Introduction
 

         Any analysis of Walt Whitman and his poetry is not remotely complete without some consideration of the influence that Italian opera had on the man and on his writings.  Though he was not born with an innate love of the art (few people are), he grew to love it with a passion surpassed by few others.  One may question whether he had a love of music in general, not just for the staged song, but it was the voice, the vocalization, the vocal sound that got inside of him and would not let go.  "The voice seemed to create in him not only an emotional response but a bodily one as well; the most intense and tumultuous feelings could be aroused in him by a beautiful and controlled voice."  (Faner, 56).  What better expression of the range of the human voice and what better demonstration of the potential richness and fullness thereof, than in melodic song.  No wonder Whitman fell in love with this eclectic art form.  One of his poems, entitled simply "Vocalism," illustrates this phenomenon.  
 
 

 O what is it in me that make me tremble so at voices?
                                    &nb sp; Surely whoever speaks to me in the right voice, him or her I shall follow,
                                     ;  As the water follows the moon, silently, with fluid steps, anywhere around
                                     ;            the globe.
 
 

Whitman thought that the Italian voice, especially the Italian voice raised in song, fully embodied the "right voice" and moed him beyond any other.
 
        Some may argue that a good deal of Whitman's poetic genius was derived from his opera-going experiences.  Walt Whitman, the poet of the body and the poet of the soul, could not possibly not be affected by such an all-consuming art form; the poet who sang of his experience would surely be affected by sheer emotion set to music in operatic form.  In a conversation with his friend, Horace Traubel, Whitman remarked, "My younger life was so saturated with the emotions, raptures, and uplifts of such musical experiences that it would be surprising indeed if all my future work had not been colored by them.  A real musician running through Leaves of Grass--a philosopher-musician--could put his finger on this and that naywhere in the text no doubt as indicating the activity of the influence I have spoken of."  (Faner, 82.)

        Without opera, particularly Italian opera, the Walt Whitman we know today might be just a unrealized possibility, an unfulfilled dream, or a lost vision.  Italian opera of the 1840's and 50's in New York had a profound impact on Whitman, an impact that must be studied and understood in order to understand the poet himself.

 
 
To continue and read more about the influence of Opera on Whitman, click here. 
 

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