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Walt Whitman |
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Whitman's
invention of the spermatic trope... Combining the images of the hero-poet
as a sexually charged begetter, fantasizer, and speaker with some bizarre
notions about the nature of sperm as the quintessential distillation of
the body and the mind, Whitman fashioned a trope in which the persona's
sexual arousal and visionary fervor lead him to an inspired vocalism which
accompanies, or acts as a surrogate for, orgasm" (Aspiz,
1984: 379).
"The
emphasis on the well-sexed male was associated with an amalgam of ideas
about the sanctity of sperm: a lingering scientific and popular belief
in pangenesis ('each part of the body contributed a fraction of itself
to the sperm by way of the blood'), in 'the hereditability of acquired
characteristics.' and in vital linkage between the brain and sexual organs.
In Whitman's day, many doctors still credited the ancient notion that the
'seminal fluid' was a discharge of the brain" (Aspiz,
1984: 381).
The
likelihood that nineteenth-century spermatic notions could appeal to a
major poet is confirmed in an essay by Ezra Pound, in which he suggests
that the brain originated as 'only a sort of great cloth of genital fluid
held in suspense or reserve.' and that the 'fluid' is involved in the formation
of mental images. Drawing on the antic theories that had identified the
brain fluid with semen..." (Aspiz,
1984: 382).
"Thus
his declaration that 'Who touched this, touches a man.' seems to refer
to a new Whitman, reborn by godlike fiat from the persona's spermatic plantings
(pp. 454-56). And in another shocking image that relates the seed-semen
figure to the persona's immortality, the short lyric 'To Him that was Crucified'
pairs the Whitman persona and Christ as twin seminal begetters of the new
spiritual progeny..." (Aspiz,
1984: 384).
'The
persona stretches himself flank to flank against the continent. 'plunging
his semitic muscle' (corrected to 'seminal' in the 1971 edition) into the
bodies of water, which become "embouchure to him' and 'spend' themselves
in him. The 'embouchure' imagery is ambiguously oral and vulval: 'embouchure'
denotes the mouth of a river, the opening out of a valley into a plain,
and the manner of blowing a wind instrument; 'spending' signifies orgasm,
as do 'spends'..." (Aspiz,
1984: 388).
"The
poet who wrote 'I sing myself, and celebrate myself' also rejoiced in 'singing
the phallus' to express that element 'of myself, without which I were nothing.'
For in Whitman's spermatic trope, the poet, his phallus, and his song merge
into one harmonious utterance" (Aspiz,
1984: 395).
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