The Whitman Diaries

Whitman's journal is a beautiful thing to behold. Beautiful and also befuddling. The poet is known for his rhythmic free verse and long, drawn out sentences, making his final poetry somewhat hard to understand. The earlier versions of his writings and his observations found in the journal are even more difficult to make sense of. For starters, Whitman jots down his poetry and thoughts in a very messy cursive handwriting. The script is messy and shows little regard for the space on the pages, taking up lots of room with only a few words, suggesting the haste or mindless nature of the author. However, of what I am able to decipher, I find that there are several phrases repeated throughout the journal. There are many mentions of words relating to water, the sea, and especially ships. Whitman describes a ship in the throes of a storm, which is likely a commentary on the state of the country on the brink of war. Similar to his published poetry, the text in the journal is broken up through the use of dashes. However, the text in the journal is less flowy than Whitman's published writings, is shorter, and has fewer commas. I also noticed that Whitman's journal makes heavy use of question marks, although this could be due to the journal being a place for Whitman's inner musings and reflections rather than just for writing poetry.


My first reading, before the yellow links, had me unsure about two things mainly. The first of which was the significance of the phrase 'Libertad.' The annotations revealed that Libertad is the Spanish word for liberty. The annotations offered two reasons that this word may have been used. The first was that Whitman was conveying that liberty is a concept broader than just American applications. I see the significance, but I think Whitman is someone who was always able to communicate the magnitude of important concepts without using other languages. The second explanation offered was that Whitman used the Spanish version because of the many Latin American revolutions being fought at the time. Whitman was very democratic and understanding in his perspective and likely found parallels between these freedom fighters and the secessionists. However, then he goes on to use libertad when he is talking about the ships, even as I saw from the annotations, referring to the libertad as a ship itself. I was confused by this, but then I realized the libertad is a feminine noun in the Spanish language (la libertad). Since ships as vessels are always given feminine pronouns, Whitman's use of this version makes a lot of sense. The second element that I had confusion about were the sketches at the end of the journal. I had not been aware that Whitman engaged in any visual arts, and from the annotations those were not his own work. If Whitman did draw, I would have expected scenes of nature, since those are what he writes about. I immediately recognized the portrait as being of Whitman. Before I read that he did not draw it, I thought it was a self-portrait that showed Whitman as he wanted to see himself, since the image contains such strength and wisdom. However, after learning that it was someone else, it reveals that although the critics of the time period did not appreciate Whitman's artistry, those who got to know him did.