Walt Whitman's Notebook

I actually thought it was really interesting to look at Walt Whitman's notebook and his imaginary conversation with Lincoln, which seems to represent how Whitman's notebook is both the outline of several of his poems and his relation with the time he lives in, regarding primarily political contexts with Lincoln and the Civil War.  First, when observing his actual "documents" without the notes, the first thing that jumped out at me were how brief the notes seemed.  When I think of famous, historical notebooks, for some reason I think of James Madison's notes of the First Constitutional Convention.  What I mean by this is that I expected notes that were much more elaborate and complex rather than simple and metaphorical.  However, upon further inspection and reading the transcriptions and "notes" tab about Whitman's notebook, I came to realize that Whitman was simply writing in a way that would mirror the writing style of his future poems (I'll get into this more later on).

Apart from the notes being interestingly brief, I also thought it was cool to see question marks and different words crossed out and replaced.  Seeing someone's original thoughts and notes is one thing, but the question marks and crossed out words make examining the notebook feel so much more real and authentic.  Lastly, the images in the back half of the notebook are somewhat curious. There are several pictures of what appears to be Whitman himself, but then also a harp, the title of some newspaper, and lastly, a skeleton-like figure with a spear through his heart.  Outside of the sketches of Whitman, I'm not sure I understand the meaning the these other assorted images at a first glance.  As a whole, this notebook looks definitely interesting and I am curious at the meanings of of the different notes and images in the notebook.

After reading the "notes" tab, it becomes clear that Whitman's notes were both the skeleton of some of his future poems as well as representations of his relation to the time he lived in, explored through this imaginary relationship with Lincoln.  As Whitman's initial ideas of the notebook evolved into future poems of his, it only makes sense that his notes would be of a similar style, in the sense that they are mostly brief and filled with metaphors and deeper meanings to simpler words.  One example of this is in his "Thoughts of Religion" page, where there is even evident cataloging, a textbook device of Whitman's, to go along with these other stylistic features. Accordingly, this "Thoughts on Religion" page is an early version of the ideas that later became one of Whitman's poems, titled "Chanting the Square Deific."

Along with using his notebook to originate ideas for his poems, Whitman also uses his notebook address the current political circumstances of his time.  Practically on the first page of the notebook is when Whitman establishes his imaginary conversation with President Elect Lincoln.  Whitman might have began this conversation because he lived near Lincoln, or because the two were at similar, transitional points in their careers, but certainly because Lincoln was a prominent figure that Whitman admired.  Throughout the notebook, Whitman addresses topics of freedom ("Liberated"), the current state of the Union, and even implicitly refers to Lincoln as the captain of the ship that is the Union.  By having this imaginary conversation with Lincoln and bringing up these different topics, I think Whitman is formulating ideas about the Civil War, the Union, and potentially even Lincoln in which he can center his future poems around.  Many of the writers we have studied this year have been unique in how they have both implicitly and explicitly commented of the times in which they lived in, and I think this notebook is Whitman's way of preparing to uniquely relate some of his future poems to the time in which he lived in.