Alongside the broader population changes caused by the Industrial Revolution, a new wilderness sprang into existence: cities. Much like the sprawling “untamed” wilderness the Puritans faced when they sailed to America, this new urban wilderness posed numerous challenges, unknowns, and benefits that permanently altered the way people could live and work. As one would expect, this alteration to the physical environment of Romantic authors marked an alteration to the internal state as well, for how were Americans to define themselves among this unfamiliar urban environment?
“City of orgies, walks and joys
City whom that I have lived and sung in your midst will one day make you illustrious”
A self-professed “American poet,” Walt Whitman frequently explored both nature, the urban lifestyle, and the relation of each to the definition of self. Few other authors approached the world and its entirety with as much love and joy as Walt Whitman. Much like the Transcendentalists, Whitman viewed the ambiguous aspects of the wilderness and human nature as inherently positive. Yet, for Whitman, nature and the cities were equally divine. When he describes Manhattan as a “city of orgies,” he references and celebrates the communal experience of pleasure that citizens of a city uniquely share due to the interconnectedness of the urban lifestyle.
The specific use of the word “orgy” serves a double purpose, not only to describe the communal nature of cities, but also their carnality. Packed full of people hungry to consume new sights, sounds, tastes, and pleasures, the cities, to some, posed a severe moral threat. But to Whitman, carnality was an inherently human trait, and one to be encouraged and explored. In his writing, what is carnal is human, and what is human is divine. In one of his poems, “As Adam, Early in the Morning,” he writes “Touch me – touch the palm of your hand to my Body as I pass; / Be not afraid of my Body” (Whitman). By invoking both the religious connotation associated with Adam and the carnal implications of touch, Whitman cleverly associates the two, presenting them as equally important.
Flip book of Walt Whitman’s original manuscripts and notes created by Olivia Cambern using the Walt Whitman Papers in the Charles E. Feinberg Collection from the Library of Congress and a public domain book cover.
Through his writing, Whitman boldly explores wildernesses few other authors dared to question, such as sexuality and the urban lifestyle. Much like the Transcendentalists and Dark Romantics, Whitman relies upon metaphors between the external world and the human condition to traverse such complicated subjects, while simultaneously adding new dimensions to the Romantic understanding of the wilderness.