Walt Whitman by Bettina L. Knapp (review)

Book Reviews 147 empires; while the Zulu became increasingly centralized in the nineteenth century, the Sioux developed a more fluid and flexible organization. Given such a large canvas it is not surprising that some issues receive brief coverage. There is far from a complete picture, for example> of the government ineptitude and scandal that the Sioux experienced. And while Britain's imperial resolve may appear firm in retrospect, policy toward the Zulu was also at times contradictory and indecisive. An even broader perspective could have been attempted, with some discussion of just how typical or unusual the Zulu and the Sioux were in their ability to withstand encroachment, however briefly. There might also have been some mention that while the two locales were worlds away from one another, in one sense they were not. Some of those prominent in the British cast of characters in Natal, such as Garnet Wolseley and Sir William Butler, were active in 1869-70 only a few hundred miles to the north of Sioux territory in present-day western Canada, and in 1885 other British officer veterans of 'small warfare' once again assisted in subduing the people of the Great Plains. This unique and imaginatively written book will serve as a model and hopefully inspire others to consider comparative studies. Sarah Carter University of Calgary Bettina L. Knapp. Walt Whitman. New York: Continuum-A Frederick Unger Book, 1993. Pp. 240. Bettina L. Knapp, the author of this biography of Walt Whitman, is a professor of French and Comparative Literature at Hunter College. She has published numerous biographical and interpretive books on American and European authors. Consequently, she has a wide-ranging knowledge of nineteenth-century and modern literature which she draws upon frequently, sometimes with penetrating pertinence, as when she remarks that Whitman, like Orpheus, "awakens the dormant into life, thrusts the living into a world of contingencies, thereby opening the door onto what lies beyond the discernible 11 (88). But sometimes the allusions lack pertinence, as when she points out that "Calamus" in Arabic means pen (writing implement). 148 Canadian Review of American Studies Knapp divides her book into two parts, "The Life" and "The Work. 11 In general, the first part is accurate, though superficial, and she underestimates Whitman's journalism, which gave him a profound knowledge of his contemporary society. In her bibliography she lists some forty secondary works, though that she actually read all of them is doubtful. For example, if she had read M. Wynn Thomas's The Lunar Light Of Walt Whitman's Poetry, she would have discovered that the great disappointment of his life was the failure of the United States to achieve the ideal self-governing, working men and women's society envisioned by Thomas Jefferson and Andrew Jackson. Knapp says that although Whitman was passionately attached to the big city, he was oblivious to its danger. If she had read the editorials in the Brooklyn Eagle and Titnes (and in her bibliography she lists volumes in which they were republished), she would have found that he knew its dangers and evil ways very well. In fact, one thing that she never discovered is that in his prose Whitman was a realist; it was in his poetry that he was an idealist and a visionary. Knapp's best critical discussions of Whitman's literary achievements are her interpretations of his "Children of Adam,, and "Calamus,, poems, though she does not point out that in 1860 he decided to publicly acknowledge and champion his homosexuality-though she has much to say about his homosexuality . After Drum Taps, Whitman began to cover up and even to deny outright that he was a homosexual, and to invent stories about his illegitimate children. However, although Knapp does not involve herself in these controversies, she does accept the sex poems for what they are. Knapp's discussion of "Song of Myself" is chaotic, as the poem itself is, and she makes perceptive observations, such as: "For Whitman the dynamism of body and soul-inseparable, indeed one and the same-exist in a continual interplay, each working with the other throughout the life process .... Whitman celebrated the fulfillment of an organically whole being...