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Whitman's Debt to Animal Magnetism

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 December 2020

Edmund Reiss
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Extract

Scholars have for many years been showing how responsive Walt Whitman was to the world around him and how his writings reflect his interest in the affairs and ideas of mid-nineteenth-century America. Not only are the rhythms and tones of contemporary opera and oratory incorporated in his poetic style, but so also are contemporary scientific, social, and cultural interests scattered throughout the content of his prose and the imagery of his verse. My purpose here is to show Whitman's indebtedness to the contemporary fad of animal magnetism, especially concerning its appearance in the phraseology and nature of many of his poetic images and in his conceptions of the poet and the leader.

Type
Research Article
Information
PMLA , Volume 78 , Issue 1 , March 1963 , pp. 80 - 88
Copyright
Copyright © Modern Language Association of America, 1963

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References

Note 1 in page 80 A fascinating discussion of these fads appears in Grace Adams and Edward Hutter, The Mad Forties (New York and London, 1942).

Note 2 in page 80 A. Yorke, Absorption: A Rational and Consistent System of Mesmerism (Philadelphia, 1844), p. 8.

Note 3 in page 80 The Works of Nathaniel Hawthorne, intro. by G. P. Lathrop (Boston and New York, 1883), v, 547.

Note 4 in page 81 For these and other points illustrating the widespread interest in America of animal magnetism, see, for example, Adams and Hutter, pp. 87–140.

Note 5 in page 81 The Uncollected Poetry and Prose, ed. Emory Holloway (New York, 1932), i, 216.

Note 6 in page 81 Complete Prose Works, ed. R. M. Bucke, T. B. Harned, and H. L. Traubel (New York and London, 1902), n, 140.

Note 7 in page 81 “A Voice from Death,” p. 4S3. All quotations from Leaves of Grass are from the inclusive edition, ed. Emory Holloway (Garden City, ?. Y., 1927), and are identified by page number.

Note 8 in page 81 Comp. Prose, in, 290; vi, 182.

Note 9 in page 81 “As They Draw to a Close,” p. 415; “Song of the Open Road,” p. 128.

Note 10 in page 82 The Private Reader (New York, 1942), p. 81.

Note 11 in page 82 See, for example, J. P. F. Deleuze, Practical Instruction in Animal Magnetism, trans. T.C. Hartshorn (Providence, 1837), pp. 21–42; and The History and Philosophy of Animal Magnetism (anon.), (Boston, 1843), pp. 11–12. Because of the great number of books and pamphlets (most of no literary interest) written in the nineteenth century about animal magnetism, I have had to be selective in documenting my references. For most footnotes I could as easily refer to many other works.

Note 12 in page 82 James Coates, Mesmerism and Clairvoyance (New York, n.d.), pp. 31–32; and Magnetic Healing (anon.) (Chicago, 1900), pp. 40–41.

Note 13 in page 83 Deleuze, pp. 27–31, 45–46; and J. C. Colquhoun, Isis Revelata: An Inquiry into the Origin, Progress, and Present State of Animal Magnetism (Edinburgh, 1836), i, 59–60, 82 ff.

Note 14 in page 83 At one point in the anonymous pamphlet, A Correspondence Course of Instruction in Hypnotism, Personal Magnetism, Suggestive Therapeuti-cs and Cognate Phenomena (New York, 1903), the author writes that “Christ was the greatest hypnotist of all time” (p. 10).

Note 15 in page 84 William L. Stone, Letter to Doctor A. Brigham on Animal Magnetism (New York, 1837), pp. 19 ff. 16 Hawthorne, Works, v, 549.

Note 17 in page 84 William A. Barnes, Psychology, Hypnotism, Personal Magnetism, and Clairvoyance, 4th ed. (Boston, 1898), p. 89.

Note 18 in page 84 Quoted in F. O. Matthiessen, American Renaissance, Art and Expression in the Age of Emerson and Whitman (New York, 1941), p. 574.

Note 19 in page 85 Whitman apparently once intended to use clairvoyance as the basis for a short story, for among his literary remains is a fragmentary piece about a boy who possessed the power of independent clairvoyance (Comp. Prose, vi, 130–32). An obvious connection exists between clairvoyance and spiritualism, and Whitman occasionally discusses the latter. A letter to his young friend, Peter Doyle, reveals how, while at a party, Whitman took part in a discussion of this topic: “We had a warm animated talk, among other things about spiritualism. I talked too, indeed went in like a house afire” (ibid., v, 35).

Note 20 in page 85 “Starting from Paumanok,” p. 13.

Note 21 in page 85 “As I Walk These Broad Majestic Days,” p. 404; “Apostroph,” p. 474. Cf. “? Sun of Real Peace,” p. 475.

Note 22 in page 85 Comp. Prose, VI, 127. See also “Starting from Paumanok,” p. 17.

Note 23 in page 86 “By Blue Ontario's Shore,” p. 299; “So Long!” p. 417; “Song at Sunset,” p. 411.

Note 24 in page 86 “As Adam Early in the Morning,” p. 94. See also “Song of the Answerer,” p. 140.

Note 25 in page 86 Horace Traubel, With Walt Whitman in Camden (New York, 1914–15), i, 102.

Note 26 in page 86 “To Be at All,” p. 462. See also “Song of Myself,” p. 48. Whitman frequently makes use of a battery-generator image. He speaks of himself as being charged “with contentment and triumph” (“Song at Sunset,” p. 411); being “charged with untold and untellable wisdom” (“Of the Terrible Doubt of Appearances,” p. 101), and being “rightly charged” with happiness (“Song of the Open Road,” p. 128).

Note 27 in page 86 Walt Whitman (Philadelphia, 1883), p. 57. This and the following extravagant statements about the personality of Whitman are all by his faithful followers and are hardly conclusive in arriving at a true picture of the man. I use them, however, to show how the terms and ideas of animal magnetism were applied to the poet and to suggest some similarities between the “I” and Whitman in their roles of both mes-merizer and mesmerized.

Note 28 in page 86 Cosmic Consciousness, A Study in the Evolution of the Human Mind (New York, 1923), p. 236.

Note 29 in page 86 Ibid., p. 217.

Note 30 in page 86 Reminiscences of Walt Whitman (London, 1896), p. 109. 31 See, for example, Cultivation of Personal Magnetism (anon.), (Meriden, Conn., 1926), p. 367.

Note 32 in page 86 See Leslie A. Fiedler's interesting discussion of this in “Images of Walt Whitman,” Leaves of Grass One Hundred Years After, ed. Milton Hindus (Stanford, Calif., 1955), pp. 57–59.

Note 33 in page 86 Comp. Prose, n, 164; in, 265; Traubel, in, 78. Among the newspaper clippings found with Whitman's literary remains were two long and much-scored pieces entitled “Human and Animal Magnetism” and “Life Force—Its Philosophy.” There was also a shorter clipping called “Personal Magnetism” (Comp. Prose, vu, 86, 88).

Note 34 in page 86 Quoted in Kennedy, p. 110.

Note 35 in page 86 “A Woman's Estimate of Walt Whitman,” reprinted in The Letters of Anne Gilchrist and Walt Whitman, ed. Thomas B. Harned (Garden City, ?. Y., 1918), p. 7.

Note 36 in page 88 Ibid., pp. 3–4.

Note 37 in page 88 Quoted in Bucke, Walt Whitman, p. 66.

Note 38 in page 88 Recorded in Traubel, ii, 535.