23 pages • 46 minutes read
I Sit and Look Out
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Themes
The Disillusion and Dissolution of the American Dream
America in the 1850s and 1860s was a nation in crisis, and eventually, a nation at war with itself. In writing an epic about America, Whitman desired to heal the nation with his words. Many of his poems celebrate the potential of America due to the great beauty and wonder inherent in its citizens. But the issue of slavery, in particular, was the great wound that seemed too infected to heal. While Whitman often wrote about restoring the dream of America, in “I Sit and Look Out,” his despair is clear. The speaker cannot act, other than to “see,” hear,” and “observe.” He can do nothing to change the fates of those whose lives and happiness are at peril.
Some argue that the 1860 edition of Leaves of Grass was the only edition that allowed such doubt and despair to move through the poems, especially in the grouping of the 24-poem cluster of which “I Sit and Look Out” is number 17. The critic David Haven Blake argues that Whitman’s use of clustering allows readers a chance to see Whitman exploring issues of ambivalence and despair. When the clusters were abandoned in later editions, the theme of despair was abandoned:
It might be useful to speculate why Whitman’s attention to the cluster dwindled over the next decade: One possibility is that, in the aftermath of the Civil War, Whitman faced a choice: he could either strengthen or soften the cluster’s exploration of torment and doubt. Whitman chose the latter (Blake, David Haven. “Whitman’s Ecclesiastes: The 1860 ‘Leaves of Grass’ Cluster.” Huntington Library Quarterly, vol. 73, no. 4, 2010, pp. 613-627).
After these poems were dispersed in later editions published after the Civil War, Leaves of Grass was yet again refashioned to sing the promise of America, at the expense of losing the exploration of the theme of disillusion.
Despite the theme of pessimism, doubt, and disillusion permeating the lines of “I Sit and Look Out,” the irony is that the act of writing is itself powerful. By writing about the powerless, the sobbing young men, the misused mother, the prisoners, the starving sailors, “the laborers, the poor, and […] negroes” (Line 8), the speaker gives voice to the voiceless, redressing the imbalance of power and love. The speaker’s “I,” though not as optimistic and buoyant about the futures as in previous editions, still is ever vigilant in its love for the Other, witnessing their sufferings, both intimate and global.
Expanding Empathy in E Pluribus Unum
Echoing Emerson, who said in “The Poet” that “America is a poem in our eyes; its ample geography dazzles the imagination, and it will not wait long for metres,” Whitman, in agreement, states that “The United States themselves are essentially the greatest poem” (Prior, Karen Swallow. “Why Walt Whitman Called America the ‘Greatest Poem.’” The Atlantic, 2020). But the “greatest poem” would soon be overwhelmed by war between its own citizens. Civil War broke out only a year after the publication of “I Sit and Look Out.” While Whitman was pro-Union and anti-slavery, Whitman remained committed to his central principle of love for all of his fellow Americans:
Although at times he found himself beset by doubts about the direction or destiny of America and the democratic tenets proclaimed at its founding and sealed in blood at its ‘parturition’ in the Civil War, he never wavered in his fundamental commitment to the democratic ideals he envisioned in the ‘vistas’ and imaginatively embodied in his poetry and prose (Miller, James E., Jr. ‘“Leaves of Grass’: America's Lyric-Epic of Self and Democracy.” New York: Twayne, 1992).
These democratic ideals continue to pervade the 1860 volume despite the more pessimistic tone.
This commitment to all segments of society shows why Leaves of Grass can be seen as one of the best examples of Transcendentalist literature. Whitman’s great love for the other, no matter race, class, or creed, allows him to transcend boundaries in provocative and groundbreaking ways. His claim that “I am large, I contain multitudes” (Whitman, “Song of Myself, 51”) is a powerful voice for America, showing the tension and achievement inherent in the national motto. The motto of the United States, E Pluribus Unum, or Out of Many, One, shows that the very foundation of the United States is built out of the seeming contradiction of creating unity out of disparate circumstances. Time and again, this unity has been tested in America’s history as divisions threaten to tear the national fabric. Whitman shows America both in its zenith and its nadir. The famine at sea, causing sailors to create divisions as they turn against each other for survival, is a foreboding sign of things to come; the Civil War was about to do something similar as brother would turn against brother, state against state. But Whitman refused to make a similar turn against his fellow “brothers”; instead, he chooses to remain committed to seeing all of America.
Poet as Seer and See-er, not just Singer
In Whitman’s “I Hear America Singing,” Whitman catalogs with joy the songs of many, including:
mechanics, each one singing his as it should be blithe and strong,
The carpenter singing his as he measures his plank or beam,
The mason singing his as he makes ready for work, or leaves off work,
The boatman singing what belongs to him in his boat, the deckhand singing on the steamboat deck,
The shoemaker singing as he sits on his bench, the hatter singing as he stands (Whitman, Walt. “I Hear America Singing.” Poetry Foundation, 1991).
This poem was originally published in 1867 and shows Whitman’s desire to return to the optimism of his earlier poetry. Like “I Sit and Look Out,” the poem uses anaphora and catalogs of working-class occupations to drive the lines. In contrast, “I Sit and Look Out,” which also uses catalogs and anaphora to show different groups in America, demonstrated that the American poet’s role was not just to sing the wonders of America but also to recognize its wounds and sufferings. The catalogs that Whitman became famous for were not just for listing the riches and wonders of the land and the joys of work in the various occupations, but the ones that catalog the sufferings, both on the intimate and global level.
Unlike the active speaker that Whitman creates in his many other poems, this speaker seems trapped by his litany of despair. Roy Harvey Pearce points out that in the 1860 edition,
[Whitman’s] freedom to rejoice in the miraculousness of the real […] has its own cost. The greatest is a terrible passivity, as though in order to achieve his freedom, man had to offer himself up as the victim of his own vivified sensibility (Pearce, Roy Harvey. “Whitman Justified: The Poet in 1860.” Whitman: A Collection of Critical Essays. Ed. Roy Harvey Pearce. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1962, pp. 37-59).
Whitman wanted a poetry that embraced all of America, even the pain of America. But such an embrace would have a “cost” once the speaker became overwhelmed by just how much suffering he would have to hold.
And yet by cataloging such sufferings, the poet can combat silence and secrets by witnessing and shedding light. Whitman’s expansive lines allow for a range of tones, as it can build to a crescendo of joy as well as a decrescendo of sadness.
Some have critiqued Whitman’s repeated claims that he can understand the “many.” D.H. Lawrence poked fun at Whitman when he said, “As soon as Walt knew a thing, he assumed a One Identity with it. If he knew that an Eskimo sat in a kayak, immediately there was Walt being little and yellow and greasy, sitting in a kayak” (Lawrence, D.H., et al. Studies in Classic American Literature. Kiribati, Cambridge University Press, 2003). In “I Sit and Look Out,” Whitman refrains from such grandiose claims. He does not transform into the Other but instead remains seated and looking, allowing those that suffer the space to grieve while the speaker acknowledges their suffering and grieves as well. Only by acknowledging and processing such grief can one restore the fullness of future songs.
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