“I was completely bowled over by this, not having been able to explain how Whitman came to write “Song of Myself,” which is unlike anything not only in American literature, but unique in all the world. The parallels to it are mystical literature.”

—  Karl Shapiro

Paris Review interview (1986)
Context: Whitman to me is the most fascinating of American poets. Whitman started to write the great poetry from scratch after he had written all that junk for newspapers, the sentimental lyrical poems. All of a sudden he wrote Leaves of Grass. When I was teaching at the University of Nebraska, my friend James Miller was chairman of the English Department. He wrote the first book attempting to make a parallel between the structure of Leaves of Grass and the steps of the mystical experience as in St. John of the Cross. I was completely bowled over by this, not having been able to explain how Whitman came to write “Song of Myself,” which is unlike anything not only in American literature, but unique in all the world. The parallels to it are mystical literature. Miller tried to show that there was actual evidence for this kind of experience, which evidently happens at a particular moment in someone’s life. … When I saw the negative reaction to Whitman with the great ruling critics of the time, I couldn’t believe it. Eliot never really gave up hammering away on Whitman, neither did Pound. Although Pound makes little concessions. Whitman, you know, didn’t have any influence in this country until Allen Ginsberg came along.

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "I was completely bowled over by this, not having been able to explain how Whitman came to write “Song of Myself,” which…" by Karl Shapiro?
Karl Shapiro photo
Karl Shapiro 15
Poet, essayist 1913–2000

Related quotes

Samanta Schweblin photo

“I learned to write reading North American literature, I love your literature, but I have this feeling that if a country only reads its own literature, it will run out of oxygen.”

Samanta Schweblin (1978) Argentine writer

On her encouraging that Americans read literature beyond their country in “Samanta Schweblin on Revealing Darkness Through Fiction” https://lithub.com/samanta-schweblin-on-revealing-darkness-through-fiction/ in LitHub (2017 Jan 12)

“American literature has been, and is, singularly deficient in established critics who have anything like a rational conception of their jobs.”

Burton Rascoe (1892–1957) American writer

"Fanfare", in H. L. Mencken (1920)
Context: American literature has been, and is, singularly deficient in established critics who have anything like a rational conception of their jobs. The majority, initiate in a few of the patent rituals of Aristotle and Quintilian, don the forbidding robes of high priests to Sweetness and Light, and go about their business much as if the idea were to keep all they know to themselves.

“For centuries scholars have been forced to grapple with the problem of accounting for the parallels between Greek literature and the Bible.”

Cyrus H. Gordon (1908–2001) American linguist

Did Greece borrow from Israel? Or did Israel borrow from Greece? Can the parallels be accidental, do they obliterate the uniqueness of both Israel and Greece?
Introduction
The Common Background of Greek and Hebrew Civilizations (1965 [1962])

Gao Xingjian photo

“The writer is an ordinary man, not a spokesman for the people, and that literature can only be the voice of one individual. Writing that becomes an ode to a country, the standard of a nation, the voice of a party… loses its nature—it is no longer literature. Writers do not set out to be published, but to know themselves. Although Kafka or Pessoa resorted to language, it was not in order to change the world. I, myself, believe in what I call cold literature: a literature of flight for one's life, a literature that is not utilitarian, but a spiritual self-preservation in order to avoid being stifled by society. I believe in a literature of the moment, for the living. You have to know how to use freedom. If you use it in exchange for something else, it vanishes.”

Gao Xingjian (1940) Chinese novelist and playwright

Interview by Jean-Luc Douin http://web.archive.org/web/20130421061108/http://my.opera.com/PRC/blog/?startidx=560

“All literature is written by the old to teach the young how to express themselves so that they in turn may write literature to teach the old how to express themselves. All literature is written by mentally precocious adolescents and by mentally precocious senescents.”

Laura Riding Jackson (1901–1991) poet, critic, novelist, essayist and short story writer

"All Literature", from Anarchism Is Not Enough (London: Jonathan Cape, 1928)

Eugéne Ionesco photo

“I have always regretted having gotten involved with literature up to my neck. I would have preferred to have been a monk; but, as I said, I was torn between wanting fame and wishing to renounce the world. The basic problem is that if God exists, what is the point of literature? And if He doesn’t exist, what is the point of literature? Either way, my writing, the only thing I have ever succeeded in doing, is invalidated.”

Eugéne Ionesco (1909–1994) Romanian playwright

The Paris Review interview (1984)

Don McLean photo

“As you can imagine, over the years I have been asked many times to discuss and explain my song "American Pie"”

Don McLean (1945) American Singer and songwriter

As quoted in "What is Don McLean's song 'American Pie' all about?" at The Straight Dope (15 May 1993) http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/908/what-is-don-mcleans-song-american-pie-all-about
Context: As you can imagine, over the years I have been asked many times to discuss and explain my song "American Pie" I have never discussed the lyrics, but have admitted to the Holly reference in the opening stanzas. You will find many interpretations of my lyrics but none of them by me. … Sorry to leave you all on your own like this but long ago I realized that songwriters should make their statements and move on, maintaining a dignified silence.

William Styron photo

“The good writing of any age has always been the product of someone's neurosis, and we'd have a mighty dull literature if all the writers that came along were a bunch of happy chuckleheads.”

William Styron (1925–2006) American novelist and essayist

Writers at Work (1958)

Northrop Frye photo

“In literature you don't just read one poem or novel after another, but enter into a complete world of which every work of literature forms part.”

Northrop Frye (1912–1991) Canadian literary critic and literary theorist

"Quotes", The Educated Imagination (1963), Talk 3: Giants in Time
Context: In literature you don't just read one poem or novel after another, but enter into a complete world of which every work of literature forms part. This affects the writer as much as it does the reader.

Related topics