Contemporary poetry often suffers from several significant weaknesses, including obscurity, banality, and nihilism. However, arguably its most striking and characteristic vice is a pervasive solipsism—a self-absorbed focus where the poet elevates superficial autobiographical details into poetic subjects. The sole purpose often seems to be presenting the poet’s perspective as an individual or as a member of a specific identity group.
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Why is this focus on the self problematic in poetry? After all, isn’t all poetry, in some sense, autobiographical? A poet can only draw inspiration and material from their own experiences, whether lived or learned. Indeed, poetry is a profound form of individual expression, capturing thought in art through oral tradition or writing. But it is precisely this nature that demands poetry must be universal to succeed. A poem inherently requires the poet to place their internal thoughts and experiences outside their personal frame of reference, making them accessible and engaging for the reader’s own knowledge and experience.
Poets traditionally achieve this universal engagement through poetic metaphor—not merely a simple rhetorical comparison, but a “transfer” of the object to its representation. The sensory object that serves as the poetic subject becomes poetic only when it is transformed into a representation of an eternal, unchangeable, universal ideal. Because of this eternity, immutability, and universality, the ideal is readily known and relatable to any reader across time and language.
The “solipsism” discussed here represents a refusal to make this crucial poetic leap from the temporal to the eternal. This reluctance likely stems from the fact that acknowledging anything eternal and universal can dwarf the self—an uncomfortable feeling for anyone with a narcissistic inclination. This does not mean contemporary poets are clinical narcissists. However, particularly in the West, they have grown up in a culture steeped in consumerism and mass advertising, which constantly caters to individual self-worth and self-perception to sell products. The undeniable effect has been a society—or at least a societal perspective—that is fundamentally narcissistic.
In a way, contemporary poets are products of their environments. But it is the poet’s duty to transcend these limitations of time and custom. Just as Dante rose above the world of feudal lords and warring factions, and Goethe elevated himself beyond hereditary aristocracy and Napoleonic conquest, contemporary poets ought to rise above our current landscape of corporate dominance, political propaganda, and aspiring global overlords to reveal truth through the lens of our era. Yet, contemporary poets frequently fail in this regard. It is far more comfortable to talk about oneself than to critique the powers that often bestow fame and fortune.
This essay will explore solipsism in contemporary American poetry, trace its historical roots to Walt Whitman, and propose an alternative path forward to revitalize poetry as genuine artistic representation rather than mere self-absorbed performance.
How Solipsism Manifests in Contemporary Poetry
Solipsism is so pervasive in contemporary American poetry that finding representative examples is surprisingly easy. While several poets immediately come to mind, a very public recent instance showcased this trend prominently: Amanda Gorman’s “The Hill We Climb,” recited at a recent United States presidential inauguration. The poem regrettably embodies many contemporary poetic vices, including prosaic language, grammatical errors, clichés, uneven lines, and a distinct lack of musicality. Beyond these technical flaws, the poem stands as a clear illustration of solipsism. Only eight lines in, it features this particularly striking line:
We, the successors of a country and a time where a skinny Black girl descended from slaves and raised by a single mother can dream of becoming president, only to find herself reciting for one.
Gorman places herself at the very center of a poem purportedly celebrating a new government for a nation of 325 million people. This also reveals a surprising display of ingratitude—she expresses a desire to be president, not merely to recite for one. Furthermore, the statement lacks logical coherence: if she is describing her own time, how can she be its successor?
By positioning herself at the poem’s core in this manner, Gorman abandons the poet’s essential role of crafting a poetic voice that is simultaneously personal and universal. For a poem’s ideas to resonate with a reader, it must engage them beyond mere amusement or sensory stimulation. The poet’s experience must mean something to the reader. Achieving this depends entirely on the poet’s ability to step outside their personal frame of reference and view their experience as a reader would.
Gorman does not accomplish this. She describes herself in raw demographic terms and recounts her experience reciting at the inauguration. She makes no attempt to provide insight beyond a cliché motivational slogan about dreaming big. This myopic perspective eliminates any possibility of the poem appealing to a universal audience that reflects the entire nation. Instead, she speaks solely on behalf of Amanda Gorman.
Amanda Gorman is not the only poet to have exhibited self-focus at a presidential inauguration. Richard Blanco, who recited at Barack Obama’s second inauguration in 2013, also prominently features his identity—in his case, as a homosexual and the son of Cuban immigrants. A clear example of solipsism from his work comes from his 2012 poem, “Looking for the Gulf Motel.” The poem begins with explicit autobiography:
There should be nothing here I don’t remember . . .
The Gulf Motel with mermaid lampposts and ship’s wheel in the lobby should still be rising out of the sand like a cake decoration. My brother and I should still be pretending we don’t know our parents, embarrassing us as they roll the luggage cart past the front desk loaded with our scruffy suitcases, two-dozen loaves of Cuban bread, brown bags bulging with enough mangos to last the entire week, our espresso pot, the pressure cooker- and a pork roast reeking garlic through the lobby. All because we can’t afford to eat out, not even on vacation, only two hours from our home in Miami, but far enough away to be thrilled by whiter sands on the west coast of Florida, where I should still be for the first time watching the sun set instead of rise over the ocean.
Blanco repeats the italicized refrain, “There should be nothing here I don’t remember . . . ,” three more times, each followed by intimate, photographic details from his childhood, emphasizing scenes unique to his parents’ Cuban immigrant background. At best, Blanco hints at a universal theme: the desire to preserve childhood memories. However, he never explains why these memories are significant to him in a way that translates universally. While they undoubtedly shaped him, he stops at merely wishing not to forget them. He declines to transform them into something relatable to any reader. The reader is left feeling like an outsider observing a “day in the life” account, perhaps thinking, “That’s interesting,” but without the experience engaging them directly.
“Looking for the Gulf Motel” is representative of Blanco’s work, much of which focuses on details related to his identity as a Cuban-American and as a homosexual. While his descriptive skills are evident, his poetry functions more as autobiography than metaphor, presenting a personal perspective rather than revealing a universal idea.
Lawrence Joseph is another poet whose work is marked by solipsistic detail. Like Blanco, he is the son of immigrants, in his case, Lebanese. Joseph is also notably a prominent Big Law attorney who argued before the Supreme Court in the Texas challenge to the 2020 election.
His poem “Sand Nigger,” from his 1988 collection Curriculum Vitae, starkly illustrates the solipsism in his poetry:
. . . Lebanon of mountains and sea, of pine and almond trees, of cedars in the service of Solomon, Lebanon of Babylonians, Phoenicians, Arabs, Turks and Byzantines, of the one-eyed monk, saint Maron, in whose rite I am baptized; Lebanon of my mother warning my father not to let the children hear, of my brother who hears and from whose silence I know there is something I will never know; Lebanon of grandpa giving me my first coin secretly, secretly holding my face in his hands, kissing me and promising me the whole world. My father’s vocal chords bleed; he shouts too much at his brother, his partner, in the grocery store that fails. I hide money in my drawer, I have the talent to make myself heard. I am admonished to learn, never to dirty my hands with sawdust and meat. . . . “Sand nigger,” I’m called, and the name fits: I am the light-skinned nigger with black eyes and the look difficult to figure – a look of indifference, a look to kill – a Levantine nigger in the city on the strait between the great lakes Erie and St. Clair which has a reputation for violence, an enthusiastically bad-tempered sand nigger who waves his hands, nice enough to pass, Lebanese enough to be against his brother, with his brother against his cousin, with cousin and brother against the stranger.
Joseph is clearly not writing only about himself. The poem’s latter lines generalize his experience, linking it to the broader Lebanese and Arab immigrant experience, offering a critical view of what he perceives as fractious behavior within that community. However, he stops there. He portrays a community’s experience, which might offer a new perspective to a reader but does not directly engage them. He fails to transform the generalized immigrant experience into the realm of the universal, even though the subject could easily lend itself to discussions of displacement, identity, or perceptions of time and place more broadly. Joseph does not pursue these universal themes.
Like Blanco, Joseph presents his and his family’s experience as a series of “day in the life” anecdotes. While these offer glimpses into unique scenes and individuals, they remain anecdotes. No metaphor elevates them into something greater than examples of perceived flaws in the Lebanese character. Also mirroring Blanco, Joseph centralizes his identity: Lebanese, Catholic, son of immigrants. Openly showcasing these identities is a manifestation of solipsism. Cultural, ethnic, and religious background is one way—albeit superficial—to define the self as distinct. But while Joseph and Blanco highlight their identities, they never truly engage the reader with them; the identity remains in the realm of mere description, an anthropological study written in the first person.
Gorman, Blanco, and Joseph are prominent, mainstream poets. Their work reflects what dominant cultural and educational institutions often promote as good poetry. Solipsism, therefore, appears to be the prevailing trend. Understanding how poetry arrived at this state requires examining its history.
Historical Context: Autobiography Before Solipsism
Autobiographical elements in poetry are certainly not a recent invention. Poets have long drawn on their own lives for material. Indeed, John Milton, a master poet, produced a celebrated autobiographical poem, the sonnet “On His Blindness,” which remains one of the most famous works in the English language:
When I consider how my light is spent Ere half my days, in this dark world and wide; And that one talent which is death to hide, Lodged with me useless, though my soul more bent To serve therewith my Maker, and present My true account, lest he returning chide: Doth God exact day-labour, light denied, I fondly ask? But Patience, to prevent That murmur, soon replies, God doth not need Either man’s work or his own gifts; who best Bear his mild yoke, they serve him best: his state Is kingly; thousands at his bidding speed, And post o’er land and ocean without rest; They also serve who only stand and wait.
Here, Milton reflects on his blindness and the thoughts it provokes. It is personal because it describes his own perspective on his own experience. Yet, Milton does not dwell on his status as a disabled person. He doesn’t ask the reader to sympathize with him as a blind man, as Blanco and Joseph might ask empathy as sons of immigrants. Instead, he questions how his affliction fits into God’s will for him. Wrestling with this question, he famously concludes that serving God—or fulfilling one’s purpose—can be achieved through passive endurance as much as active effort.
Milton universalizes his experience. He uses his blindness as a poetic object, a vehicle to reveal a greater truth about duty, faith, and service. The sonnet is less about Milton himself and more about the profound realization he reaches while contemplating his state. The autobiographical element is merely that Milton examines his own condition rather than an external subject.
A century and a half later, the Romantic poets, who emphasized emotion as the source of poetry, brought a new focus to the personal. Wordsworth famously defined poetry as “the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings… from emotion recollected in tranquility.” This captured the Romantic view of poetry as a product of emotion—a deeply individual experience tied to the poet’s unique sensory perception. If poetry is primarily recollected emotion, the poet’s main task becomes accurately conveying that emotion, rather than reflecting on universal truth. Metaphor is relegated to a secondary role; description becomes paramount as the primary means of conveying feeling.
Wordsworth’s lengthy, thirteen-book epic, The Prelude, is unusual. The grand, sweeping form of an epic is juxtaposed with its subject matter: intimate and often mundane scenes from Wordsworth’s own life. The poem is essentially an extended autobiography, filled with reminiscences and reflections on his life events, particularly his childhood and youth.
An example of the self-referential episodes in The Prelude is Wordsworth’s description of wandering alone as an eight-year-old:
Fair seed-time had my soul, and I grew up Fostered alike by beauty and by fear; Much favored in my birthplace, and no less In that beloved Vale to which, erelong, I was transplanted. Well I call to mind (‘Twas at an early age, ere I had seen Nine summers) when upon the mountain slope The frost and breath of frosty wind had snapped The last autumnal crocus, ‘twas my joy To wander half the night among the Cliffs And the smooth Hollows, where the woodcocks ran Along the open turf. In thought and wish That time, my shoulder all with springes hung, I was a fell destroyer. On the heights Scudding away from snare to snare, I plied My anxious visitation, hurrying on, Still hurrying, hurrying onward; moon and stars Were shining o’er my head; I was alone, And seemed to be a trouble to the peace That was among them. . . .
(The Prelude, I:305-24.)
Here, Wordsworth sounds almost contemporary, sharing boyhood details that, while vividly descriptive, seem more focused on narrating his life story than universalizing the experience through metaphor. Few readers, especially today, can directly relate to wandering alone in the wilderness as an eight-year-old. It might strike many as primarily a historical curiosity.
However, Wordsworth does more than merely compile autobiographical sketches. Following such descriptions, he turns to reflection:
The mind of Man is framed even like the breath And harmony of music. There is a dark Invisible workmanship that reconciles Discordant elements, and makes them move In one society. Ah me! That all The terrors, all the early miseries, Regrets, vexations, lassitudes, that all The thoughts and feelings which have been infused Into my mind, should ever have made up The calm existence that is mine when I Am worthy of myself! Praise to the end! Thanks likewise for the means!
(I:351-62.)
Here, Wordsworth universalizes the experience. He sees his youthful wanderings as having shaped the man he became, viewing destiny at work, and expressing gratitude. While not a particularly novel or profound observation, it is one Wordsworth clearly makes in earnest.
The Prelude generally follows this pattern: describing an everyday experience from his early life, recounting the emotions, and then reflecting on the deeper, universal significance. The poem can be seen as a “didactic autobiography.”
While didactic, Wordsworth’s explanations in The Prelude don’t fully achieve true poetic metaphor. He states his intent and meaning directly (“tells” rather than “shows”) instead of revealing it through the transformation of the poetic object. Nevertheless, Wordsworth does universalize his experiences and presents their meaning as a lesson to the reader. The Prelude departs from the traditional epic by focusing on mundane episodes and intimate descriptions. More importantly, it represents a shift away from Milton’s style of autobiographical poetry. By making himself the subject of a thirteen-book epic, Wordsworth paved the way for poetry to become more self-focused, though The Prelude itself doesn’t fully devolve into pure navel-gazing; it still frames autobiography as instructive of a greater lesson. Wordsworth still felt compelled to provide something for the reader—a lesson derived from his life—rather than making autobiography the sole subject and purpose.
The Root of Solipsism: Walt Whitman
The Prelude was, indeed, a prelude. Across the Atlantic, Romantic trends evolved into true solipsism in the work of Walt Whitman. Whitman’s influence on American poetry was transformative. Before him, poets like Edgar Allan Poe and William Cullen Bryant largely adhered to classical European styles. Whitman offered a new American style: discursive, conversational, non-formal, and profoundly intimate. He is largely credited with pioneering modern free verse. Ezra Pound acknowledged Whitman’s foundational influence in his poem “A Pact”:
I make a pact with you, Walt Whitman – I have detested you long enough. I come to you as a grown child Who has had a pig-headed father; I am old enough now to make friends. It was you that broke the new wood, Now is a time for carving. We have one sap and one root – Let there be commerce between us.
Pound’s declaration of sharing “one sap and one root” with Whitman and comparing himself to a “grown child” returning to his father is a powerful acknowledgment of influence. Given Pound’s significant impact on the modernist movement, this positions Whitman as the forefather of modernism in poetry.
But Whitman is the forefather of more than just modernist style; he is truly the first and perhaps the greatest solipsistic poet. His sprawling, 1,346-line “Song of Myself” stands as a masterpiece of solipsism.
The poem opens with an unambiguous statement of intent:
I celebrate myself, and sing myself, And what I assume you shall assume, For every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you. I loafe and invite my soul, I lean and loafe at my ease observing a spear of summer grass. My tongue, every atom of my blood, form’d from this soil, this air, Born here of parents born here from parents the same, and their parents the same, I, now thirty-seven years old in perfect health begin, Hoping to cease not till death. Creeds and schools in abeyance, Retiring back a while sufficed at what they are, but never forgotten, I harbor for good or bad, I permit to speak at every hazard, Nature without check with original energy.
(ll. 1-13.)
Whitman could not be clearer. Unlike Wordsworth’s didactic use of autobiography, he seeks only to “celebrate myself.” The statement “every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you” is less a statement of shared humanity and more an invitation to enter Whitman’s frame of reference and see the world through his eyes. He later expands on this:
You shall no longer take things at second or third hand, nor look through the eyes of the dead, nor feed on the spectres in books, You shall not look through my eyes either, nor take things from me, You shall listen to all sides and filter them from your self.
(ll. 35-37.)
Whitman is a democratic solipsist. He encourages the reader to celebrate the self as much as he does, to view the world through a self-referential lens. What might otherwise be unbearable narcissism becomes an enticement: the poem doesn’t ask the reader to tolerate Whitman’s self-absorption but to join him in it, to see their own experiences mirrored in his.
Consequently, the bulk of the poem is an exposition of autobiographical minutiae rendered in vivid descriptive detail. Whitman inundates the reader with scenes from his travels across America in the 1850s—descriptions of people, places, and events, filtered through his observational lens. The intimacy of his detail also includes frank descriptions of sexual experiences, which were controversial for his time and even led to threats of prosecution under obscenity laws.
Interspersed with these scenic portrayals are Whitman’s thoughts and insights. Unlike Wordsworth’s, these are not didactic but self-reflective. Some verge on the megalomaniacal. In passages like the following, Whitman proclaims a sort of divinity for himself:
Divine am I inside and out, and I make holy whatever I touch or am touch’d from, The scent of these arm-pits aroma finer than prayer, This head more than churches, bibles, and all the creeds. If I worship one thing more than another it shall be the spread of my own body, or any part of it, . . .
(ll. 524-27.)
Why should I pray? why should I venerate and be ceremonious? Having pried through the strata, analyzed to a hair, counsel’d with doctors and calculated close, I find no sweeter fat than sticks to my own bones. In all people I see myself, none more and not one a barley-corn less, And the good or bad I say of myself I say of them. I know I am solid and sound, To me the converging objects of the universe perpetually flow, All are written to me, and I must get what the writing means. I know I am deathless, I know this orbit of mine cannot be swept by a carpenter’s compass, I know I shall not pass like a child’s carlacue cut with a burnt stick at night. I know I am august, I do not trouble my spirit to vindicate itself or be understood, I see that the elementary laws never apologize, (I reckon I behave no prouder than the level I plant my house by, after all.) I exist as I am, that is enough, If no other in the world be aware I sit content, And if each and all be aware I sit content. One world is aware and by far the largest to me, and that is myself, And whether I come to my own to-day or in ten thousand or ten million years, I can cheerfully take it now, or with equal cheerfulness I can wait.
(ll. 398-418.)
In another grandiose declaration, he offers his self-assessment of his role as poet:
I am the poet of the Body and I am the poet of the Soul, The pleasures of heaven are with me and the pains of hell are with me, The first I graft and increase upon myself, the latter I translate into a new tongue. I am the poet of the woman the same as the man, And I say it is as great to be a woman as to be a man, And I say there is nothing greater than the mother of men. I chant the chant of dilation or pride, We have had ducking and deprecating about enough, I show that size is only development. Have you outstript the rest? are you the President? It is a trifle, they will more than arrive there every one, and still pass on. I am he that walks with the tender and growing night, I call to the earth and sea half-held by the night.
(ll. 422-34.)
Or, most famously:
Do I contradict myself? Very well then I contradict myself, (I am large, I contain multitudes.)
(ll. 1324-26.)
Perhaps the most solipsistic passage of all is Whitman’s proclamation that he is the ultimate culmination of all creation:
I am an acme of things accomplish’d, and I an encloser of things to be. My feet strike an apex of the apices of the stairs, On every step bunches of ages, and larger bunches between the steps, All below duly travel’d, and still I mount and mount. Rise after rise bow the phantoms behind me, Afar down I see the huge first Nothing, I know I was even there, I waited unseen and always, and slept through the lethargic mist, And took my time, and took no hurt from the fetid carbon. Long I was hugg’d close—long and long. Immense have been the preparations for me, Faithful and friendly the arms that have helped me. Cycles ferried my cradle, rowing and rowing like cheerful boatmen, For room to me stars kept aside in their own rings, They sent influences to look after what was to hold me. Before I was born out of my mother generations guided me, My embryo has never been torpid, nothing could overlay it. For it the nebula cohered to an orb, The long slow strata piled to rest it on, Vast vegetables gave it sustenance, Monstrous sauroids transported it in their mouths and deposited it with care. All forces have been steadily employed to complete and delight me, Now on this spot I stand with my robust soul.
(ll. 1148-69.)
Stars, dinosaurs, human history—all were merely a grand preface, preparing the universe for the arrival of Walt Whitman. However, Whitman does not make these assertions from a position of superiority. Within the context of the poem’s intimate details of everyday experiences, the reader gets the sense that what Whitman claims for himself holds true equally for anyone else. This equal-opportunity solipsism, this invitation to join in self-celebration and admiration, is what makes Whitman engaging rather than off-putting.
Towards the end of the poem, Whitman contemplates his mortality:
The last scud of day holds back for me, It flings my likeness after the rest and true as any on the shadowed wilds, It coaxes me to the vapor and the dusk. I depart as air, I shake my white locks at the runaway sun, I effuse my flesh in eddies, and drift it in lacy jags. I bequeath myself to the dirt to grow from the grass I love, If you want me again look for me under your boot-soles. You will hardly know who I am or what I mean, But I shall be good health to you nevertheless, And filter and fibre your blood. Failing to fetch me at first keep encouraged, Missing me one place search another, I stop somewhere waiting for you.
(ll. 1334-46.)
Whitman clearly does not believe in the immortality of the soul. Ironically, Whitman, the living divinity for whom all of geological time prepared the way, “bequeath[s]” himself “to the dirt,” to be found only “under your boot-soles.” For Whitman, divinity resides in living existence and ceases upon death. Yet, Whitman’s self survives and remains the poem’s focus, even after death. In the final line, “I stop somewhere waiting for you,” Whitman persists as an idea, if not an entity, waiting to be discovered by the reader, promising to be “good health” to them. Even after what he sees as his own annihilation, Whitman keeps himself at the poem’s center.
“Song of Myself” is the supreme manifesto of solipsism. It offers no didactic lesson and examines no universal truth beyond celebrating the self as the center and pinnacle of all existence. Whitman wished everyone to see their own selves as he saw his: the only true frame of reference, independent of and superior to all creeds, philosophies, and societal norms.
And Whitman’s view largely prevailed. Society, especially in America, has largely adopted his perspective of the self as the ultimate arbiter of truth, the sole framework for judging the external world. Even those who profess religious or philosophical beliefs often justify them in terms of the self, their personal experiences, and their own frame of reference. Solipsism lies at the core of contemporary American thought; Whitman was its most enthusiastic prophet.
Given this cultural context, it is unsurprising that poets within such a solipsistic culture write solipsistic verse. They write from what they know and experience. But ultimately, what does the solipsistic mindset achieve through poetry?
The Limitations of Solipsism and a Way Forward
Solipsism may be the prevailing attitude of the world, but much like consumer products marketed by appealing to selfish desires, it ultimately fails to satisfy the deep human yearning for meaning that poetry can address. It offers only superficial engagement. It is shallow, portraying an experience where the reader might glimpse a reflection of their own life, but it never transforms the individual experience into a depersonalized revelation of a universal truth. Without this transformative leap, poetry remains mere autobiography, an anthropological curiosity bound by time and space, rather than a universal ideal that transcends them.
Where does this leave poetry? Is Whitman’s legacy inevitable? While Whitman is a patriarchal figure in modern American poetry and solipsism, he is not the only model available to poets. A slightly older contemporary and fellow countryman offers an alternative path: Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.
Image of the grave or monument at Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's house in Cambridge, Massachusetts, representing a poet who universalized personal experience unlike modern solipsistic poetry.
Known for epics like The Song of Hiawatha and Evangeline, and his Chaucerian Tales of a Wayside Inn, Longfellow also wrote numerous shorter poems, few of which are explicitly autobiographical. When he does write autobiographically, however, Longfellow follows Milton’s model, universalizing his experience.
“My Lost Youth,” published in his 1858 volume Birds of Passage, is an excellent example. It shares common ground with Blanco’s “Looking for the Gulf Motel” and Joseph’s “Sand Nigger”—a description of childhood viewed retrospectively by the adult poet. Unlike those poems, Longfellow does not merely recount thoughts and emotions evoked by revisiting his childhood home; he uses them as a vehicle to reveal a greater, universal truth.
The poem opens with his return to his native town in Maine:
Often I think of the beautiful town That is seated by the sea; Often in thought go up and down The pleasant streets of that dear old town, And my youth comes back to me. And a verse of a Lapland song Is haunting my memory still: “A boy’s will is the wind’s will, And the thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts.”
The quoted Lappish song, repeated as a refrain at the end of each stanza, subtly emphasizes the universality of the ideas expressed by attributing them to a distant people singing in a foreign tongue. The realization that childhood thoughts shape the adult is not presented as Longfellow’s unique insight, but as a fundamental human condition transcending any individual or society.
Longfellow describes the town scenes, the surrounding countryside, and the emotions they evoke. His most poignant observations appear in the seventh and eighth stanzas:
I remember the gleams and glooms that dart Across the schoolboy’s brain; The song and the silence in the heart, That in part are prophecies, and in part Are longings wild and vain. . . . There are things of which I may not speak; There are dreams that cannot die; There are thoughts that make the strong heart weak, And bring a pallor into the cheek, And a mist before the eye. . . .
Here, he describes an experience that is both his own and universally recognizable to anyone who has lived long enough to see their youth recede. While he mourns his lost youth, he also recognizes that its fleeting experiences and thoughts linger, influencing the adult. Unlike Wordsworth, Longfellow doesn’t state this lesson didactically. Instead, he describes the effect and impression of his childhood thoughts without delving into the intimate details used by Blanco and Joseph. This blend of specific setting and generalized narrative universalizes the experience, leading the reader to recognize a universal truth rather than merely observing a personal story.
Though Longfellow addresses similar subject matter as Blanco, Joseph, Whitman, and Wordsworth, he describes and uses it differently. Both childhood experiences and their lasting impressions on the adult are employed metaphorically to reveal a truth about the human condition affected by the passage of time. This is the only meaningful way a reader should care about a poet’s childhood experiences—by seeing the universal truths they reveal.
Autobiography undoubtedly has a place in poetry; it is an almost unavoidable element. However, autobiography for its own sake is not poetic; it is self-absorption. Even when used to illustrate the perceived experiences of a community, it amounts to little more than shouting, “Look at me!” Instead, autobiography should function as a device serving the true poetic end: the revelation of truth through metaphor. Milton and Longfellow exemplify how to achieve this successfully. True poetry should emulate their timeless revelations rather than the pervasive solipsism found in Whitman and his contemporary heirs.
Notes
- Domestico, Anthony. “So Many Selves: A Poet of Unlikely Combinations.” Commonweal. Mar. 17, 2020. Available at https://www.commonwealmagazine.org/compound-voices.
- From the Preface to Lyrical Ballads (1802).
- Folsom, Ed, and Jerome Loving. Notes to “The Walt Whitman Controversy” by Mark Twain. Virginia Quarterly Review. Spring 2007. Available at https://www.vqronline.org/vqr-symposium/walt-whitman-controversy.