Whitman, Melville, & Julia Ward Howe: a Tale of Three Bicentennials

NYT ^ | 5/27/2019 | Elaine Showalter

[Borges]

This summer is a special season of celebration for American literature. Starting in June, there will be bicentennial exhibitions, conferences, and excursions—at the Library of Congress and at NYU, respectively—to recognize the lives, work, and influence of Walt Whitman and Herman Melville. But the bicentennial of a third important American writer will not be so honored. The oldest of the trio by four days, Julia Ward Howe was born in New York City on this day, May 27, in 1819.

Including Howe in this bicentennial list may startle readers unaccustomed to thinking of her as a major literary figure. Although she wrote the words to “The Battle Hymn of the Republic,” words that are better known around the world than anything by Whitman or Melville, Howe has moved to the margins of literary history. Out of her three volumes of poetry, the “Battle Hymn” is the only lyric that has outlived its author. But Howe was famous for much more than her writing. After the Civil War, she assessed and abandoned her poetic ambitions to become a leader of the women’s suffrage movement, an advocate for world peace, and a tireless worker for human rights. By the time she died, in 1910, she was far more famous in the US and internationally, and more widely and publicly mourned, than either of the two men.

[KC Burke]

Whitman is hardly someone worthy of much attention, IMHO>

[Southside_Chicago_Republican]

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[concentric circles]

During the war Whitman worked in Washington, holding a number of civil service positions. He spent much of his free time visiting the hospitals where the wounded were being treated. He is said to have been to the hospitals hundreds of times and spent time with tens of thousands of patients.

He observed that many were dispirited and seemingly without hope and that a short visit from a person of good cheer and hopeful disposition raised their spirits and rekindled their passion for life.

“The genius of the United States is not best or most in its executives or legislatures, nor in its ambassadors or authors or colleges, or churches, or parlors, nor even in its newspapers or inventors, but always most in the common people.” Walt Whitman

“There is no week nor day nor hour when tyranny may not enter upon this country, if the people lose their roughness and spirit of defiance.” Walt Whitman

[KC Burke]

Those aspects I do appreciate. His Rousseau unchained that comes across to me in his verse is what I decline.