“All the Shadows / Whisper of the Sun”: Carnevali’s Whitmanesque Simplicity

Why did Emanuel Carnevali submit his short poem to the 1919 Whitman issue of Poetry if the only apparent connection with Walt Whitman is in the title? He did so, I argue, because the poem is as Whitmanesque as one could possibly imagine. Carnevali’s philosophy of the commonplace is more than just an ars poetica of sorts. It is Philosophy with a capital “P.” It is an endorsement of Whitman’s perspective on things along with the sense of wonder that, as Aristotle said (and Plato before him), is the beginning of all philosophy.