i alone would expect to be your god: the cussedness in calamus

8/7/2019 I Alone Would Expect to Be Your God: The Cussedness in Calamus

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I A l o n e W o u l d E x p e c t t o B e

Y o u r G o d

t h e Cus s edn e s s in Ca l a mus

by Mitchell Santine Gould

Curator, LeavesofGrass.Org

The way is suspiciousthe result slow, uncertain,

may-be destructive

You would have to give up all elseI alone would

expect to be your God, sole and exclusive,

Your novitiate would even then be long and exhausting... [ 1 ]
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I n t r o d u c t i o n

Knowing that Walt Whitman characterized himself as "the tenderest

lover," [ 2 ]do you think it was so easy to have him become one's lover?

Do you think the friendship of him would have been unalloyed

satisfaction? Do you suppose he was trusty and faithful? [ 3 ]

This paper provides a fresh re-examination of the rather bleak rules of

engagement for Calamus love, centering upon the revealing and

definitive playbook or articles of domestic warfare, whichever you

prefer , set forth in the original Calamus poems of 1860.

[ 1 ] C u s s e d n e s s

Edward Carpenter got it right in 1906: the relevant element in Walt

Whitman's character, he suggested, was less a matter of "tenderness"than "cussedness." Cussedness (that is, "cursedness") was "a great

tragic element in his nature [which] possibly prevented him ever being

quite what is called 'happy in love affairs.'" [ 4 ]

In Walt's lifelong search for love, time after time, he wants it so badly
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that he destroys it. This is the meaning of "cussedness," as manifest in

Whitman's poems, his letters, and his oral history (With Walt Whitman

in Camden), as well as in the testimony of those such as Carpenter and

Emerson who knew him well. The best way to sort out what happened

is to trace the boy-loses-boy story depicted in the cluster from its start

to its finish.

[ 2 ] P e r f e c t u n e q u a l s

At the moment of first encounter, Walt addresses his newest conquest

as "lover and perfect equal" for both the first and last time.

[ 5 ]

Longbefore the young man knows what hit him, however, he will actually

merely be playing the role of sidekick, or, in Walt's bordello French, the

role oflev. [ 6 ]It is Walt the poet, not Walt the man, who speaks the

words "lover and perfect equal."

Granted, Walt's Quaker testimony on equality thoroughly informs

Leaves of Grass. He sincerely believes that the measure of real Liberty

depends upon "lovers," and "the continuance of Equality" demands the

inclusion of "comrades." [ 7 ]But he finds it impossible to put this ideal

into practice in his own love relationships. Each one is

progressively poisoned by his instinctual drive to dominate


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a grave flaw in his personality which he never learns to

quell.

[ 3 ] T h e c o s t o f c h a r i s m a

Is it possible, at the most fundamental level, that Walt Whitman labors

under the "cu'ss" of his own charisma? Wouldn't the vicious cycle which

characterizes his long string of wrecked love pursuits have sputtered

out at an early age, had he not possessed the most "perfect or

enamored body?" [ 8 ]After all, so few among us know what it is like to

receive the "frequent and swift flash of eyes offering... love,"[ 9 ]

or tohave a chorus of voices calling one's name "from flowerbeds, vines, or

tangled underbrush." [ 10 ]For most of us, how can we appreciate how

difficult it would be to remain chaste or faithful, when seduced like that

at every turn?

On the other hand, there is reason for caution with this line of

reasoning, if only because Walt was still prowling for men deep into his

latter days, after his legendary physique was wrecked by both age and

decades of strokes.


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[ 4 ] T h e c u r s e o f t h e c h a s e

In any event, the record shows that Walt Whitman's "cu'ss" is to

endlessly pursue thrills in the department of love. Bored soon by the

mundane realities of a settled relationship, he escapes to the

excitement of the chase. He pursues men recklessly, like a

mountaineer. As if impatient with merely loafing in the tall grass,

instead he scales cold, exhausting and invariably barren peaks.

The experience leaves him with the bitterest envy for successful gay

marriages. [ 11 ]His obsession with collecting and cultivating a stable of

"lovers, continual lovers" furnishes only a vacuous, unreliable sense of

"repayment."[ 12 ]

[ 5 ] S h u t t l e c o c k

A Whitman affair typically begins with radically simple (likely,

suppressed) quiet times, in which the pair wordlessly hold hands on the

deck of a Brooklyn ferryboat or in a rough saloon. [ 13 ]The tryst has

barely commenced, but Walt is already exerting control over the

relationship, by unilaterally protracting the romantic foreplay . He

enjoys the painful suspense of dallying. In this stage, Walt flirts

expertly, because, in his quest for love, his finely-honed capacity for


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human empathy is subverted to manipulate. His partner becomes

increasingly eager, but Walt keeps himself busy with the other men in

his stable. His idea of a contact sport? It's to keep life interesting by

shuffling appointments within his harem. His letter to Ed Cattell

reveals the game in full play:

Do not call to see me any more at the Stafford family, & do

not call there at all any more Dont ask me why I will

explain to you when we meet... There is nothing in it that I think I

do wrong, not am ashamed of, but I wish it kept entirely between you

and me... keep the whole thing and the present letter entirely to

yourself... As to Harry you know how I love him. Ed, you too have my

unalterable love, & always shall have. I want you to come up here

& see me. [ 14 ]

[ 6 ] V u l c a n i s m - 1

In the prelude stage of courtship, Walt and his lover enter a comedy of

suppressed mutual attraction. Although they spend a great deal of

blissful time together, a same-sex romance seems unthinkable, not to


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mention unmentionable. [ 15 ]Stifled whispers of body language and

behavior, however, act as constant hints of the desired consummation. [

16 ]

Thus, ironically, even homophobia can be enlisted by the old "cuss." In

his hands it is practically a tool to be turned to his ends. As his lover

wrestles with conflicted desires, Walt uses the new conquest's

ambivalence about same-sex love to build floodgates for passion. Walt

strives to orchestrate a volcanic outburst following a long struggle with

self-suppression.[ 17 ]

[ 7] C a m p W h i t m a n

Sometimes the next step in courtship is to outfit his lev with the

school uniform: a gift of macho, working-class clothing, such as a

coachman's gloves or a strong blue shirt. [ 18 ]This tactic only proves

successful if the youth agrees to enter the novitiate. Sometimes,

however, the ploy fails because Walt's peculiar brand of gaydar [ 19 ] is

fallible. Not all of the young men who delight in his friendship are

interested in romance. Even among those who are, the attrition from

this rigorous boot camp is high because in this repressive society , "The

way is suspiciousthe result slow, uncertain, may-be destructive." [ 20 ]
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And some of them who are amenable to a one-night stand do not have

the kind of passionate "blood" that circulates in his veins. If his recruit

fails to seriously commit to the tabooed or "silent" love he is seeking,

what's the use of going through the elaborate drill? [ 21 ]By 1860, Walt

learns to discharge such misfits, in order to more efficiently move on to

other recruits.

[ 8 ] N o n c h a l a n c e

However, if the camerado is really in love, then there comes a moment,

perhaps in the deep woods or on a deserted island, when the floodgate

opens. This is the bliss-bliss moment, the great romantic payoff.[ 22 ]

On the other hand, sealing the covenant of a love affair enables Walt to

get close enough to take charge. Walt has "many things to absorb, to

engraft, to develop, [to] teach," his boy, and time's a-wastin'. [ 23 ]Soon

enough, he and his conscript are flaunting the taboo against public

displays of affection "in the public room, or on the crossing of the

street, or on the ship's deck" [ 24 ]

The street-theatrical effect Walt is striving for is nonchalance, a

recurring virtue treated with quirky reverence in Leaves of Grass.

When he hints that Fred and Walt are "those two natural and
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nonchalant persons," [ 25 ]he anticipates Gandhi's admonition for us all to

become the world we want to see. Nonchalance, in Whitmanese,

translates to a state of being so endlessly powerful, so unshakably

certain, that it can afford to be casual.

Walt is clearly the "commander, swift, brave, immortal" of thisrevolutionary but laid-back army of two, and his relaxed lover is his

artilleryman. [ 26 ]They fulfill their forays against social convention by

"eating, drinking, sleeping, loving... statutes mocking, [and] feebleness

chasing." [ 27 ]

[ 9 ] W a y w a r d n e s s - 1

However, the very first lesson of this spiritual boot camp is to expect

the drill sergeant to be very unreliable. In another context, Whitman

ordains himself loosed of limits and imaginary lines, going wherever

(and whenever) he pleases, his own master, total and absolute gently,

but with undeniable will, divesting himself of the holds that would hold

him. In "Song of the Open Road," he uses these terms to describe his

reformist advocacy of same-sex love. However, the same phrase

ironically describes his "wayward, fanciful ways," to use Emerson's

term. [ 28 ]Likewise, Edward Carpenter resents "that queer brusque


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manner of his which so often offended his friends just coldly saying

'Ta-ta,' and going off as if he didn't care he never saw us again!" [ 29 ]In

an 1856 letter to Mrs Tyndale, Walt acknowledges his lack of

consideration in keeping appointments. "I am so non-polite-so

habitually wanting in my responses and ceremonies.-That isme-much

that is bad, harsh, an undutiful person, a thriftless debtor, isme." [ 30 ]

[ 1 0 ] W a y w a r d n e s s 2

Note in passing that a public confession of sins is part of the socialist

way of life, a cultural innovation of the phalanxes known as "mutualcriticism." [ 31 ]As a Fourierist, Mrs. Tyndale views it the duty of

comrades to give audience to these self-criticisms furthermore, Walt's

avowed affinity with the wolf, hog, and snake simultaneously appears

in print in "Crossing Brooklyn Ferry."

It is not you alone who know what it is to be evil

I am he who knew what it was to be evil

I too knitted the old knot of contrariety,

Blabb'd, blush'd, resented, lied, stole, grudg'd,


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Had guile, anger, lust, hot wishes I dared not speak,

Was wayward, vain, greedy, shallow, sly, cowardly, malignant

The wolf, the snake, the hog, not wanting in me,

The cheating look, the frivolous word, the adulterous wish, not

wanting,

Refusals, hates, postponements, meanness, laziness, none of these

wanting.

[ 1 1 ] W a y w a r d n e s s - 3

The constant tone of the Fred Vaughan letters, written after their

breakup but while they still pine for each other is a sustained

pleading for Walt to deliver proof sheets from the third edition of

Leaves of Grass as promised to make good on unambiguous,

straightforward agreements to meet and even to simply reply to

letters. [ 32 ]Fred's letters are all written in the awareness that Walt's

pursuit of others, combined with his essential laziness, makes time

management difficult: wayward, vain, cheating looks, adulterous

wishes, refusals, postponements, meanness, and laziness none of

these wanting, indeed.


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[ 1 2 ] A l p h a b e t

The biggest cause of our failure to understand the source of Walt's love

disasters has been our inability to fully accept the gravity of Walt's

unequivocal confessions. We have generally been misled by thepiercing wail of victimization which saturates the "Calamus" cluster.

One must turn to totally separate parts ofLeaves of Grass such as

"Crossing Brooklyn Ferry," above to see why Walt had only himself

to blame. However, even in "Calamus," there is a hint that in his "sullen

and suffering hours," he is "ashamed but it is useless." His understands

that his instinctive conflation of love with dominance is simply toohard-wired to be excised. When it comes to the matter of comradeship,

he is what he is a hopelessly alpha male, also known as a jerk. [ 33 ]

[ 1 3 ] G i v e u p a l l e l s e

Courting Walt Whitman is therefore a "novitiate... long and exhausting"

because it is a maddening exercise in betrayals and broken promises.

To be a whimsical tyrant is the proper province of a God, not a man

accordingly, in the best tradition of the Ten Commandments, the

covenant one signs with Walt Whitman states quite clearly that one


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must "give up all else I alone would expect to be your God, sole and

exclusive." [ 34 ]Thus even when Walt appears to be one's slave, as

mentioned below, he is in reality still the "teacher of atheletes" [ 35 ]For

instance, while he lavishes his own money on his comrades in a truly

generous and compassionate way, money also controls. It always

comes with strings attached.

[ 1 4 ] H o m e a l o n e

At first the friend and lover is flattered, but gradually he begins to feel

cheated, even smothered. Even if he is content, in principle, to acceptextracurricular sexual pursuits, there is only so much time in the day

(or, for that matter, the night). If nothing else, Walt's flirtations with

other men mean that the main squeeze will be left alone. It's

frustrating and humiliating to be constantly challenged "to make

appointments" to find some of Walt's time, as shown in Fred Vaughan's

letters, especially when these are routinely dishonored.

[ 1 5 ] G r o v e l i n g

But while Walt relishes toying with his boy, in his heart he is deeply

h i d i l d d j i hi d
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empathetic and passionately devoted to justice. This suppressed part

hates to see the other man suffer and raises an internalized civil war.

In Calamus 6, we see him cu'ss himself for being compelled to repeat

these dramas.

. . . sighs at night, in rage, dissatisfied with myself,

. . . those long-drawn, ill-suppressed sighs,

. . . many an oath and promise broken,

. . . my wilful and savage soul's volition . . . [ 36 ]

Walt overcompensates for his sins by apologizing, pandering, and

bribing. [ 37 ]It is this contradictory aspect of the relationship which

utterly confounds and distracts the lover, obscuring the abusive

dynamics for so long. Unfortunately for the comrade, these periodic

episodes of groveling only obscure, protect, and prolong the real

master-slave game until Walt kisses you with his good-by kiss and

opens the gate for your egress hence. [ 38 ]

[ 6 ] J i f i d f


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[ 1 6 ] J u s t i f i e d f e a r

This brings us at last to Walt's extravagant, pathological fear that his

lovers don't love him [ 39 ]There is an unspoken assumption in Whitman

scholarship that this is in good measure pure melodrama or bombast

(both of which are, admittedly, Whitman staples). However, I now

believe that Walt's fears are justified. In every relationship (except,

perhaps, his last and best marriage, to Horace Traubel), his own

relentless campaign to dominate leads inevitably to a lover's natural

outrage and an eventual breakup.

[ 1 7 ] V u l c a n i s m - 2

Trust a psychoanalyst to guess that the storms which periodically

devastated Walt's homelife were the result of a tendency to perversely

enjoy such dramas. The proposition simply can't be proved, and would

bring little of value to the table anyway. It far more straightforward to

accept the sound and fury as the direct consequence of a lover's need to

defend himself from the growing assault on his own sovereignty. On

Walt's side, the great heat may be proportionate to a high degree of

denial about the evil of his manipulative ways, but in any event, it

represents the trump card he reserves when all other methods of

coercion fail perhaps with the exception of his familiar freezing

il Ch l Shi l h f h i W l ' l lif


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silences. Charley Shivley, the foremost authority on Walt's love life,

mentions this other aspect of the sexual volcano:

While Harry was a troublesome lad, Whitman was no less excitable.

English admirers heard from Harry's mother that " she had seen

him more angry than anyone she knew... He would suddenly erupt like a

volcano, after which he would be very quiet."[ 40 ]

[ 1 8 ] G i m m i e s h e l t e r

It should by now be clear that Walt's reprehensible control ploys

include: the giving and taking of a gold ring as a carrot and stick

keeping his lover guessing about whether he will show up as promised

stubborn delays in answering letters the obvious romantic infidelities

incendiary outbursts and icy silences and his attempts sometimes,admittedly, thwarted to unilaterally decide when to break off a

relationship.

The endless gotchas slowly drive the love object crazy , and into the

arms of a safer refuge, even if his real love remains with Walt. Fred's

letters indicate that he is habituated to broken promises but while he


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letters indicate that he is habituated to broken promises, but while he

never stops loving Walt, he had pre-empted Walt's inevitable move to

escort Fred outside of the gate of Walt's heart by "contenting" himself

without Walt in fact, contenting himself in the tepid but safe shelter

of Robert Cooper's home. [ 41 ]

C o n c l u s i o n

Throughout this paper, I have shown why both Walt and his lovers

vented their frustrations with husky pantings through clenched teeth

or sounded and resounded wordschattering words, echoes, dead

words, [ 42 ]and why they were invariably driven apart. We do not have

space here to fully explore the otherside of the story, but it is equally

vital, perhaps even more vital, to appreciate that side.

In a few words, the other side is this: despite all the "hungry wishes,

told to the skies only" and the "cries, laughter, defiances," [ 43 ] in the

end, Walt's promise to permanently infuse his spirit into his loved ones

was a promise he kept. [ 44 ]

Late into his dark, boozy, closeted life, Fred sent Walt a heartbreaking

prose-poem, in the confessional style of Crossing Brooklyn Ferry . It

is worthy of being inserted into the pages ofLeaves of Grass. It reads,

i t


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in part:

between the ever plying ferryboats, the tugs, the Harlem

boats, and mingled with the splash of the paddle wheels the

murmur of the sailors at dinner. the lazy flap of the sails,

the screech of the steam whistles of the tugs, the laugh and wrangle

of the boys in swimming comes a remembrance of thee dear Walt

With WmsBgh & Brooklyn with the ferries and the

vessels with the Lumber piles and the docks. From among all out of

all. Connected with all and yet distinct from all arrises thee Dear

Walt. Walt my life has turned out a poor miserable failure. I

am not a drunkard nor a teetotaler I am neither honest nor

dishonest. I have my family in Brooklyn and am supporting them.

I never stole, robbed, cheate, nor defrauded any person out of

anything, and yet I feels that I have not been honest to myself

my family nor my friends.[ 45 ]


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Somewhat earlier in the same letter, Fred describes the strong

persistence of Walt's love in his life.

Many and many a mile have I road on a Locomotive while in charge

of a Freight-train and had you by my side in conversation

which to me was a really a presence as in years gone by on the box of

Broadway stage or asleep and lounge on the deck of a Fulton

Ferry Boat [ 46 ]

Likewise, Peter Doyle:

I have Walt's raglan here [goes to closetputs it on]. I now and then

put it on, lay down, think I am in the old times. Then

he is with me again. It's the only thing I kept amongst many old

things. When I get it on and stretched out of the old sofa I am very

well contented. It is like Aladdin's lamp. I do not ever for a minute

lose the old man He is always near by When I am in trouble


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lose the old man. He is always near by. When I am in trouble

in a crisis I ask myself, What would Walt have done under these

circumstances? And whatever I decide Walt would have done that I do. [ 47 ]

Do not fail to mark the fundamental affinities between Walt's psychic

presence beside his lovers and the era's prevailing atmosphere of

spiritualism. The letters of Fred Vaughan and Peter Doyle, just cited,

are utterly in keeping with the spirit, if you will, of the "thick cloud" of

ghost-lovers portrayed in Calamus 4.

This brings us to the final paradox regarding the lamentable

cussedness in Calamus, perhaps the greatest of them all, as expressed

in Calamus 39.

SOMETIMES with one I love, I fill myself with rage, for

fear I effuse unreturned love

But now I think there is no unreturned lovethe

pay is certain, one way or another,

Doubtless I could not have perceived the universe,

or written one of my poems if I had not freely


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or written one of my poems, if I had not freely

given myself to comrades, to love.

Throughout the second half of the nineteenth century , Walt's

dysfunctional love affairs created an unbroken trail of tears for himself

and his lovers. And yet, he swore, without them he could not have

"perceived the universe." Without understanding this paradox, we take

him at his word.

1 Calamus 3.

2 Calamus 10.

3 Calamus 12

4 Edward Carpenter . Days with Walt Whitman: With Some Notes on His Life and Work. 1906, 47 .

5 Calamus 41.

6 Calamus 42.

7 Calamus 5.
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7 5

8 "Poem of The Heart of The Son of Manhattan Island," 1856.

9 Calamus 18.

10 Song of Myself.

11 Calamus 28.

12 Calamus 18.

13 Calamus 29.

14 WW to Ed Cattell. January 24, 187 7 . Cited in: Charley Shively . Calamus Lovers (San Francisco:

Gay Sunshine Press, 1987 ), 144.

15 Calamus 29.

16 Note also that prior to the discov ery of a "magic bullet" for venereal disease in the twentieth

century , all romantic affairs were conducted in the shadow of syphilis, "the bad disorder." It

was rampant, devastating, and incurable. This deadly spec ter hung over all relationships, as

shown by Peter Doy le's suicidal episode. (Shively , 102)

17 Calamus 36. Significantly , Walt's vulcanism metapho r appears after his meet ings with that

fellow lover of men, Emerson. Richardson writes, "The image of a vo lcano was a suggestiv e one

for Emerson... he kept a print of [Vesuv ius] hanging in his front hall in Concord for the rest of

his life." [Robert D. Richardson. Emerson: The Mind on Fire. (Berkeley : U Cal Press, 1995,

1223.)
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18 Shivley, 67 .

19 Calamus 41 .

20 Calamus 3.

21 Calamus 42.

22 Calamus 3.

23 Calamus 42.

24 Calamus 9 and 10.

25 Calamus 19.

26 Calamus 31 .

27 Calamus 26.

28 Emerson also adds a third term, Carpenter vaguely recalls, one not quite so strong as the word

"v iolent." Carpenter, 166. I suggest the word would have been "domineering."

29 Carpenter, 42.

30 "Selected Letters of Walt Whitman" edited by Edwin Hav iland Miller. (Iowa City: U Iowa,

1990), 24.
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31 George Wallingford Noyes. John Humphrey Noyes, The Putney Community. (Oneida, NY:

1931 , Chapter 12.

32 Shivley , Chapter 2.

33 Calamus 9.

34 Calamus 3.

35 Song of Myself.

36 Calamus 6.

37 Study Shivley's book in its entireity.

38 Song of Myself.

39 Calamus 10 and 39.

40 Shivley, 1 43.

41 Calamus 9. Shive ly , Chapter 2.

42 Calamus 6.

43 Calamus 6.

44 Calamus 37 , 45.

45 Shilvey , 49.
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y

46 Shivley , 48.

47 Shivley, 118.

48 Calamus 39.
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i alone would expect to be your god: the cussedness in calamus

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