Revisions

Since I have only really read the Preface and Song of Myself in the 1855 edition of Leave of Grass, those two are the main differences I see when comparing the 1855 edition and 1860 edition.  Obviously Walt felt the need to make some major changes in those five years.  The 1855 edition has a really long preface in which, long story short, he talks about America and poetry.  I read over Proto-Leaf and it seems to me that he cut out the preface and replaced it with Proto-Leaf.  The themes of the two are very similar and I think the message Walt is trying to convey is the same.  Proto meaning first, it is obviously the first poem, but I find it interesting that he no longer leaves it as the preface, what seems to be a free write essay for him.  He changes it into a poem.  This poem similarly addresses America and poets.  Take stanza 13 in the 1860 edition for example, "Take my leaves, America! Make welcome for them everywhere, for they are your own offspring." As well as stanzas 17-18, "Here lands female and male, Here the heirship and heiress-ship of the world...Yes here comes the mistress, the Soul.  The SOUL!"  I think this goes along with the preface of the 1855 edition, "Of all mankind the great poet is of equable man.  Not in him but off from him things are grotesque or eccentric or fail of their sanity.  Nothing out of its place is good and nothing in its place is bad.  He bestows on every object or quality its fit proportions neither more nor less...He is the equalizer of his age and land....he supplies what wants supplying and checks what wants checking" (preface, pg v).  He still keeps to the same theme is both which doesn't really mix it up that much, but the fact that he changes the way his message is written says something else.  I think it speaks to the uniformity of the book.  A preface is a preface, it is an introduction to a book.  I don't know about people in the 1860's, but I know a few people, myself NOT included, that skip introductions and prefaces.  Oh what? These aren't even real numbers? They're just ROMAN NUMERALS?! SKIP! So many people skip that beginning because they feel it will just be addressed in the book and might not be important.  I think Walt knows that he says, "Fuck that! ALL of my writing is important and should be read!"  Preface is no longer an introduction, it is the first poem of Leaves of Grass.  It is a poem AND it has real page numbers! No one will skip over it anymore!  The second difference I see is that he renamed Song of Myself to Walt Whitman.  Now, one can think, how self involved must this guy be if he wrote a poem after himself?!  I actually like the change.  It was easy to see that Song of Myself was going to reflect Walt's own vision and beliefs, but changing the name to Walt Whitman makes his beliefs more firm.  It's like he is more confident with the poem the second time around.

On pages 50-53 of the blue book, Walt makes a lot of changes, not just to capitalization of letters, grammar, and punctuation, but to the addition and subtraction of full on lines.  On page 51 he removes a stanza consisting of 2 lines, but still a stanza!  On page 52 he writes a new stanza that he thinks he could include then later crosses it out and it never makes it to the 1867 edition.  On page 53 he adds a new stanza that I think is a nice addition.  He says, "It alone is without flaw-it rounds and completes all; That mystic, baffling wonder I love, alone completes all."

UPDATE:  I just read Whitman's biography.  It seems that "Proto-Leaf" was previously "Starting from Paumanok" and not the preface. :( bleh. Oh well, I'm still sticking to what I said.