University of North Carolina Press

Poetic Conventions in "Leaves of Grass"

Author(s): Lois Ware
Source: Studies in Philology, Vol. 26, No. 1 (Jan., 1929), pp. 47-57
Published by: University of North Carolina Press
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/4172020
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 POETIC CONVENTIONS IN LEAVES OF GRASS
BY Lois WARE

Whitman was fond of saying that in his own verses he had

discarded the traditions and conventions of the poets that had
preceded him. And he was, I suspect, largely sincere in this
avowal. But whether this be true or not, it is nevertheless true that
he exemplifies at some point or other virtually all of the conven-
tions that he professed to eschew, and that he employed some of
these conventions on a large scale.1 With his use of stanza form
and rhyme and the conventional rhythm in " 0 Captain! My Cap-
tain! " every student of Whitman is familiar. But he also em-
ployed a stanza form of some sort in " Eidolons," "Gods," " For
You 0 Democracy," "Pioneers! 0 Pioneers!", "Beat! Beat!
Drums! ", " Dirge for two Veterans," " In Cabin'd Ships at Sea,"
"Ethiopia Saluting the Colors," "A Noiseless Patient Spider,"
" Old War-Dreams," and the poem within a poem in " The Singer
in Prison." He likewise employed a regular rhyme scheme in the
poem within a poem in " The Singer in Prison," in " 0 Captain!
My Captain!," and in " Ethiopia Saluting the Colors "-the two
latter of which have both internal and end-rhyme-and in the
first section of "By Blue Ontario's Shore" and the "Song of
the Broad-Axe." 2 Moreover, an examination of his verse will
reveal that he not only used in his earliest work in Leaves of Grass
an occasional line that will scan quite regularly, but that in his

1In American Criticism, 1928 (pp. 159-170, 187-190, 226-227), Norman

Foerster has shown Whitman's dependence upon the past for a number
of the essentials of the poet's theory and practice. In the present article
I have emphasized certain externals of his poetic form.
2 Outside of these
rhymes I have observed only 23 internal rhymes and
24 rhyming lines, or 12 end-rhymes. Examples, first, of the internal
rhymes lare: Leaves of Grass, Inclusive Edition, edited by R. E. Holloway,
p. 36, 1.10; p. 63, 1.17; p. 67, 1.18; p. 111, 1.13; p. 124, 1.2; p. 128,
1. 5; p. 156, 1. 4; p. 168, 1. 17; p. 188, 1. 24; p. 201, 1. 13; p. 251, 1. 18;
p. 304, 1. 27; p. 339, 1. 12; p. 342, 1. 9; p. 343, 1. 21; p. 384, 1. 7; p. 385,
1. 18; p. 390, 1. 4; p. 393, 1. 9; p. 402, 1. 6; p. 454, 1. 14; p. 460, 1. 20.
Examples of end-rhyme are: Leaves of Grass, p. 17, 11.11-12; p. 167,
11. 2-3; p. 169, 11. 23-24; p. 281, 11.7-8; p. 333, 11.15-16; p. 334, 11. 15-16;
p. 369, 11.5-6; p. 383, 11.17-18; p. 462, 11.1-2.
47

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48 Poetic Conventions in "Leaves of Grass"

later verses he used such lines not infrequently; indeed that some
of his poems, like the " Prayer of Columbus," fall into fairly
regular iambic verse, while others adopt an equally regular sequence
of trochees or anapests. Almost as significant is the fact that
he not infrequently inverted his word order in the interest of a
better rhythm. This happens, by my count, in two hundred and
sixty-two instances.
Again, despite his avowal that he had discarded poetic diction,
Whitman condescended to admit now and then a word that we
should at once pronounce to be poetic. The examples that I have
noted are: agone (1), Atlantica (3), atomies (1), babe (1),
bale (1), beseems (1), betimes (2), betwixt (1), cerulean (2),
charnel (2), climes (2), darkling (1), the deep (2), derring-do
(1), diminute (2), e'en (6), e'er (2), eld (2), emprises (1), ere
(2), eterne (1), eve (2), halcyon (1), haply (18), isle (2),
jocund (6), Ikine (1), limn (2), list (listen) (5), list (please)
(1), lorn (1), methinks (5), ne'er (3), o'er (10), swart (1),
'tis (9), twain (4), 'twas (4), 'twill (1), wend (8). There are
also numerous archaic forms: aimedest (1), ascended'st (1), art
(5), bear'st (10), beholdest (3), breathest (1), bringest (1), canst
(1), carriest (1), changest (1), considerest (1), copest (1),
couldest (1), cullest (1), darest (1), didst (1), disportest (1),
dost (1), drawest (1), enterest (2), fillest (1), freest (1), frontest
(1), furl'st (1), gain'st (1), givest (1), groan'st (1), had'st (1),
hast (4), hear'st (2), holdest (1), infoldest (1), journeyst (1),
knowest (7), lackest (2), lagd'st (1), laughest (1), launchest (1),
lived'st (1), loolest (3), lovest (1), makest (1), masterest (1),
matest (1), maturest (1), melt'st (1), might'st (1), missest (1),
mournest (1), movest (2), pickest (1), playest (1), pleasest (2),
reappearest (1), revel'st (1), ridest (1), sat'st (1), se.ek'st (2),
seest (1), sendest (1), shalt (3), sittest (1), smilest (1), soundest
(1), sport'st (1), stridest (1), swellest (1), takest (1), tellest (1),
thee (207), thine (25), thy (183), thyself (17), thou (179),
'twould (1), unfoldest (1), unitest (1), voyagest (1), waitest (2),
watled'st (1), walkd'st (1), wert (1), wilt (1), would'st (1), ye
(23), yieldest (2).
But I am less concerned in this inquiry with such sporadic
conventions as I have noted than with certain conventions that
appear in virtually every poem of any length that Whitman wrote.

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 Lois Ware 49

I refer particularly to alliteration, assonance, repetition, parallel-

ism, and, to a less extent, to the refrain. Of these the most strik-
ing, if not the most frequent, is alliteration. Of the 10,376 lines
that I have examined, 6,311-about 60 per cent.-have consonantal
alliteration, and 2,034-not quite 20 per cent.-have vowel allitera-
tion. Yet astounding as these figures may seem, especially if one
realizes that when combined, they comprise about 80 per cent. of
the grand total,3 they do not give an adequate idea of the fre-
quency of alliteration in Leaves of Grass. In line after line Whit-
man, instead of conforming to the old norm of single alliteration-
the repetition of one initial consonant-employs double and even
triple alliteration with a consequent gain in consonance and variety
in consonance. This gain becomes immediately apparent when
we compare the first of the following examples to the other three:
The white wake left by the quick tremulous whirl of wheels.4
The negro holds firmly the reins of his four horses, the block swags
underneath on its tied-over chains.5
Behold the body includes and is the meaning and main eoncern,
and includes and is the soul.6
He gives one convulsive leap in the centre of the circle, and then
falls flat and still in the bloody foam.
Moreover, into the pattern of one or more alliterating consonants,
Whitman occasionally weaves alliterating vowels with surprisingly
harmonious results. A representative example is
Citadel, ceiling, saloon, academy, organ, exhibition.8

Equally as effective are the following examples of his use of vowel

alliteration independent of consonantal alliteration:
Out of the cradle endlessly rocking.9
As I ebb'd with the ocean of life.10

8Since the same line frequently has both consonantal and vowel
alliteration and therefore is included in both counts, the proportion will
be somewhat less than 80 per cent.
4"
Crossing Brooklyn Ferry," § 3, 1. 23, p. 135.
"Song of Myself," § 13, 1. 1, p. 33.
6 " Starting from Paumanok," § 13, 1. 11, p. 19.
7"A Song of Joys," 1. 85, p. 152.
8 Song of the Broad-Axe," § 9, 1. 9, p. 163.
Out of the Cradle Endlessly Rocking," § 1, 1. 1, p. 210.
10 "As I Ebb'd with the Ocean of Life," § 1, 1.1, p. 216.

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50 Poetic Conventions in "Leaves of Grass"

What is this earth to our affections? (unloving earth without a

throb to answer ours.l1
Undismay'd amid the rapids-amid the irresistible and deadly
urge.12

The kindred device of assonance is used almost as frequently as

alliteration, but is less immediately perceptible, partly because
it is to a large extent concerned with medial vowels and conson-
ants, and partly because it is more evenly distributed between the
two types-consonantal and vocalic. For example, out of 10,376
lines, I have noted 5,570, or about 53 per cent., that have vowel
assonance, and 5,690, or about 54 per cent., that have consonantal
assonance.13 Some examples, first, of vowel assonance are:
Your memories rising glide silently by me.14
Observing the spiral flight of two little yellow butterflies shuffling
between each other high in the air.l5
The winds blowing the notes of the bird continuous echoing.16
We feel the long pulsation, ebb and flow of endless motion.17

In the last two examples, as is frequently the case, Whitman is

playing on two vowels. An excellent example of consonantal
assonance independent of alliteration is afforded by the line
Out of the cradle endlessly rocking,18

in which the rhythm is clearly aided by the repetition of the letters

I and r. Other examples are:
The shape measur'd, saw'd, jack'd, join'd, stain'd,1

in which the d's give an effect of finality and completeness; and

Large, brave, cleanly, hot-blooded, no talker rather spiritualistic.2°

a1 "Passage to India," § 5, 1.17, p. 346.

12
"While Behind all Firm and Erect," 1. 2, p. 460.
1s "These figures do not include the repetition of the same vowel sound
or of the same consonant when such repetition occurs only in alliterating
syllables.
14
"The Return of the Heroes," § 5, 1. 10, p. 303.
16 "Our Old Feuillage," 1. 56, p. 147.

16 "Out of the Cradle Endlessly Rocking," p. 214, 1. 12.

17 "In
Cabin'd Ships at Sea," 1. 12, p. 2.
18 "Out of the Cradle
Endlessly Rocking," § 1, 1. 1, p. 210.
19 "Song of the Broad-Axe," § 10, 1. 2, p. 164.
20
"The Dying Veteran," 1. 6, p. 437.

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 Lois Ware 51

In the second example the poet is playing especially upon the

letters I and r, each of which occurs six times, though he also
employs b, v, p as a minor theme. Quite frequently assonance
occurs in combination with alliteration, as in the line
Slavery-the murderous, treacherous conspiracy to raise it upon
the ruins of all the rest.21

Here the reader will observe that the letter r, which appears only
three times initially, occurs six times medially-nine times alto-
gether.
Whitman employs also an abundance of repetition. This over-
laps obviously with alliteration; but to keep the two as distinct as
possible, I have listed the repetition of a single word within a line
for the sake of alliteration under alliteration only, not under
alliteration and repetition, unless, as in the case of the words
soothe and loved in "out of the Cradle Endlessly Rocking," the
effect is largely dependent upon the repetition or unless the repeated
word is part of an "answering phrase," one form of what Amy
Lowell calls return. Of these latter I have noted some four hun-
dred and sixty cases, representative examples of which are:
With whistling wind and music of the waves, the large imperious
wanves.22
Nor these the universe, they the universe.23
The real life of my senses and flesh transcending my senses and
flesh.24
She less guarded than ever, yet more guarded than ever.26

But far more frequent than the answering phrase, is the use of the
same word to begin a number of parallel lines. Altogether there
are 3,330 parallel lines arranged in groups beginning with the
same word. Of these groups, section 11 of " Salut au Monde," in
which the word you begins twenty-seven consecutive lines, has, per-
haps, the longest sustained repetition. Aside from the answering
phrase and "initial repetition," the most noteworthy single
instances of repetition in Leaves of Grass occur in the short poems

21 Blue Ontario's Shore," § 6, 1.40, p. 290.

"By
22 "In Cabin'd Ships at Sea," 1. 3, p. 2.
28 "Eidolons," 1. 58, p. 6.
24 "
Song of Joys," 1.100, p. 153.
6 " Song of the Broad-Axe," § 11, 1.2, p. 165.

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 52 Poetic Conventions in "Leaves of Grass"

"Unfolded," "Tears," "Vigil Strange I Kept on the Field one

Night," "City of Ships," "I Hear America Singing," "Faces,"
and " The City Dead-House " and in the lyrics in " Out of the Cra-
dle Endlessly Rocking" and "When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard
Bloomed." But in many other poems occasional phrases are
repeated rather effectively. For example, in "As I Ebb'd with the
Ocean of Life" the phrase the fierce old mother cries for her cast-
aways appears twice; and in "Crossing Brooklyn Ferry" the
phrases flags of all nations at sunset and scallop-edg'd waves occur
two and three times, respectively. Altogether I have counted
three hundred and twenty-eight such words and phrases.
This count does not include instances of refrain, which, though
not so frequent as some other varieties of repetition, is not uncom-
mon. In general the refrains in Leaves of Grass may be classified
as (1) conventional refrain and (2) sporadic final refrain. For
further simplification the poems belonging to the first class may
be redivided into (a) those having a refrain at the end of each
stanza, such as " Pioneers! 0 Pioneers !," " 0 Captain! My Cap-
tain!," "For You, 0 Democracy," "Eidolons," "Gods," " Old
War-Dreams," ' Sparkles from the Wheel," "As Toilsome I
Wander'd Virginia's Woods," "Good-bye My Fancy!," and some
of the lyrics in the " Song of the Redwood Tree "; (b) those hav-
ing a refrain at the beginning of each stanza, such as "Beat!
Beat! Drums !," "Song of the Open Road,"26 "Adieu to
Soldiers," "Passage to India," and "The Mystic Trumpeter"; 27
(c) short poems having the opening and the closing lines alike,
such as "Joy! Shipmate! Joy !," "By the Bivouac's Fitful
Flame," the second stanza in section 11 of "By Blue Ontario's
Shore," "Thick-Sprinkled Bunting," "Tears," "A Warble for
Lilac Time," " Old Salt Kossabone," " The Ox Tamer," " On, on
the Same ye Jocund Twain!," and "Ashes of Soldiers ";28 and
(d) those, like "So Long" and "The Banner at Daybreak," in
which the refrain, instead of appearing regularly at the beginning
or the end, is scattered throughout the poem. In addition to these
cases of conventional refrain, there are at least one hundred and
26
Five of the sections of this poem begin with Allons.
27
In the two latter poems the refrain is not so uniform as in the others.
28
In all but the first three thei e is a slight variation in the words
or the word order of the first and the last line.

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 Lois Ware 53

twenty-one different passages having sporadic final refrain-the

conclusion of two or more consecutive lines with the same word,
phrase, or clause. Some examples are:
Where the city of the faithfullest friends stands,
Where the city of the cleanliness of the sexes stands,
Where the city of the healthiest fathers stands,
Where the city of the best-bodied mothers stands,
There the great city stands.2
Underneath all, individuals,
I swear nothing is good to me now that ignores individuals,
The American compact is altogether with individuals,
The only government is that which makes minute of individuals,
The whole thing of the universe is directed unerringly to one
single individual-namely to you.
(Mother! with subtle sense severe, with naked sword in your hand,
I saw you refuse to treat but directly with individuals).30

In the first example we find five consecutive lines ending with

stands; in the second the first four end with individuals; there
is a break of two lines; then we come back and conclude on the
original note individuals.
Even more frequent than repetition or refrain, is parallelism, a
device which depends for its effectiveness, not upon the repetition
of words and phrases-though that, to be sure, is frequently a
corollary-but upon the repetition of the same structure. Typical
examples are:
Long and long has the grass been growing,
Long and long has the rain been falling,
Long has the globe been rolling round.81
I will confront these shows of day and night,
I will know if I am to be less than they,
I will see if I am not as majestic as they,
I will see if I am not as !subtle and real ias they,
I will see if I am to be less generous than they,
I will see if I have no meaning while the houses and ships have
meaning,
I will see if the fishes and birds are to be enough; for themselves,
and I am not to be enough for myself.3

S9" Song of the Boad-Axe," § 5, 11. 21-25, p. 161.

80"By Blue Ontario's Shore," § 15, 11. 6-12, p. 296.
s1 " Song of the Exposition," § 1, 11. 12-14, p. 166.
"By Blue Ontario's Shore," § 18, 11. 1-7, p. 298.
32

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54 Poetic Conventions in "Leaves of Grass"

Altogether I have noted 6,147 lines in parallel structure, or almost

60 per cent. of Whitman's lines. When we recall how very fond
the poet is of catalogues, that percentage will not seem very high.
But in addition to the cases mentioned, there are 895 lines with
internal balance. Some examples are:
Let the tool remain in the workshop! let the money remain
unearn'd
Let the school stand! mind not the cry of the teacher!
Let the preacher preach in his pulpit! let the lawyer plead in the
court and expound the law.33

Indisputably the first and the third lines have internal balance;
and I am inclined to consider that the second has also despite the
fact that the auxiliary is omitted and the command is expressed
negatively. Still other examples are:
I chant America the mistress, I chant a greater supremacy.84
The sign is reversing, the orb is enclosed,
The ring is circled, the journey is done.35

In his article "A Note on Whitman's Prosody" Professor John

Erskine of Columia University says that Whitman, knowing that
"we had ceased to observe line-ends in oral reading . . ., made
bold to mark no line-ends in the printing of his verse, but only
phrases, clauses, and sentences." 36 In the main Professor Erskine
is correct. A search for run-on lines in Leaves of Grass is like the
search for the proverbial needle in a haystack. And the difficulty
is augmented by the fact that Whitman almost invariably puts a
comma at the end of a line whether or not it is required. This
trick of his frequently misleads the reader, who instinctively pauses
when he sees the comma and takes it more or less for granted that
he has reached yet another end-stopped line, especially since Whit-
man's style is frequently disjointed and fragmentary. However,
in spite of the difficulty offered by his eccentric punctuation and

s3" Song of the Open Road," § 15, 11. 4-6, p. 133.

84 "A Broadway Pageant," § 2, 1. 39, p. 208.
3 Ibid., § 3, 11. 5, 6,
p. 208; perhaps it would be well to explain that
I have not included in my count lines like the 46th and the 48th of
" Our Old Feuillage." Such lines seem to me to form an a-b-c series, not
to offer cases of parallelism in the stricter sense.
86 Studies in Philology, vol. 20, p. 336.

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 Lois Ware 55

elliptical style, I have found thirty-seven lines that seem to us

indisputably run-on and several others about which I should like
to question the poet. Some of the clearest examples are:

Manhattan's streets I saunter'd, pondering

On Time, Space, Reality. ...
Come nearer, bodiless one, haply in thee resounds
Some dead composer, haply thy pensive life
Was fil'd with aspirations ....
The prophet and the bard,
Shall yet maintain themselves....

To sum up briefly, then, these statistics show that in spite of

Whitman's declaration that in Leaves of Grass he had used " none
of the stock ornamentation," a number of his later poems are
written in fairly regular meter, that his verses are not entirely
without rhyme, nor even without stanza, that he now and then
makes use of inversion, that here and there are to be found well-
recognized poetic phrases, that a large proportion of his lines
employ alliteration and assonance, that he makes a great deal of
repetition, that several of his poems have sporadic final refrain-
not to mention some score or more with a conventional refrain,-
that more than half of his lines exhibit parallelism of some
sort, and that an overwhelming number are end-stopped, the
run-on line being so rare as to be almost negligible.
If we turn now to the uncollected poems,40we find a very different
situation. Of these, all but "Wounded in the House of Friends,"

7"
Song of Prudence," 11. 1, 2, p. 313.
88 "The Mystic Trumpeter," § 2, 11. 1-3, p. 389.
89 " Eidolons," 11. 69, 70, p. 6; the other examples of run-on lines are:
Leaves of Grass, Inclusive Edition, p. 3, 1.4; p. 5, 1.27; p. 6, 1.27;
p. 169, 1. 9; p. 194, 11. 7, 8 (?); p. 206, 1. 2 (?); p. 248, 11. 23 (?), 24 (?);
p. 249, 11. 3 (?), 4 (?); p. 254, 1. 13; p. 265, 1. 18; p. 284, 11. 7, 22, 23, 27;
p. 300, 1. 22; p. 317, 1. 29; p. 326, 1. 24; p. 341, 1. 13; p. 389, 1. 16; p. 390,
1. 21; p. 402, 1. 11; p. 422, 11. 2, 3; p. 425, 1. 6; p. 426, 1. 13; p. 429, 1.10;
p. 437, 11. 1, 2; p. 440, 11. 5, 13; p. 436, 11. 13, 15; p. 459, 1. 7; p. 462,
11. 14, 21; p. 403, 11. 1, 8 (?).
' My discussion of the uncollected poems is based upon the poems in
The Uncollected Prose and Poetry of Walt Whitman edited by R. E.
Holloway (New York, 1922), together with the three short poems-
"Dough-Face Song," "Blood-Money," and "Sailing the Mississippi at
Midnight "-which do not appear therein.

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56 Poetic Conventions in "Leaves of Grass"

"Blood Money," "Isle of La Belle Riviere," and "On Duluth,

Minnesota " 41have both a regular stanza form and a regular rhyme
scheme. Likewise, inversion is more common in these poems than
in Leaves of Grass. On the other hand, poetic diction is rarer,
though it falls into exactly the same two general classes-poetic
words and archaic forms, with the latter predominating.42 Alli-
teration, both consonantal and vocalic, is much less frequent than
in Leaves of Grass: of the 895 lines only 221, about 20 per cent.,
have consonantal alliteration, and only 34, almost 4 per cent., have
vocalic. Though assonance-consonantal and vowel-is somewhat
more frequent than alliteration, it too is less common than in
Leaves of Grass: for example, of a total of 895 lines 224, about
25 per cent., have consonantal assonance, and 216, or a little
over 24 per cent., have vowel assonance; whereas in Leaves of Grass
the percentages were 54 and 53, respectively. Again, repetition
is exceedingly rare in the earlier poems. Neither the answering
phrase nor "initial repetition" occurs at all, and there are only
13 cases of occasional repetition. Refrain is even rarer, appearing
in only one poem-the " Ode." Parallelism, likewise, is much less
frequent than in Leaves of Grass, being present in only 110 cases,
or about 12 per cent. of the lines. On the other hand, run-on
lines are far more frequent. Of a total of 895 lines, 267 are
run-on; whereas of a total of 10,376 in Leaves of Grass, only 37
are run-on. Just why he should have used so many more in his
frankly conventional poems, it is hard to say, though two possible
explanations occur to me. First, much of his earlier poetry is
written in iambic tetrameter, while a great deal of his later verse
has eight or more stresses, so that one line of the later poetry
would be as long as two of the earlier. Secondly, the fact that the
majority of his rhyming lines in his early poetry rhyme alter-
nately, not in couplets, suggests that he had a feeling for a larger
unit of thought than have those poets that make habitual use of
the couplet.
41 The two latter have not been conclusively proved to be his.
4' The poetic words appearing in the early poems are: aneath (1),
babe (2), eve (2), ev'n (1), haply (1), I wis (1), list (1), methinks (1),
mid (1), 'neath (1), ne'er (2), nigh (3), o'er (10), 'tis (2), 'twould (1),
weeen (1). The archaic forms are: art (3), bear'st (1), oometh (1),
dost (1), fanciest (1), livest (1), shalt (1), singest (1), thee (12),
thine (3), thy (14), thyself (1), thou (10), ye (3).

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 Lois Ware 57

A comparison of the results found by a study of Leaves of Grass

and the Uncollected Prose and Poetry of Walt Whitman would
seem to indicate that when Whitman discarded the more obvious
poetic devices-like regular stanza forms, meter, and rhyme-he
unconsciously adopted the less obvious conventions, such as allitera-
tion, assonance, repetition, refrain, parallelism, and end-stopped
lines.
The University of Texas.

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