Poets to Come D. Palladino

Foreground

This essay examines the poetry of Walt Whitman through the lens of psychoanalytic self psychology. Whitman had that intuitive understanding of relational dynamics, which Kohut would later scientifically explore under the rubric of self psychology. Whitman’s poetry can be seen as analogous with these principles. This paper is itself an endeavor in “applied” self psychology, and simultaneously attempts to show how Whitman can be read as having applied self psychology to his future readers, his “poets to come.”

Whitman had an intricate purpose behind his lifelong writing of Leaves of Grass. Few poets have such extraordinary hopes for their readers; and I dare say, no other epic poem in history relies on that reader in such an extraordinarily complex way and blatantly exploits his audience for selfobject needs. Whitman’s poetry reveals these needs; and yet, these needs are constantly being contradicted. Because of this, it is difficult to get hold of “the real Whitman.” Therefore, when studying Whitman’s poetry from a self psychological perspective, I found it essential to critically correlate them with his prose writings. Only then, are these contradictions understood and Whitman’s deeper narcissistic needs uncovered.

In his poem, “Crossing Brooklyn Ferry” Whitman tells us that he had “considered long and seriously of [us] before [we] were born....”[1] His greatest hope was to feel “self-balanced for contingencies, / To confront night, storms, hunger, ridicule, accidents, rebuffs, as the trees and animals do.”[2] Whitman hoped that, as self psychological readers, we would help him regain his narcissistic balance. But even more essentially, he wanted us to truly understand—to apprehend the enormous and complicated needs of his nuclear self and its program.[3]

Whitman craved massive acceptance of his poetry; instead, the majority of his poems were inveighed against and reviled. He even said that his book was “worse than a failure.”[4] This is why Whitman had resigned himself to a wistful belief in the future: “…I have not gain’d the acceptance of my own time, but have fallen back on fond dreams of the future—anticipations”[5] Whitman considered his book “a candidate for the future”[6] the “value” of which was “to be decided by time.”[7] By projecting his poetry into the future, Whitman believed he could make his failure a success. As he noted, “The prescient poet projects himself centuries ahead and judges performer or performance after the changes of time.”[8] This is analogous to what Kohut said on projection:

The patient projects the defective self so that it will be ready to grow again in the future, to continue to develop from the point in time at which its development had been interrupted. And it is this recognition, deeply understood by the analyst who essentially sees the world through the patient’s eyes while he analyzes him, that best prepares the soil for the developmental move forward that the stunted self of the analysand actively craves.[9]

Whitman projected his poems (and his self) and directed them toward particular idealized targets—the readers of the future. But to accomplish such a task, his writing had to be good enough. Kohut told us what constitutes good writing:

I sincerely believe that good writing should always leave a task yet to be performed. In other words, it should provide the opportunity for active participation via the synthesizing ability of the reader, even at the risk that he might reach conclusions that I, myself had not anticipated.[10]

Both writer and reader have a role to adopt and a function to perform. Whitman firmly believed in the response-ability of the reader: “The reader will always have his or her part to do, just as much as I have had mine.”[11] Only when myriads of future readers accepted the demands of his narcissism—willing to do their part—would Whitman achieve the narcissistic balance and self structure he envisioned:

After a long, long course, hundreds of years, denials,

Accumulations, rous’d love and joy and thought,

Hopes, wishes, aspirations, ponderings, victories, myriads of readers,

Coating, compassing, covering—after ages’ and ages’ encrustrations,

Then only may these songs reach fruition.[12]

This fragment illustrates both a self psychological and a poetic understanding of time.

Poetic and Temporal Considerations

What makes self psychology distinct is that it, more that any other depth psychology, considers the importance of a time/axis continuum in understanding the patient’s self. Kohut said that “self psychology focuses in addition on the in-depth elucidation of the self in its current state and on the elucidation of the impact of its past not only with regard to it present state but also with regard to its future.” By stressing such temporal considerations, the self psychologist has “discovered the despair of the adult in the depth of the child....”[13] Through this despair they understand “that the child whose self is stunted by the selfobject’s failures is, in this depression, mourning an unlived, unfulfilled future.”[14] For Whitman, to be unfulfilled was to live a life in which his nuclear program was not realized and original structures were left defective.

To remedy this, Whitman adopted a metaphysical philosophy of time, a temporal continuity that not only emphasized the future, but one where present judgments were invalid unless the future was also considered: As he tells us, “Past and present and future are not disjoined but joined. The greatest poet forms the consistence of what is to be from what has been and is….he places himself where the future becomes present.””[15] Whitman believed deeply that his selfobject needs would be satisfied only through time, in spheres more gracious than his own. His poems were written according to these temporal principles and were supposed to assure his future acceptance:

Belief I sing—and Preparation;

As Life and Nature are not great with reference to the Present only,

But greater still from what is to come,

Out of that formula for Thee I sing.[16]

But a perspective like the preceding is bought at a price. For Whitman, the future was irrevocably bound up with his death. But Whitman believed that his poems “prepare for death, yet they are not the finish, but rather the outset, / They bring none to his or her terminus....”[17] If Whitman thought of writing his poems as a kind of preparation, what exactly was he preparing for? I would argue that he was preparing to engage each and every one of his future readers in an intensely complicated self-selfobject relationship; one that he hoped “would cease not till death.”[18]

Death, The Future, The Invisible Faith, Shall All Be Convey’d[19]

For Whitman the man, death would certainly interrupt the development of Whitman’s self as well as the fruition of his songs. But for Whitman the poet, death would not interfere with the fruition of his poems. Death, he believed, was “by far the greatest part of existence and something that Life is at least as much for, as it is for itself.”[20] Kohut wrote that one of the greatest fears of Tragic Man is “premature death, a death which prevents the realization of the aims of his nuclear self (emphasis mine).”[21] But speaking poetically, Whitman would have considered death after a full lifetime still a premature death. He believed his own nuclear program would not be stopped by death and devoted his energy to “earn[ing] for the body and the mind whatever adheres and goes forward and is not dropt by death.”[22]

Both poetic and biographical evidence show that Whitman did not fear death. Kohut said, “the fear of death is actually a fear of losing narcissistic responses....”[23] Whitman was at peace with death;[24] for he knew that “What invigorates life [selfobject responses] invigorates death,” as well.[25] Kohut noted that “if an individual succeeds in realizing the aims of his nuclear self, he can die without regret: he has achieved the fulfillment of the tragic hero....”[26] But Whitman did not feel he succeeded in his own lifetime. Therefore, as long as there was this belief in readers of the future, he would continue to receive responses and would not fear death. His readers would assure this and his nuclear program would be continued. But for this to happen, his poems were not just to be read, but to be read empathically. Kohut wrote that it is empathy that “protects a child from death, and insures his psychological and physical survival.”[27] Empathy would allow Whitman to seek “constant restoration and vitality....”[28] The empathic reader would continually restore him from the dead.

Using Our Empathic Instrument

When Whitman said that he expected the “main things” from us, what precisely did he mean? Kohut wrote that, as self psychologists, empathy is our “main tool.”[29] Whitman expects us to use our empathic instrument, to be in-tune with his unrolling needs, to know the song of his self. He hoped the reader would “get the final lilt of song, / ... / To diagnose the shifting-delicate tints of love and pride and doubt—to truly understand....”[30] That “final lilt” of song was his “potential life curve,” the “destiny” of his nuclear self.[31] Understanding, for Whitman, involved diagnosis—a “complete” and “thorough” knowledge of his self. But it also involved discerning how love, pride and doubt helped or hindered its realization. Whitman wanted the reader to know that loving and proud responses made up a portion of his self. In the depth of his self there were songs of strength: “With music strong I come....”[32] But also down there were doubt and deep-rooted shame that Whitman felt from his self only being accepted in parts.

Grandiosity and Shame: Out of the Dimness Opposite Equals Advance[33]

“See, projected through time, / For me an audience interminable.”[34]

Scholars have noted how Whitman thought of his book in epic terms. Yet the strength of his book’s (and his self’s) greatness is contingent upon the greatness of his audience. In a magnificently grandiose expectation expressed in an open letter to Emerson, but truly intended to his future readers, Whitman chants: “To freedom, to strength, to poems, to personal greatness, it is never permitted to rest, not a generation or part of a generation.”[35] If we take this assertion as an admonition to the readers of his poems, what is Whitman really saying? Overtly, Whitman believes in the need for great, robust and truly American poems; but more deeply, he is here revealing his own narcissistic needs. Whitman is speaking of his freedom, his strength, his poems, and his personal greatness; and it is precisely the kind of grandiosity that hangs on his reader’s response. As he would say later, “O poets to come, I depend on you!”[36] Whitman expected to have a self-selfobject relationship with his future readers. Yet, as self psychological readers, we know that such a grand expectation is neither unrealistic, nor inordinate. As Kohut noted: “You don’t have to educate the patient to make them [the grandiose tendencies] realistic. What you have to do is educate the patient to allow himself to remain in contact with this old grandiosity.”[37]

Kohut believed this old grandiosity to be the “vital core” and “central source of strength that the patient has at his disposal.”[38] The reader who comes from a self psychological perspective takes such vociferations seriously and responds positively to their strength.[39] Whitman never uses the word grandiosity; but his ideas about “greatness” are consonant with Kohut’s theories of grandiosity. Kohut noted that an early expression of grandiosity “includes what later become perfect beauty, a fine body, great achievement, brightness, moral perfection, a good feeling about oneself.”[40] Whitman accentuates this assertion and compounds its strength, reminding us that: “We are powerful and tremendous in ourselves, / We are executive in ourselves, we are sufficient in the variety of ourselves, / We are the most beautiful to ourselves and in ourselves....”[41]

Pride is one of the telltale signs that our grandiosity is being properly received. One feels pride when the self is received in its wholeness, and shame when we sense we are being received in parts. We can then think of shame as disintegrated grandiosity. Kohut has described shame as “negative exhibitionism,”[42] noting that it arises when there “is a disturbance in the smooth presentation of the self to the surroundings; (italics mine)”[43] or more precisely, “when the expected smooth outflow of normal exhibitionistic libido is in some way interfered with,” shame is the often the result (italics mine).[44] Through his poetry, Whitman endeavored to place himself in an environment in which “every part [was] able, active, receptive without shame or the need of shame....”[45] Regarding shame, Kohut wrote

...if we are in surroundings in which the self is not responded to, in which we are rejected, in which we exhibit our self but are ignored, then little signals of shame will inform us about the event, and we must then decide what to do. What should we do? Should we go to another environment? Should we try a different tack of evoking satisfying responses?[46]

Whitman did indeed take a different tack to alleviate his shame. His method of eliciting more satisfying responses was anything but typical. But the virtues of being a poet allowed him more latitude than most. In this role, Whitman had the power of placement and projection: He placed “his own times, reminiscences, parents, brothers and sisters, associations, employment, politics, so the rest never shame [him] afterward, nor assume to command [him.]”[47] Furthermore, Whitman imagined projecting his shameful responders where they would not be privy to his future exhibitionism. He anticipated presenting himself to “another environment” that would accept all parts of his self.