Birdsong in Whitman: Listening to the Mockingbird in "Out of the Cradle Endlessly Rocking"

Abstract

In 1859, Whitman was recovering from two great personal losses. His favorite brother Thomas Jefferson Whitman (known as Jeff) had married Martha E. Mitchell on February 23rd. He missed Jeff 's com- panionship terribly. What seems clear is that the marriage deprived Walt of his ward and companion and changed the poet's understanding of male friendship, Dennis Berthold and Kenneth Price note in their Introduction to their collection of the letters of Thomas Jefferson Whitman.1 When Whitman accepted position with the New Orleans Crescent eleven years earlier, in 1848, Jeff had travelled to New Orleans with him and worked as an office boy for the paper.2 The two brothers stayed in New Orleans for three months. Jeff was fourteen at the time and remained close to his brother until his marriage in 1859.3 Because they had travelled together, Walt and Jeff shared particular memories of special time in each other's lives, memories that created special bond between the two of them. In families with many children, it is not unusual for friendships to form among pairs of siblings. When Jeff died in 1890, Whitman wrote, O, how we loved each other-how many jovial good times we had! . . . . God's blessing on your name and memory, dear brother Jeff! 4 In addition to the change in his friend- ship with Jeff due to Jeff 's marriage, a devastating amorous defeat had occurred in Whitman's personal life sometime in 1857 or 1858.5 Whitman's relationship with Fred Vaughan, who more than likely had inspired the Calamus poems, was coming to an end. There are reso- nances between the crisis that Whitman records in of the Cradle Endlessly Rocking and the turmoil and uncertainties captured in the Calamus poems.6 These two painful experiences form the backdrop for the themes of loss and separation in of the Cradle Endlessly Rocking.Critics have documented other important influences on the compo- sition of the poem: Whitman's fascination with birds, his rural experi- ences on Long Island, and his love of the Italian opera.7 Even as boy, Whitman was cognizant of birds and watched their activities closely, especially when he spent time with his grandparents in West Hills, Long Island, then almost totally rural.8 Whitman may have seen mocking- birds while on his trip to New Orleans in 1848; since the mockingbird is prevalent in the South, it seems likely that he would have had the opportunity to see mockingbirds and to listen to their distinctive song. While mockingbirds were not common on Long Island in the 1850s when Whitman was composing of the Cradle Endlessly Rocking, it is possible that Whitman may have observed pair of mockingbirds there; mockingbirds at this time had been sighted as far north as Maine.9 In addition to these rural experiences, Whitman's urban experience of regularly attending the opera also contributed to the way he shaped the poem. David Reynolds notes that between 1847 and 1855 Whitman heard at least sixteen of the major singers who made their New York debuts.10 Robert D. Faner writes that the song of the mockingbird in of the Cradle Endlessly Rocking serves as a symbol for the song of Alboni, the great contralto who sang in New York in 1852.11 Gary Schmidgall agrees, describing Maria Alboni as the progenitor of that overwhelmingly affecting and liberating vocalist, the mocking-bird.12Later titled A Word Out of the Sea (1860) and then of the Cradle Endlessly Rocking (1871), A Child's Reminiscence (1859) examines the process of young boy's awakening to poetic vocation as he watches and listens to pair of mockingbirds on the seashore.13 Five years earlier, in late 1854, Septimus Winner (1827-1902) wrote Listen to the Mockingbird, song that became his best known composition and one of the most popular songs of the nineteenth century.14 Told from the viewpoint of bereaved lover who has lost his mate (named Hally), the song was inspired by Winner's overhearing young African- American child-who ran errands for the music store where he gave lessons-whistle the melody. …