🧵The most heated intra-conservative battle since this spring’s Ahmari-French War is about…Walt Whitman?
In May, the Atlantic ran a (hyperbolic) essay praising Whitman as the poetic voice to help Americans recognize “our own best spirit.” (1/) theatlantic.com/magazine/archi…
The poet and translator Sarah Ruden wrote a brutal rebuttal in @NRO. Here's an especially good zinger: (2/)
nationalreview.com/magazine/2019/…
@NRO Over @firstthingsmag, @mark_bauerlein wasn’t having it: “Ruden’s essay is an exercise in low-imagination iconoclasm.” (3/)
firstthings.com/web-exclusives…
@NRO @firstthingsmag @mark_bauerlein And back @NRO, Kelly Scott Franklin of Hillsdale wrote a rebuttal, too: “What’s missing from Ms. Ruden’s piece is the same thing missing from so much of our cultural discourse: magnanimity.” (4/)
nationalreview.com/2019/08/walt-w…
@NRO @firstthingsmag @mark_bauerlein I have 2 observations about all this. 1st, I'm SHOCKED that nobody mentions Whitman’s importance to Breaking Bad! Gale recited “When I Heard the Learn'd Astronomer” to Walter White, and his inscription to “WW” in a copy of Leaves of Grass tipped off Hank.
@NRO @firstthingsmag @mark_bauerlein More seriously, I think Ruden brings up an interesting point here: “If he *is* the nation’s greatest poet, it’s odd that he never seems to be quoted spontaneously, for the sheer powerful pleasure of it or to make an urgent point.” I think that’s true, but only to a degree: (6/)
@NRO @firstthingsmag @mark_bauerlein we quote bits here and there but (sorry, Breaking Bad) we don’t quote full lines (in part b/c he rarely rhymed or wrote in regular meter). Even in Dead Poets Society, Robin Williams and his students recite only the title of "O Captain! My Captain!"! (7/)
@NRO @firstthingsmag @mark_bauerlein But…that says as much about how we now experience poetry than it does about Whitman’s greatness as a poet. Like it or not, modern poetry subordinates music, so we’re likely to remember ideas rather than lines. (8/)
@NRO @firstthingsmag @mark_bauerlein Contemporary reviews of William Wordsworth (this thread’s 3rd WW!) praised him out that he wrote lines people recited spontaneously on apt occasions. Compare that to this review of one of America’s favorite living poets: (9)
nytimes.com/2002/10/20/boo…
@NRO @firstthingsmag @mark_bauerlein That brings us back to Whitman, democratic poet: lovers of free verse claim that there’s something more accessible &, therefore, democratic about it. Maybe. But it’s less likely to be recited and shared in the oral tradition. Can't that be seen as less democratic? *FIN*
@NRO @firstthingsmag @mark_bauerlein Coda: Speaking of Breaking Bad, I’d rather hear Walt White/Brian Cranston recite Shelley’s sonnet "Ozymandias" any day of the week:
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