Abstract
In "Countersong to Walt Whitman" (1952), the Dominican author Pedro Mir recasts in epic form the social history of the United States as an experiment destined to fail because of its capitalist roots. Mir reads Whitman's Leaves of Grass through "Democratic Vistas" and thus grounds the voice in a concrete social and historical context. Mir's extensive poem is not only a countersong to the poetic "I" of Leaves of Grass but a reply to American nationalist discourse as read in "Democratic Vistas." This article explores the ways in which Mir implements the arsenal of techniques proper to the epic genre to undo Whitman's voice and strings a narrative that places Whitman's persona in a past that never was—all of which, contrary to what Mir proposes, fail to deliver the transcendent Whitman from a political ideology. Ironically, Mir reproduces the authoritarian voice of the very monolithic ideology he aims to deconstruct.
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