Version Control - 1855 to 1860 to1867...

1855 vs 1860 Versions:

The 1860 version of Leaves of Grass is substantially expanded from the 1850 version and includes a number of new poems and expansions of originals from the 1855 version. To get a sense for the sheer size of the new volume, Song of Myself (which remains largely unchanged between the two versions) constituted about 45% of the pages of the 1855 version (including the preface) while Song of Myself constitutes only 18% or so of the total pages of the 1860 version. In other words, the 1860 version is about 2.5 times larger than the original in terms of word volume. While Whitman dropped his preface from the original version, major new works are included in the 1860 version including the proto-leaf, a substantially expanded version of what would come to be known as a Song for Occupations, Calamus, and a significant number of smaller poems. There seems to have been a desire for increased organization with the 1860 version containing a table of contents and the longer poems being separated into numbered sections. It is unclear if this was Whitman’s doing or his editors, but given Whitman’s closeness to the text and his background as a newspaper man and familiarity with print typing, I would assume is was more Whitman’s doing than anyone else’s. In addition to the increases in overall organization, there seems to be an attempt in the 1860 version to limit the overall length of each line (or grouping of lines) resulting in greater visual symmetry when looking at each individual page. This is different from the 1855 version where the lines of each stanza sprawl across the page regardless of relative length.

With respect to Song of Myself, I didn’t notice a substantial number of material changes to the text between the 1855 and 1860 versions. There were several areas where I noticed word/line additions, but the overall sequence and tone of the poem seemed to remain mostly the same with no substantial additions or subtractions. To provide one example of an addition, following the line “To be in any form, what is that?”, Whitman added the following parenthetical in the 1860 edition: “(around and round we go, all of us, and ever come before thither,).” In the Alamo sequence, Whitman dropped the term “jetblack sunrise” in two places. What I noticed more than the additions/subtractions, were a substantial amount of is what I would call “tinkering” – changes to punctuation, spelling, capitalization, etc. These may have been simple clean-ups either by Whitman or others given the likely wider audience and resources that were applied to the 1860 version but they could also be representative of Whitman’s obsession with the text and his need to make small edits.

1860 Blue Book vs 1867 Version:

The changes from 1860 to 1867 were far more substantial than those from 1855 to 1860. Overall, the ongoing civil war seems to have had a major impact on Whitman’s outlook and resulted in changes to several sections of Song of Myself. In addition, Whitman seems to have a greater perspective at this point as to the reception and impact Song of Myself had had on contemporary society and other academics. There are a couple of specific areas with respect to his edits that support these premises that I wanted to focus on:

1. The first substantial deletion shows up in section 17 where Whitman is discussing the ubiquity of the themes of Song of Myself. Interestingly, these particular lines had been changed between the 1855 and 1860 versions indicating a long-term focus on this part of the poem. The following lines were deleted in their entirety (original lines from the 1855 text with marks to show changes to the 1860 version):

This is the breath for America, because it is my breath,
This is for of laws, and songs, for behavior,
This is the tasteless water of Souls…. this is the true sustenance,
It is for the illiterate, it is and for the judges of the Supreme Court…. it is and for the
Federal Capitol and the State Capitols,
It is And for the admirable communes of literats,ary men and composers, and singers, and
lecturers, and engineers and savans,
And It is for the endless races of work-ing people, and farmers and seaman.

By deleting these lines and words such as “America”, “Supreme Court”, “Federal Capitols”, and “State Capitols”, Whitman reduces some of the “American” specificity to the poem and the section reads in a more general manner. This is particularly interesting because this deletion essentially has the opposite effect of the changes he made to the 1860 version.

2. Whitman makes a number of changes on pages 51-55 of the blue book, including several line deletions (most of which seem to be to create a more direct effect of the remaining lines) and the addition of an interesting line in section 23 that reads: “I accept time absolutely. It alone is without flaw, It rounds and completes all. That mystic, baffling wonder I love, alone completes me.”

Another minor change in section 23 was very interesting to me. Whitman changes his language slightly when speaking to other scientists about their work and how his own work should compare to theirs. Later in the poem (section 42), Whitman changes the words in which he addresses the upper class going from “Those who piddle and patter” to the harsher “The little plentiful mannikins.” While these changes are relatively small, Whitman seems to maintain an increased sensitivity with respect to the wider audience he has reached with his work. He wants to clarify where his poem stands among the various sciences and seems to want to berate the upper echelons of society who may have received his work in a negative manner when initially published.

3. On pages 76-77 of the blue book, Whitman considers deleting the entire Alamo sequence but ultimately decides to leave it in. There is definitely a focus and a number of changes to the battle related sequences in the poem, including the inclusion of the reference to Whitman’s grandmother’s father in the sea battle sequence and the deletion of a number of lines in section 37 that refer to America’s war for independence. The horrors of the ongoing civil war were certainly forefront in Whitman’s mind as he made edits to the 1860 version. Later in the poem, Whitman adds a line regarding the solemn existence of the soldier.

The soldier camp’d, or upon the march, is mine;
On the night ere the pending battle, many seek me,
and I do not fail them;
On the solemn night (it may be there last,) those that
know me seek me.