An Introduction:
This site offers an introduction to materials and ideas on Whitman's representations of the wounded body, and it does this by focusing on a single poem, "A March in the Ranks Hard-Prest, and the Road Unknown." The poem registers Whitman's war weariness, his commitment to the war, his awareness of the violence done to human bodies in war, and his attention to the difficulty of representing war.
The poem developed from an entry in one of the notebooks Whitman kept during the Civil War as he visited soldiers in the hospitals in Washington, D.C. and the surrounding area. One of the soldiers recounted to Whitman the retreat after the battle of White Oak Swamp.
In addition to the text of the poem, the site offers excerpts from recent critical responses to the poem, and excerpts from broader theoretical studies on war, bodies, and language.
The site also offers a sampling of other Whitman texts, including the notebook entry that preceded the poem, sample letters to his mother, a now-famous letter to Ralph Waldo Emerson, and another poem from Drum Taps. Some of these texts echo, reverse, and revise, perhaps, the attitude, tone, and politics implicit in "A March in the Ranks Hard-Prest, and the Road Unknown." Taken together this sample of Whitman's writings testify to the complexity of Whitman's relationship to the war, to the bodies he nursed, and to language. Whitman responds variously to the horrors of war, to the Union cause, to official leaders and public pronouncements, and to dead bodies or injured bodies.
Finally, the site offers selected Civil War texts, including "The Gettysburg Address" that represent or make rhetorical use of injured or dead bodies, and it also offers a few photographs from the War and a brief introduction to looking at war photographs. The site concludes with assignments for students that bring together some of these materials and issues by asking questions and suggesting projects, and a list of resources in print and on the internet.
Final thoughts:
Violence to the body is the most immediate goal and consequence of war, and although the wounded body, even more than the dead body, is often made to disappear, this site focuses on Whitman's representations of and work with injured bodies. In all languages and cultures, the body and its parts are constantly made into metaphors. This site proposes to study how Whitman's poetry and prose translate the wounded body into language.
The site does not offer answers, only materials, ideas, and questions.
The site is under construction.
Last update: September 1999.Material developed by Stephanie Browner, Berea College, Berea, KY, and as part of a project funded by the U.S. Department of Education, Fund for the Improvement of Post-Secondary Education.
Send comments to: browner@berea.edu