Witty Whitman

On page 903 of Walt Whitman's notebook, I noticed many addresses of soldiers and friends (I assume), along with a stamp from the Library of Congress. On page 925, I can make out "Brochure / Two characters as of a dialogue between A. L(incoln?) and M... / -as in a dream / or better / Lessons for a President elect / Dialogue between W.W. (?) and "President elect". This page includes many question marks and scratchy writing as if the idea of a dialogue between President Lincoln and himself (possibly?) just popped into Whitman's head and he wanted to right it down quickly so he wouldn't forget it. The next few pages in the notebook are written landscape rather than portrait and appear to be the early beginnings of a poem. It's difficult to read his writing with a lot of the words crossed out and a lot of words added in. In my mind, this messy writing shows that Whitman was very intellectual and cared about perfecting each line in his poems. Because his notebooks are filled with everything from addresses to rough drafts of poems, it shows that Whitman didn't make writing poetry a focus of his, but more a way of expression and inner thoughts. The last few selected pages out of Whitman's notebook are mostly side portraits of men done in pencil. There is also a sketch of what appears to be a harp. I'm guessing these sketches helped Whitman envision and create characters he would use in his poems.Overall, Whitman seemed very interested in politics and religion. He brings up justice and reasoning and uses these to jump between the political aspect of things as well as the religious aspect.

After reading "Disunion: Inside Walt Whitman's Notebook" in The New York Times, I understand that Whitman used to almost watch for Lincoln sometimes, and on one occasion of "watching", Lincoln bowed slightly to acknowledge him. After that event occurred, Whitman began writing their imagined conversation. I think this shows how creative Whitman is. According to the article, I was correct with my assumption that Whitman was brainstorming a brochure of dialogues between himself and Abraham Lincoln. In the look-through of Whitman's notebook, it states that this brochure was never published, which could possibly reveal that Whitman had big ambitions, but didn't always follow through with them. The article states that the first page that Whitman begins writing about Lincoln could be the start of a complex allegory of the Civil War that will continue for years ahead. A theme that I didn't pick up on in Whitman's notebook that is mentioned in the article are his thoughts on "the political and philosophical divide that was splitting apart his beloved nation". Scrolling through the article made me realize how unclear Whitman was in his notebooks, which brings up the question of whether or not he wanted his notebooks to be published. Whitman focused on describing what life was like during the Civil War by using the metaphor of a storm-tossed ship on the ocean.