Robert K. Martin
WHITMAN'S SONG OF MYSELF:
Homosexual Dream and Vision
It
has become common among critics ofWalt Whitman to argue
that the protracted debate over the nature of the poet's sexuality, whether he
may have been homosexual, heterosexual, or bisexual , is essentially beside the
point . This argument has not been based on any reading of the poetry, but
rather on the general modern and" liberal" tendency towards acceptance and
tolerance . Acceptance and tolerance of homosexuality have not only been
disastrous for the development ofa homosexual consciousness ; they have also
led to a critical irresponsibility which seeks to equate all experience and
to
deny that homosexuals are' 'really" different from heterosexuals (to test the
absurdity, substitute women and men, or blacks and whites) .
Homosexuality shares a number of the general functions of all sexuality,
but it bears a particular burden, given the social view of homosexuality and
the virtual universality of repression of homosexual desires , at least in their
most overt or public manifestations. The homosexua1 artist has a double need
to
express his sexual drives through his art because he is (or was) far less able
than his heterosexual brother
to
give expression
to
these drives in his own life.
In a society which attaches serious penalties to the open practice of homo–
sexuality , the homosexual will often turn to art as a way of confronting those
desires that he cannot acknowledge through action . Through the symbolism
of his art he can communicate the facts of his homosexuality to his readers ,
knowing that those of them who are similarly homosexual will read the signs
properly. Thus it was certainly with Whitman . He wrote a large part of his
poetry directly out of his own sexual conflicts and fantasies , and he used his
poetry
to
convey the news of his homosexuality
to
his readers. He knew that
they were to be his "cameradoes ," his only faithful lovers and only true
readers , for all others would (Whitman predicted accurately) fail to see the
" message" that would be unmistakable to some :
This hourI tell things in confidence,
I might not tell everybody, but I wzll tellyou.
(Song ofMyself, sec.
19)
