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I Alone Would Expect to BeYour God
the Cussedness in Calamus
by Mitchell Santine GouldCurator, 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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Introduction
Knowing that Walt Whitman characterized himself as "the tenderestlover,"
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do you think it was so easy to have him become one's lover?Do you think the friendship of him would have been unalloyedsatisfaction? Do you suppose he was trusty and faithful?
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This paper provides a fresh re-examination of the rather bleak rules of engagement for Calamus love, centering upon the revealing anddefinitive playbook or articles of domestic warfare, whichever youprefer , set forth in the original Calamus poems of 1860.
[1] Cussedness
Edward Carpenter got it right in 1906: the relevant element in WaltWhitman's character, he suggested, was less a matter of "tenderness"than "cussedness." Cussedness (that is, "cursedness") was "a greattragic element in his nature [which] possibly prevented him ever beingquite what is called 'happy in love affairs.'"
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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 inWhitman's poems, his letters, and his oral history (
With Walt Whitmanin Camden
), as well as in the testimony of those such as Carpenter andEmerson who knew him well. The best way to sort out what happenedis to trace the boy-loses-boy story depicted in the cluster from its startto its finish.
[2] Perfect unequals
At the moment of first encounter, Walt addresses his newest conquestas "lover and perfect equal" for both the first and last time.
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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, therole of
élevé
.
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It is Walt the poet, not Walt the man, who speaks thewords "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 theinclusion of "comrades."
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But he finds it impossible to put this idealinto practice in his own love relationships.
Each one isprogressively poisoned by his instinctual drive to dominate
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