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Candice Chu

Dr. S. Mooney

ENGL 2525

4 December 2008

Conflicting and Converging Views of God and America through the Eyes of

Walt Whitman and 17th Century Pilgrim-Puritan Writers

In the early 17th century, America became home to two groups of English emigrants: the

Pilgrims and the Puritans. Both groups came to the New World in search of religious freedom

and better opportunities, and both were largely successful; they each colonized portions of the

New England area, set up their own autonomous governments and, most importantly, established

ways of life based on their strict religious views and moral codes. Approximately two hundred

years later, American poet Walt Whitman published his controversial poetry collection, Leaves

of Grass. On the surface, Whitman’s poetry, which expresses ideas of humanism, blatant

sexuality and sentimentality, is a far departure from 17th century Pilgrim-Puritan ideals.

However, a closer look at the works of Pilgrim-Puritan authors William Bradford, John

Winthrop, Anne Bradstreet and Edward Taylor reveals that, although dissimilar in key aspects,

these religious 17th century authors share many views on God and America with the

revolutionary 19th century poet Walt Whitman.

When the Puritans arrived in the New World, they believed that they were creating what

was to become God’s prophesied “City upon a Hill” (Winthrop, “Modell” 317). They wished to

breathe life into a land that they saw as basically divine in nature. It was the land that God had

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given to them in a covenant centuries earlier. The Puritan (and Pilgrim) quest to live and thrive in

America was not just a simple desire or vague outline; it was a holy mission, a vocation. This

intense yearning for a great and worthy America was also realized by Walt Whitman in the mid-

to-late-1800’s. Whitman has often been hailed as the “poet of democracy,” the voice of America

and the ultimate American “everyman.” He had a certain vision of America that was not unlike

the vision of his Pilgrim-Puritan counterparts. This vision involved a strong sense of spirituality

and human introspection. Whitman often wrote essays and poems about the despicable state of

American politics, and the corruption that threatened to overwhelm many aspects of American

culture. The Puritans demonstrated similar concerns in a number of jeremiads that were

published years after the settlement of the first generation Puritans. These jeremiads were literary

texts that warned the Puritans against their increasingly materialistic and wicked behavior. Like

Whitman’s works, the jeremiads were prompted by a fear that the America that the authors knew

was on the brink of a downfall. For both Whitman and the Pilgrim-Puritan writers, this fear had

much (in the case of the latter, everything) to do with their ideas of God.

The subject of God is discussed thoroughly in the literary works of both Whitman and the

Pilgrim-Puritan writers, and evidences the passionate idea of spirituality and God in their

everyday lives. Although Whitman’s religious views were far from traditional, there is no

denying that God played a crucial role in his life and was the subject of many of his poems.

Whitman was extremely passionate about his belief that God was inseparable from his life, and

that he could “hear and behold God in every object” (“Song” 48.20). This is a key similarity

between Whitman and the Pilgrim-Puritan writers, who also strongly believed that God was

present in every facet of life. This idea can be observed in the theological doctrine of typology—

the interpretation of the Old Testament as a prefiguration of the life of Christ and the modern

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lives of God’s chosen people (the early Christians). In other words, this sort of typological

thinking led the Pilgrims and Puritans to believe that nothing on Earth was arbitrary or without

meaning. Everything was a sign from God—a symbol of his favor or rejection. All external

realities were physical expressions of God’s will. A prime example of theological thinking can

be found in William Bradford’s Of Plymouth Plantation. In this account, Bradford attributes a

number of events (the death of an irreligious sailor, the safe passage of the Pilgrims across the

seas, the actual settlement at Plymouth) entirely to the good will of God (327-329).

The similarity between Whitman’s and the early Christians’ notion of God’s ubiquity is

best captured, however, in the concept of nature. Whitman often wrote about the majestic and

sensual transcendence of nature, glorifying it as not just beautiful, but truly holy. This reverence

is mirrored in Anne Bradstreet’s “Contemplations.” In this poem, Bradstreet describes nature as

the ultimate manifestation of God, a most powerful conduit in which Man can experience the

true divinity of the Lord. Again, the most striking parallel at hand is between Whitman’s and

Bradstreet’s corresponding convictions that nature is a direct manifestation of God Himself. The

worship of nature is incomplete—erroneous—without the appreciation and praise of God in

connection with it. However, Whitman is much more liberal with his interpretation of the actual

relationship between God and Man.

Through his writing, it is clear that Whitman’s idea of worship and organized religion is

much more relaxed than the harsh, obligatory relationship between the early Christians and their

Church. Whitman’s relationship with God, as described in “Song of Myself,” is friendly,

appreciative and satisfied. He sees no reason to go to Sunday service and pray on his knees when

he can just look around and appreciate God in the world around him. He even asks the reader,

quite blatantly, “Why should I wish to see God better than this day?” (48.22). This question

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would horrify a Pilgrim or Puritan only two centuries earlier, whose religion clearly dictates that

all those who are God’s chosen people will strive endlessly and actively to show that they are in

God’s favor. While they work to prove to each other that they are indeed one of God’s elect,

Whitman declares, “I loafe and invite my soul, / I lean and loafe at my ease observing a spear of

summer grass” (4-5). Clearly, Whitman is confident that the way to connect his body and mind

with his soul and with God is to take part in the peaceful appreciation of God’s nature and to

experience the beauty of the tangible world that God created for Man. Hence, it can be said that

Whitman’s approach to worship is organic and relaxed, while the Pilgrim-Puritan approach is

much more structured.

Another obvious difference in the relationship between God and the early Christians and

the relationship between God and Whitman is the way that the two parties exercise humility.

Whitman is certainly the less humble of the two; he elevates Man to the point of celebration and

worship. This is not to say that he undervalues the greatness of God, but only that he claims that

the individual is a powerful being, himself full of God’s grace. Whitman is not ashamed to say

that he witnesses God “in the faces of men and women…and in [his] own / face in the glass”

(48.25-26). This is in clear contrast with Puritan poet Edward Taylor’s humble assertions that he

does not deserve any claim over his own possessions because they all belong to God, who is

almighty and can do whatever He pleases with them. In his poem, “Upon Wedlock, & Death of

Children,” the poet even tells God that He can have Taylor’s children in their premature deaths:

“Lord take’t. I thanke thee, thou takst ought of mine, / It is my pledg in glory” (28-29).

Despite these differences in modes of worship, it is interesting to note how similar

Whitman’s ideal lifestyle and the Pilgrim-Puritan ideal lifestyle were. During the Civil War,

Whitman formed a system of moral beliefs, greatly influenced by the political injustices of the

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era, which determined his lifestyle until his death. Whitman promised himself that he would try

to live a “purged” and “cleansed” life (Folsom, “Walt”). This is an easy parallel to the Pilgrims

and Puritans, who adhered to a very severe code of conduct that was intended to keep their

bodies and souls pure and virtuous. In this way, it can be said that ideally, Whitman’s way of life

was quite similar to that of the Pilgrims and Puritans. They both desired to live clean lives.

Realistically, this meant that neither Whitman nor the early Christians approved of drunkenness,

the former going so far as to abstain from alcohol completely (Folsom). Also, both parties

believed in equality and compassion (for the Pilgrims and Puritans, however, this idea pertained

only to their own closed community). In fact, their shared conviction that the individual must

subject himself to the masses is one of their most prominent similarities.

Whitman held that nothing “is greater to one than one’s self is” (48.3); however, he also

asserted that no individual is any more elite than another. He believed that the true spirit of

democracy lay in the collaboration of individuals and the compassion of the masses (Folsom).

John Winthrop, governor of the Puritans of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, held a similar

conviction. He was a strong proponent of brotherhood and community, and maintained that

“there is noe body but consistes of partes and that which knits these partes together gives the

body its perfection” (311).

Thus, it can be seen that Pilgrim-Puritan ideals did not simply fade away with the

dispersion of the early Christians; rather, many of these beliefs continued to live on, even in the

mind and works of Walt Whitman, one of America’s most radical and controversial literary

figures. Clearly, themes of spirituality in everyday life and the nature of America are able to

transcend various societal and temporal barriers.

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Works Cited

Bradford, William. “Of Plymouth Plantation.” The Heath Anthology of American Literature:

Volume A. Ed. Paul Lauter. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 2006. 327-329.

Folsom, Ed and Kenneth M. Price. “Walt Whitman.” The Walt Whitman Archive. 25 November

2008. The Center for Digital Research in the Humanities at the University of Nebraska–

Lincoln. 3 December 2008.

<http://www.whitmanarchive.org/biography/walt_whitman/index.html>

Taylor, Edward. “Upon Wedlock, & Death of Children.” The Heath Anthology of American

Literature: Volume A. Ed. Paul Lauter. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 2006. 28-

29.

Whitman, Walt. “Song of Myself.” The Text Archive. Peter Batke’s Homepage. 22 October

2001. <http://www.princeton.edu/~batke/logr/log_026.html>

Winthrop, John. “A Modell of Christian Charity.” The Heath Anthology of American Literature:

Volume A. Ed. Paul Lauter. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 2006. 317.