1984 Foreword (Whitman)

Terrance lycidas2 at earthlink.net
Tue May 13 11:14:49 CDT 2003


For Walt Whitman ("Do I contradict myself? Very well, I
contradict myself") it was being large and containing multitudes,

Large and Comprehensive. Not only multitudes, but Entirety.  For
Whitman, this comprehensive is incomprehensible. 

"While I can not understand it or argue it out, I fully believe in a
clue and porpoise in Nature, entire and several." 

To Whitman, each individual thing is therefor perfect, as it should be.
"Believe a leaf of grass is no less than the journey-work of the stars.
Anything is but a part, however, and the meaning of the whole emerges
from all the parts taken together. Hence the many enumerations in his
poems. Out of all he encounters, Whitman weaves a poem of himself. 

"To me the converging objects of the universe perpetually flow."


"All are written to me, and I must get what the writing means." 

"Do you see O Brothers and Sisters? It is not chaos or death--it is
form, union, plan--it is eternal life--it is Happiness." 

Whitman's Songs are not even his, but rise above them:

Thy very songs not in thy songs,
No special strains to sing, none for itself, 
But from the whole resulting, rising at last and floating, 
A round full-orb'd eidolon. 

And fish, Melville reminds us, can swim on the surface, dive....

O my brave soul! 
O farther farther sail!
O daring joy, but safe! are they not all the seas of God? 
O farther, farther, farther sail!  

 




pynchonoid wrote:
> 
> I believe we've reached an impasse on the 9-11
> reference in the Foreword -- the P-list gang of four
> won't see it, while everybody else has no trouble
> reading what Pynchon has written.  Different strokes
> for different folks. Time to move on.
> 
> Instead of just saying the same stuff over and over, I
> invite you to move on to the other issues that have
> been raised re the Foreword
> 
> --- Terrance <lycidas2 at earthlink.net> wrote:
> [blah blah]
> 
> =====
> <http://www.pynchonoid.blogspot.com/>
> 
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