This Dust Was Once the Man
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"This Dust Was Once the Man" is a brief
elegy An elegy is a poem of serious reflection, and in English literature usually a lament for the dead. However, according to ''The Oxford Handbook of the Elegy'', "for all of its pervasiveness ... the 'elegy' remains remarkably ill defined: sometime ...
written by
Walt Whitman Walter Whitman (; May 31, 1819 – March 26, 1892) was an American poet, essayist and journalist. A humanist, he was a part of the transition between transcendentalism and realism, incorporating both views in his works. Whitman is among t ...
in 1871. It was dedicated to
Abraham Lincoln Abraham Lincoln ( ; February 12, 1809 – April 15, 1865) was an American lawyer, politician, and statesman who served as the 16th president of the United States from 1861 until his assassination in 1865. Lincoln led the nation thro ...
, the 16th
president of the United States The president of the United States (POTUS) is the head of state and head of government of the United States of America. The president directs the executive branch of the federal government and is the commander-in-chief of the United Stat ...
, whom Whitman greatly admired. The poem was written six years after
Lincoln's assassination On April 14, 1865, Abraham Lincoln, the 16th president of the United States, was Assassination, assassinated by well-known stage actor John Wilkes Booth, while attending the play ''Our American Cousin'' at Ford's Theatre in Washington, D.C. S ...
. Whitman had written three previous poems about Lincoln, all in 1865: " O Captain! My Captain!", "
When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom'd "When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom'd" is a long poem written by American poet Walt Whitman (1819–1892) as an elegy to President Abraham Lincoln. It was written in the summer of 1865 during a period of profound national mourning in the af ...
", and " Hush'd Be the Camps To-Day". The poem has not attracted much individual attention, though it was positively received and has been analyzed several times. The poem describes Lincoln as having saved the union of the United States from "the foulest crime in history", a line for which conflicting interpretations exist. It is generally seen as referring to either the secession of the
Confederate States of America The Confederate States of America (CSA), commonly referred to as the Confederate States or the Confederacy was an unrecognized breakaway republic in the Southern United States that existed from February 8, 1861, to May 9, 1865. The Confeder ...
, slavery, or the assassination of Lincoln.


Background

Although they never met, the poet
Walt Whitman Walter Whitman (; May 31, 1819 – March 26, 1892) was an American poet, essayist and journalist. A humanist, he was a part of the transition between transcendentalism and realism, incorporating both views in his works. Whitman is among t ...
saw
Abraham Lincoln Abraham Lincoln ( ; February 12, 1809 – April 15, 1865) was an American lawyer, politician, and statesman who served as the 16th president of the United States from 1861 until his assassination in 1865. Lincoln led the nation thro ...
, the 16th
president of the United States The president of the United States (POTUS) is the head of state and head of government of the United States of America. The president directs the executive branch of the federal government and is the commander-in-chief of the United Stat ...
, several times between 1861 and 1865, sometimes in close quarters. Whitman first noticed what Whitman scholar Gregory Eiselein describes as the president-elect's "striking appearance" and "unpretentious dignity". Whitman wrote that he trusted Lincoln's "supernatural tact" and "idiomatic Western genius". His admiration for Lincoln grew in the years that followed; Whitman wrote in October 1863, "I love the President personally." Whitman considered himself and Lincoln to be "afloat in the same stream" and "rooted in the same ground". Whitman and Lincoln shared similar views on slavery and the Union, and similarities have been noted in their literary styles and inspirations. Whitman later declared that "Lincoln gets almost nearer me than anybody else." As president, Lincoln led the Union through the
American Civil War The American Civil War (April 12, 1861 – May 26, 1865; also known by other names) was a civil war in the United States. It was fought between the Union ("the North") and the Confederacy ("the South"), the latter formed by states th ...
. There is an account of Lincoln reading Whitman's ''
Leaves of Grass ''Leaves of Grass'' is a poetry collection by American poet Walt Whitman. Though it was first published in 1855, Whitman spent most of his professional life writing and rewriting ''Leaves of Grass'', revising it multiple times until his death. Th ...
'' poetry collection in his office, and another of the president saying "Well, he looks like a man!" upon seeing Whitman in Washington, D.C., but these accounts may be fictitious.
Lincoln's assassination On April 14, 1865, Abraham Lincoln, the 16th president of the United States, was Assassination, assassinated by well-known stage actor John Wilkes Booth, while attending the play ''Our American Cousin'' at Ford's Theatre in Washington, D.C. S ...
in mid-April 1865 greatly moved Whitman, who wrote several poems in tribute to the fallen president. " O Captain! My Captain!", "
When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom'd "When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom'd" is a long poem written by American poet Walt Whitman (1819–1892) as an elegy to President Abraham Lincoln. It was written in the summer of 1865 during a period of profound national mourning in the af ...
", " Hush'd Be the Camps To-Day", and "This Dust Was Once the Man" were all written as sequels to Whitman's collection of poetry '' Drum-Taps''. The poems do not specifically mention Lincoln, although they turn the assassination of the president into a sort of
martyrdom A martyr (, ''mártys'', "witness", or , ''marturia'', stem , ''martyr-'') is someone who suffers persecution and death for advocating, renouncing, or refusing to renounce or advocate, a religious belief or other cause as demanded by an external ...
.


Text

This dust was once the Man, Gentle, plain, just and resolute—under whose cautious hand, Against the foulest crime in history known in any land or age, Was saved the Union of These States.


Publication history

Whitman wrote the poem in 1871 and published it in the "President Lincoln's Burial Hymn" cluster of '' Passage to India'', a poetry collection intended as a supplement to ''Leaves of Grass''. It was republished in the "Memories of President Lincoln" cluster, first in the 1871–1872 edition of ''Leaves of Grass''. It is the only poem in this cluster that did not first appear in the poetry collections ''Drum-Taps'' or '' Sequel to Drum-Taps''. The poem was not revised after its first publication.


Analysis

In contrast to Whitman's earlier poems on Lincoln, which describe him as a leader, as a friend, or as "a wise and sweet soul", here he is described as simply dust. The literary critic
Helen Vendler Helen Hennessy Vendler (born April 30, 1933) is an American literary critic and is Porter University Professor Emerita at Harvard University. Life and career Helen Hennessy Vendler was born on April 30, 1933, in Boston, Massachusetts, to George ...
considers it Lincoln's
epitaph An epitaph (; ) is a short text honoring a deceased person. Strictly speaking, it refers to text that is inscribed on a tombstone or plaque, but it may also be used in a figurative sense. Some epitaphs are specified by the person themselves be ...
. Whitman "grasps the dust to himself". She then argues that the epitaph is unbalanced. Half of the poem's meaning is contained in "this dust", and the following thirty words constitute the other half. She notes that dust is light, while Lincoln himself holds "complex historical weight". In the second line, Vendler notes the difference between 'gentle', which she considers a "personal" word, and the final, "official", descriptor of 'resolute'. She considers it surprising that Lincoln is never described by an
active verb A dynamic or fientive verb is a verb that shows continued or progressive action on the part of the subject. This is the opposite of a stative verb. Overview Actions denoted by dynamic verbs have duration. They occur over a span of time. This t ...
, but instead as , the 'cautious' guiding hand of the nation. Whitman writes in the third line: "the foulest crime in history known in any land or age." The phrase "foulest crime" likely came from
Herman Melville Herman Melville (Name change, born Melvill; August 1, 1819 – September 28, 1891) was an American people, American novelist, short story writer, and poet of the American Renaissance (literature), American Renaissance period. Among his bes ...
's '' Battle-Pieces and Aspects of the War''. While Melville is generally considered to have been referring to slavery, Whitman scholar Ed Folsom wrote, in 2019, that Whitman's "foulest crime" is viewed not as slavery but either as Lincoln's assassination or the secession of the
Confederate States of America The Confederate States of America (CSA), commonly referred to as the Confederate States or the Confederacy was an unrecognized breakaway republic in the Southern United States that existed from February 8, 1861, to May 9, 1865. The Confeder ...
; he earlier wrote that the latter interpretation was favored by Whitman scholars. After arguing in favor of the secession interpretation, Edward W. Huffstetler wrote in ''The Walt Whitman Encyclopedia'' that "This Dust" expresses Whitman's most "bitter tone" on the South. In ''Lincoln and The Poets'', William Wilson Betts wrote in favor of the assassination of Lincoln as being the "foulest crime", and in contrast, Vendler writes that Whitman's use of "foulest crime" is a
euphemism A euphemism () is an innocuous word or expression used in place of one that is deemed offensive or suggests something unpleasant. Some euphemisms are intended to amuse, while others use bland, inoffensive terms for concepts that the user wishes ...
to refer to slavery. Roy Morris, a historian of the Civil War era, considers the crime to be "a heartbreaking civil war that filled the hospitals of the capital with the ruined bodies of beautiful young soldiers." In ''Secular Lyric'', the English professor John Michael draws comparisons between the poem and the ''
Book of Common Prayer The ''Book of Common Prayer'' (BCP) is the name given to a number of related prayer books used in the Anglican Communion and by other Christian churches historically related to Anglicanism. The original book, published in 1549 in the reign ...
'', saying that the poem emphasizes the "materiality of the body" and conveys grief through "understatement" by not using standard rhetorical methods to convey feeling. To Michael, referencing Lincoln's preservation of the Union makes his assassination more meaningful. Michael particularly highlights the simplicity of describing Lincoln as dust, noting that Whitman does not rely on metaphors or other poetical devices to convey Lincoln's death, as opposed to "O Captain! My Captain!" which utilizes the
ship of state The Ship of State is an ancient and oft-cited metaphor, famously expounded by Plato in the ''Republic'' (Book 6, 488a–489d), which likens the governance of a city-state to the command of a vessel. Plato expands the established metaphor and ult ...
metaphor and makes Lincoln into a quasi-religious figure. Instead, Whitman forces the reader to face the harsh reality of death, as Lincoln has been reduced to dust. The literary scholar Deak Nabers notes that Whitman does not mention
emancipation Emancipation generally means to free a person from a previous restraint or legal disability. More broadly, it is also used for efforts to procure economic and social rights, political rights or equality, often for a specifically disenfranchis ...
in the epitaph and is careful not to attribute the saving of the Union to Lincoln himself, instead saying that it was preserved "under incoln'shand". Nabers draws comparisons between the poem and Melville's poem "The House-Top" and
William Wells Brown William Wells Brown (c. 1814 – November 6, 1884) was a prominent abolitionist lecturer, novelist, playwright, and historian in the United States. Born into slavery in Montgomery County, Kentucky, near the town of Mount Sterling, Brown escape ...
's novel ''
Clotel ''Clotel; or, The President's Daughter: A Narrative of Slave Life in the United States'' is an 1853 novel by United States author and playwright William Wells Brown about Clotel and her sister, fictional slave daughters of Thomas Jefferson. Brown ...
''. The final line of the poem inverts the standard "United States was saved" to "Was saved the Union of these States", which Vendler concludes syntactically places the Union at the climax of the poem. Vendler concludes her analysis by saying that the poem has "Roman succinctness and taciturnity" and makes "dust ..equal in weight to the salvation of the Union".


Reception

In 1943, literary critic
Henry Seidel Canby Henry Seidel Canby (September 6, 1878 – April 5, 1961) was a critic, editor, and Yale University professor. A scion of a Quaker family that arrived in Wilmington, Delaware, around 1740 and grew to regional prominence through milling and bu ...
wrote that Whitman's poems on Lincoln have become known as "''the'' poems of Lincoln" and noted the "fine lines" of "This Dust". William E. Barton wrote in 1965 that without the success of "O Captain" and "Lilacs", "This Dust" and "Hush'd be the Camps" would have attracted little attention and added little to Whitman's reputation. The philosopher
Martha Nussbaum Martha Craven Nussbaum (; born May 6, 1947) is an American philosopher and the current Ernst Freund Distinguished Service Professor of Law and Ethics at the University of Chicago, where she is jointly appointed in the law school and the philosoph ...
considers the epitaph "one of Whitman's simplest and most eloquent statements". In 1965
Ramsey Clark William Ramsey Clark (December 18, 1927 – April 9, 2021) was an American lawyer, activist, and federal government official. A progressive, New Frontier liberal, he occupied senior positions in the United States Department of Justice under Presi ...
, the
United States attorney general The United States attorney general (AG) is the head of the United States Department of Justice, and is the chief law enforcement officer of the federal government of the United States. The attorney general serves as the principal advisor to the p ...
, read part of the poem to a subcommittee of the
United States House Committee on the Judiciary The U.S. House Committee on the Judiciary, also called the House Judiciary Committee, is a standing committee of the United States House of Representatives. It is charged with overseeing the administration of justice within the federal courts, a ...
during a hearing on creating penalties for assassination of the president in the aftermath of the
assassination of John F. Kennedy John F. Kennedy, the 35th president of the United States, was assassinated on Friday, November 22, 1963, at 12:30 p.m. CST in Dallas, Texas, while riding in a presidential motorcade through Dealey Plaza. Kennedy was in the vehicle with ...
.


See also

*
Cultural depictions of Abraham Lincoln Since his death in 1865, Abraham Lincoln has been an iconic American figure depicted, usually favorably or heroically, in many forms. Lincoln has often been portrayed by Hollywood, almost always in a flattering light. He has been depicted in a w ...


Notes


References


Sources

* * * * * * * * * * * * * {{Walt Whitman, state=expanded 1871 poems Abraham Lincoln in art Poetry by Walt Whitman Walt Whitman and Abraham Lincoln