman’s mysticism is that, as Schyberg observes, “in his guide we can find the common traits of completely all the a variety of mystic doctrines”.
Whitman is a mystic with a big difference: A single cannot get in touch with him a pure mystic in the perception of oriental mysticism. He is not a praying man. Like all mystics he believed in the existence of the soul, and in the existence of the Divine Spirit, in the immortality of the human soul, and in the ability of a human currently being to create interaction amongst his spirit and the Divine Spirit. But he differs from the oriental or traditional mystics in that he does not subscribe to their belief that interaction with the Divine Spirit is possible only by way of denial of the senses and mortification of the flesh. Whitman declares that he sings of the physique as considerably as of the soul. He feels that non secular conversation is achievable, in fact attractive, without sacrificing the flesh. Therefore there is a excellent offer of the sexual element in Whitman’ s poetry, specially in the early poetry-Section 5 of Song of Myself is a scenario in level in which the sexual connotations are inseparable from the mystical encounter.
The Substance World is not denigrated: Whitman does not reject the content globe. He seeks the non secular through the substance. He does not subscribe to the belief that objects are illusive. There is no inclination on the portion of the soul to leave this planet for great. In Crossing Brooklyn Ferry, we see the soul trying to enjoy a significant role in the administration of this globe of scenes, sights, seems, etc. Whitman does not belittle the achievements of science and materialism. In Part 23 of Music of Myself, he accepts the actuality of materialism and suggests:
Human for good science!
Extended stay specific demonstration!
Mother nature and gentleman shall be disjoined and subtle no far more.
In search of the divine fact: Whitman acknowledged the Idea of Evolution but could not feel evolution to be a mechanical process. In the gradual procedure of progress, improvement and modify that science was revealing, Whitman observed God generating Himself obvious and unmistakable to gentleman. The soul of gentleman finds full dissatisfaction only in in search of out the actuality behind the manifestations. As he says in Passage to India:
Bathe me O God in thee, mounting thee,
I and my soul to selection in range of thee.
At the finish of the journey the soul fulfills with God-or the “Wonderful Camerado” as he states in Song of Myself.
Whitman’s perception of unity of the total: His cosmic consciousness.: Whitman has during his poetry revealed his faith in the unity of the entire, or “oneness” of all. This perception of the crucial divinity of all created items is an crucial facet of mysticism and is also intently relevant to Whitman’s faith in democracy calling for equality and fraternity. Track of Myself is replete with strains proclaiming this “oneness”. He knows
… that all men at any time born are also my brothers… and all the ladies my sisters and fans,
And that a keelson of the creation is really like.
He praises, not merely life, but the complete wroth of every single distinct and specific particular person, every single true present currently being. Whitman equates all opposites, and accepts evil as much as component of Truth.
In Crossing Brooklyn Ferry, the poet has achieved the unity of all mankind: “The straightforward, compact, well-joined plan myself disinterested however element of the plan”. Time becomes one particular in Whitman’s poetry. Earlier, present and long term are merged into a spiritual continuum. Therefore in Crossing Brooklyn Ferry, he says:
It avails not, time nor area-distance avails not,
I am with you, you males and women of a technology,
Or at any time so a lot of generations consequently.
Mysticism governing the photographs and symbolism of Whitman’s poetry: The mystic quest for Reality and communion with the Divine simply lends itself to be represented in conditions of the voyage image. The Song of the open up Highway is a poem whose concept is a journey symbolic of an exploration of the non secular as nicely as the physical universe. Out of the Cradle Endlessly Rocking symbolizes the mystic quest for reality and the supreme discovery of the that means of lifestyle. When Lilacs very last in the dooryard Bloom’d use symbols and images designed to affirm the importance of Demise. Dying is noticed as a deliveress since it prospects to new lifestyle, and the poet possessing had the mystical knowledge of this fact, seeks to be a “uniter of here and hereafter”
As G. W. Allen details out, the “try to indicate the route among truth and the soul really nearly sums up Whitman’s total intention in Leaves of Grass”. The mysticism right here is apparent. The cosmic “I” of Whitman’s poems is on a perpetual journey. His soul is but a fragment of the entire world soul. The mass of photographs which race by means of his poems symbolize the unity and harmony in himself and all creation. The spear of grass assumes mystical significance by means of its symbolic value-celebration of individuality and the enmasse, exclusion of none, exception of all. In Track of Myself, Whitman speaks of God as his beloved and his “mattress-fellow” sleeping at his facet all night time. The mystical knowledge is conveyed in conditions of highly charged sexual imagery.
Whitman rarely lost contact with the actual physical truth even in the midst of mystical encounter. Physical phenomena for him have been symbols of non secular actuality. He considered that “the unseen is proved by seen” therefore he makes use of highly sensuous and concrete imagery to convey his notion of divine actuality. He finds a goal behind natural objects-grass, sea hen, flowers, animals-for,
The smallest sprout displays there is really no demise…
and
… al leaf of grass is no much less than the journey-work of the stars…
Without christian mysticism , one particular may well say that mysticism constitutes the very poetic type of Whitman’s poems, he appeared on the universe as constituting a unity of disparate objects, unified the Divine Spirit as a result his poems are “Leaves of Grass” signifying at when separateness and unity. Whitman’s dominant metaphor of grass offers a case for unity and harmony, a standard ingredient of structure.
Mystical construction of Tune of Myself: Song of Myself is possibly the best illustration of Whitman’s mysticism influencing that means, sort and symbolism. Claims James E. Miller: “When considered in terms of the phases of the conventional mystical expertise, Song of Myself will take on a complete structural form”.
The reader can rediscover what the poet by observing his possess spear of summer grass and by launching his own mystical journey. Music of Myself is an “inverted mystical encounter”¬- Although the conventional mystic tried to annihilate himself and mortify his senses in preparation for his union with the divine, Whitman magnifies the self and glorifies the senses in his progress toward union with the Complete.
Conclusion: Whitman is a mystic as a lot as he is a poet of democracy and science, but a “mystic without having a creed”. He sees the physique as the manifestation of the spirit which is “shipped” by death into a larger daily life. A spear of grass is not an inert compound for him but God’s handkerchief, “the flag of disposition”. Often in his sensibility, matter is dissolved, trees turn into “liquid” and contours “fluid”. The real is transmuted and he has cosmic visions. He gets to be a comet travelling round the universe with the velocity of mild.
I depart as air, I shake my white locks at the runway sunshine,
I effuse my flesh in eddies,
And drift in lacy jags.
If Leaves of Grass has been referred to as a “Bible” of The us, it has a excellent offer to do with its mystical strain. Correct, Whitman’s model of mysticism is not identifiable with the selflessness of the Christian selection or the passivity of the Oriental. What we might call Whitman’s mysticism is “democratic” mysticism-offered to every guy on equivalent conditions and embracing contradictory components. But it is undeniable that mysticism is central to the indicating of Leaves of Grass.