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Joan Baez - I Saw the Vision of Armies
In 1967 on her album titled "Baptism," Joan Baez, a notable folk singer of the 60's and 70's, read from a number of different poets and set these readings to music. One of the readings chosen by Baez is a passage from "When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom'd." Here, Baez has evoked Whitman "much in the way he was evoked by socialists and communists earlier in the century" according to Jewell and Price. The Whitman referred to here is the poet of the people, a poet who called for a brotherhood between men. Though the poem itself refers to Abraham Lincoln and the Civil War, Baez disassociates the passage from that connotation by reading it on its own. Instead, the passage can be applied to any war or conflict. Within the passage the speaker states that the dead, fallen soldiers are "fully at rest" and that "they suffer'd not" while the living are left to suffer for them. Given the year that the album was released, is almost certainly in reference to the Vietnam War, and this sentiment surely would have resonated with the public. It is also worth mentioning that the version Baez reads from is the 1867 version, which for the most part is the same as later versions, except for the first line, which reads "And I saw askant the armies," in later editions. The choice to read from the version that begins with a merely observational tone versus a suspicious tone is an interesting choice. The version Baez has chosen to read gives the speaker a more omniscient voice, commenting without bias on what he perceives. The choice to use the more powerful, voice allows Baez to emphasize the omniscient poet of the people she seeks to evoke more easily than the humanized, biased speaker of later editions.
Whitman in Movies and Music
The songs "Walt Whitman" by My Robot Friend and "Walt Whitman's Niece" by Wilco and Billy Bragg are vastly different from Joan Baez's soft, yet ominous, reading of Whitman's work. Where Baez invokes a brotherly, anti-war Whitman, these songs interact with the more raucous side of Whitman, the sexual. While Jewell and Price note that Whitman has often been evoked as a love poet in popular culture, it is not often that his erotic side is directly called to the forefront in the mainstream. Generally, the American public sees Whitman portrayed as a benign, desexualized figure, but in both of these songs his sexuality is called to the forefront. In "Walt Whitman" My Robot Friend does not shy away from Whitman's homosexuality, and in fact almost mocks it in a strange way. The video, created by the band, includes racy images of naked men as well as multiple images of the young and old Whitman. The song makes a reference to a passage from "Salut Au Mond," specifically to the second stanza. The line "What widens within you Walt Whitman?" is repeated and shouted till the meaning, which most likely was intended to at least be subtly sexual, becomes a blatant sexual innuendo within the song. "Walt Whitman's Niece" bears no direct reference to Whitman's poetry or even really the man himself, but is also filled with sexual innuendo. Though performed by Wilco and Bragg, the lyrics were actually written by Woody Guthrie. Jewell and Price point out that this is significant given that in the time Guthrie would have been writing the song, Whitman was almost solely associated with the concepts of "profundity and spiritual truth."
My Robot Friend - Walt Whitman
Wilco and Billy Bragg - Walt Whitman's Niece
Whitman has continuously cropped up in American popular music and movies, sometimes in surprising ways. His portrayal in these mediums offer the most extensive amount of interpretation of his work, and provide multiples view points on Whitman. Unlike the advertisements and Levi's campaign previously discussed, music and movie portrayals seem to find more to Whitman than just patriotism or an old grey poet. Though each individual song or movie offers its own specific take on Whitman, these points of view are varied, and limited to the idea of Whitman as the "American Poet."
The representation of Whitman given in the 1989 film Dead Poets Society once again provides a different perspective on Whitman in American culture. Whitman's poetry is referenced several times throughout the film, and his portrait, hung above the chalkboard, is a watchful presence in the classroom of Mr. Keating, the inspirational English teacher. Among Whitman's poems mentioned are "O Me! O Life!" "O Captain! My Captain!" and the famous "barbaric yawp" line from "Song of Myself." The film makes use of the patriotic and spiritual Whitman, using his verses to draw a shy boy out of his shell and inspire students to gain their independence and seize the day. Though Whitman watches over Keating's classroom, Keating himself fails to make any valuable connection to Whitman or the text. As John Izzard states in his article "Poetry in the Movies," when Keating mysteriously tells his students to call him "captain," after "O Captain! My Captain!" the audience and the characters are enthralled. Keating then fails to actually recite the poem; the text is never actualized, and the connection is lost. Another downfall for the inclusion of Whitman within the movie is brought up by Kenneth Price in his book To Walt Whitman, America. Price discusses the way in which the film seems confused about the Whitman it calls upon. The movie occurs within the homosocial setting of a boys boarding school, involves a main character who can very easily be interpreted as a closeted homosexual, and yet never once makes a reference to Whitman as a gay poet. Instead, the film emphasizes him as a "good old uncle Walt." Here Whitman represents camaraderie and patriotism, as well as repressed sexuality, a stark contrast to the liberation denoted by the first two categories.
Clip from Dead Poets Society
