Texts for Comparison: "Calamus."
Whitman's "Calamus" poems have the key-texts for studies of the formulation of the idea of "gayness" in Whitman's poetry, and have been referred to as Whitman's "Gay Manifesto." The poems as published seem to mark a decided shift in Whitman's ideas of and ways of writing about sexuality, but critics who have worked with Whitman's manuscripts for the earliest versions of "Calamus" have noted an even greater disparity between the way the poems appear in the manuscript sequence "Live Oak, with Moss," and as reordered and revised by Whitman in the forms published in 1860 and afterwards. The relevant manuscript has been relatively difficult to access, especially for classroom use, until its recent publication on the web.
The following texts of "Calamus," from its initial form in Whitman's 1859 manuscript to its final shape in the 1891-92 Edition of Leaves of Grass are now provided for use of those who wish to trace the evolution of sequence. The texts provided are part of the Walt Whitman Hypertext Archive, and are used with permission.
Relevant Annotated (partially) Bibliography:
Bowers, Fredson. "Whitman's Manuscripts for the Original 'Calamus' Poems," Studies in Bibliography: Papers of the Bibliographical Society of the University of Virginia, 6 (1953), 267-65.
The first printing of the transcription of the Valentine-Barrett manuscript of "Live Oak, With Moss," and the only one until 1994 to place the poems in their manuscript order, as reconstructed by Bowers.
Whitman's Manuscripts: "Leaves of Grass" (1960): A Parallel Text. ed. Fredson Bowers. Chicago: Univ of Chicago Press, 1955.
Corrected manuscript transcription of "Live Oak" published parallel to the 1860 Calamus poems, out of original order.
Helms, Alan. "Whitman Reading Whitman: 'Live Oak with Moss'" American Poetry Review. 21 (1992): 51-59.
Helms, Alan. "Whitman's 'Live Oak with Moss'" in The Continuing Presence of Walt Whitman: The Life after the Life. ed Robert K. Martin. Iowa City: U of Iowa P., 1992: 185-205.
A first complete reading of the "Live Oak" sequence, based as Parker (below) notes on the Calamus versions of the poems placed in the "Live Oak" order (which are printed in the same volume). Reads the sequence as a story of an unsuccessful affair and a comment on homophobic oppression.
Olsen-Smith, Steven and Hershel Parker. "'Live Oak, with Moss' and 'Calamus': Textual Inhibitions in Whitman Criticism." Walt Whitman Quarterly Review 14 (1997): 153-65.
Parker, Hershel. "The Real 'Live Oak, With Moss': Straight Talk about Whitman's 'Gay Manifesto'." Nineteenth-Century Literature 51 (1996): 145-160.
Parker writes about the publication history of the "Live Oak, with Moss" sequence, gives a brief reading of the sequence as a "brave sexual manifesto", and criticizes Helms' reading (above) as based on the "Calamus" versions of the relevant poems re-printed in the "Live Oak" order.
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