It’s takes me awhile to get past the delivery and the pronouncements and to settle into Bloom as a framer. And that he does so well. For me, Whitman does deserve that high place. I bought “Leaves of Grass” when I was 12 years old and gave it to my mother. She still has it.

What I did not get and what I wished Bloom delved into more was the passage about American Religion. I wanted more about the Biblical parallelism… examples.

I don’t understand Bloom’s interpretation of Whitman’s (as prophet of a “very new” religion) redefinition of the self, the soul and the “real me” ( if I have that correctly) as three separate parts and how they could not come together or be fused.

More wine, less truth.

Why not, more wine,

More truth–

Keep ‘em coming.

“In liberated moments we know that a new picture of life and duty is already possible; the elements already exist in many minds around you of a doctrine of life which shall transcend any written record we have. The new statement will comprise the scepticisms as well as the faiths of society, and out of unbeliefs a creed shall be formed. For scepticisms are not gratuitous or lawless, but are limitations of the affirmative statement, and the new philosophy must take them in and make affirmations outside of them, just as much as it must include the oldest beliefs.”

The work that some of the “athiests” have been involved in has been very insightful. Yet, I find much of it annoying in that it often relies on an extreme right. Harris, although from a distance often gets lumped in here, has a different agenda. He has made statements in the presence of Dennett that I feel have begun to move in a constructive direction that Dennett hasn’t. I have recently posted some comments about these topics on my blog which might further illustrate the elating connections. http://magisterludi.blogspot.com/

A wish for the new year – if only to see the U.S. through Whitman’s crystal eye.

A Christmas Greeting

By Walt Whitman

1819-1892

“Welcome, Brazilian brother–thy ample place is ready;

A loving hand–a smile from the north–a sunny instant hall!

(Let the future care for itself, where it reveals its troubles,

impedimentas,

Ours, ours the present throe, the democratic aim, the acceptance and

the faith;)

To thee to-day our reaching arm, our turning neck–to thee from us

the expectant eye,

Thou cluster free! thou brilliant lustrous one! thou, learning well,

The true lesson of a nation’s light in the sky,

(More shining than the Cross, more than the Crown,)

The height to be superb humanity.”

Of course Emerson was of the opinion that ““Nothing great was ever achieved without enthusiasm.”

Which enthusiastically leads me to my favorite Whitman excerpt from Songs of Myself:

“Long enough have you dream’d contemptible dreams,

Now I wash the gum from your eyes,

You must habit yourself to the dazzle of the light and of

every moment of your life.

Long have you timidly waded holding a plank by the shore,

Now I will you to be a bold swimmer,

To jump off in the midst of the sea, rise again, nod to me,

shout, and laughingly dash with your hair.”