Pleasures of heaven, pains of hell, intimations of immortality: remembrance, repression and reconciliation in Wordsworth and Whitman

Abstract

Both William Wordsworth and Walt Whitman write within the metaphorical framework of an ascending circle: from Innocence through Experience to Higher Innocence. Both poets also use childhood as a central image, but in doing so are really writing about the development of the poet--and finally about the poet's longing for immortality. Both deal with nature as an integral factor in the poet's growth, but each deals on a deeper level also follows in the prophetic tradition, focusing on social and spiritual concerns simultaneously. And yet major differences exist between the ways in which Whitman and Wordsworth choose to embody the epic and prophetic in their writings. A study focusing primarily on three sets of poems, paired both chronologically and thematically, serves to illustrate authorial similarities in approach as well as differences in final destination. The works in each pairing incorporate movement, primarily through the use of opposites or contraries, upward in an ascending circle. As they deal with the issues of mortality and immortality--material and spiritual, finite and infinite--the two poets finally diverge, and an important distinction emerge between the suppressed sexuality of Wordsworth and the open celebration of the sensual in Whitman. This distinction in turn may be seen to play a critical role in the philosophical and religious differences ultimately expressed in each poet's vision of the ascending circle's final realm of Higher Innocence. The initial chapter of this study provides background and focus, particularly regarding the strong similarities between Wordsworth and Whitman which serve as a springboard for what follows. The purpose of Chapter II is to apply William Blake's mythic scheme of Innocence, Experience and Higher Innocence to the poetic journeys of Wordsworth and Whitman. Succeeding chapters analyze the following pairs of works within that context: (1) Wordsworth's "Tintern Abbey" and Whitman's "Crossing Brooklyn Ferry"; (2) The Intimations Ode of Wordsworth as compared and contrasted to "Whitman's "Out of the Cradle Endlessly Rocking"; and (3) Wordsworth's "Elegiac Stanzas" together with Whitman's elegy "When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom'd." The concluding chapter summarizes findings and offers implications for further study.