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Walt Whitman and Woody Guthrie: American Prophet-Singers and their People

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  16 January 2009

Richard Pascal
Richard Pascal
Affiliation:
Lectures in English and American literature at the Australian National University, G.P.O. Box 4, Canberra, ACT 2601, Australia.
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Extract

Dylan Thomas, Charlotte Perkins Gilman, Rimbaud, Apollinaire, Van Gogh, Paul Tillich, Wolfgang Borchert, Joyce, Kate Chopin: these are only some of the writers and artists in whose work the example or influence of Walt Whitman has been detected over the past few years, and as anyone who has kept abreast of Whitman criticism will be instantly aware, the list could be lengthened considerably. Comparison and influence studies are such a common feature of Whitman scholarship, and he is so firmly established as one of the most provocative mid-nineteenth-century forerunners of modern literature and art, that it would seem virtually impossible to provide a hitherto unexplored instance which is worth more than a glance. Yet the name of the great twentieth century singer-songwriter Woody Guthrie has never been advanced in this context, even though similarities between the two figures have been noted in passing by commentators on Guthrie at least since the publication in 1943 of the latter's autobiography, Bound for Glory. Such neglect must be ascribed at least in part to a lingering academic bias against the study of popular culture in general and of song lyrics in particular.

Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of American Studies , Volume 24 , Issue 1 , April 1990 , pp. 41 - 59
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1990

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References

1 Leaves of Grass: Comprehensive Reader's Edition, eds. Blodgett, Harold W. and Bradley, Sculley (New York: New York University Press, 1965), 14.Google Scholar All further references are to this edition and it will be cited parenthetically in the text, as CRE.

2 These examples have been culled arbitrarily from a brief perusal of the Whitman, entries in some recent volumes of American Literary Scholarship: An Annual (Durham: Duke University Press, 1980, 1981, and 1984)Google Scholar; the 1980 and 1984 volumes were edited by J. Albert Robbins, and the 1981 volume by James Woodress.

3 Louis Adamic compared Guthrie with Whitman in a review of Bound for Glory entitled “Twentieth Century Troubadour,” Saturday Review of Literature, 17 04 1943, 4.Google Scholar A more recent instance is Klein's, JoeWoody Guthrie: A Life (New York: Knopf, Alfred A., 1980), 195 and 197.Google Scholar His brief but astute remarks were the original inspiration for this study, and I am also indebted to his excellent biography for much of the factual information upon which it is based.

4 Guthrie, Woody, Born to Win, ed. Shelton, Robert (New York: Macmillan, 1965), 25.Google Scholar

5 Ibid., 237, 284.

6 The Geer story is quoted in Robbin, Ed, Woody Guthrie and Me: An Intimate Reminiscence (Berkeley: Lancaster-Miller, 1979), 121–22Google Scholar; the information about the present of Leaves of Grass came to me directly from Marjorie Guthrie in a letter of 22 02 1982.Google Scholar

7 While Geer only says that the incident occurred “way back,” the context makes it fairly apparent that he is thinking of the early days of his friendship with Woody Guthrie, in Los Angeles in 1939, See Robbin, , 109–10, 121.Google Scholar

8 Guthrie's writings which have appeared in book form include Bound for Glory (1943; rpt. London: Picador, 1974)Google Scholar; Born to Win (see note 4 above), a collection of poetry and prose; Seeds of Man (New York: E. P. Dutton and Company, 1976)Google Scholar, an autobiographical novel; Woody Sez, eds. Guthrie, Marjorie, Leventhal, Harold, Sullivan, Terry, and Patinkin, Sheldon (New York: Grosset and Dunlap, 1975)Google Scholar, a collection of old newspaper columns which appeared in San Francisco's People's World in 1939 and 1940Google Scholar; and American Folksong, ed. Asch, Moses (New York: Oak Publications, 1947)Google Scholar, a book of poems, songs, and diverse prose pieces. Numerous other items are listed in Reuss, Richard A., A. Woody Guthrie Bibliography (New York: Guthrie Children's Trust Fund, 1968).Google Scholar

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12 Ibid., 181–82. Words and Music by Woody Guthrie, TRO, Copyright 1956 (renewed 1984), 1958 (renewed 1986) and 1979 Ludlow Music, Inc., New York, N.Y. Used by permission.

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18 The significance of the concept of “indirection” in Whitman's aesthetic theory has been commented upon extensively by his critics. One of the most succinct and illuminating discussions is that of Waskow, Howard J. in his Whitman: Explorations in Form (Chicago & London: University of Chicago Press, 1966), 49–69.Google Scholar

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25 Ibid., 123.

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