Whitman’s Homotextuality, Homopolitics, and Homonationalism 429 meanings that beckons to them.28 Which means the homotextuality of Leaves paralleling as a subtext or a system of double entendres was actually structured like an “open secret” (i.e., accessible only to those already in the know)—a textual condition that is astutely described by Sedgwick as “the occluded intersection between a minority rhetoric of the ‘open secret’ or glass closet and a subsumptive public rhetoric of the empty secret” (1991: 164). That is why Whitman’s insistence on indicating the hidden presence of something inside, so as to confirm that people’s suspicion and conjecture are on the right track, clearly signifies his determination to strike a more transgressive new course. II. Homopolitics: Between Modern and Ancient Whitman deployed bountiful labels in Leaves to name and promote his favored mode of intra-male intimacy, and these (with the exception of the neologism “adhesiveness”) were drawn either from the tradition of male friendship (with their emphasis on “manly” and “love”) 29 or, as Betsy Erkkila astutely points out (2005: 136), the revolutionary ideals of democratic fraternity that 28 I am referring to the poetic lingering, recurrent in Leaves, on mainly the young, beautiful, and strong male bodies in passionately adoring terms, which, albeit unnoticed by readers unlike Whitman, must have certainly acted as one major beckon to those who felt the same desire. As there is no space for illustrations, it suffices to bring into readers’ attention Whitman’s newly discovered (in 2016) column writings penned in 1858—titled “Manly Health and Training, with OffHand Hints toward Their Conditions” (under the pseudonym Mose Velsor)—in which physical “manly beauty” is extolled as “the true ambition” and “the manly form” is glorified as “this wondrous and beautiful structure that never wearies the mind in contemplating its inward and outward mysteries” (2016: 220)—a vision that is indeed fully borne out in Leaves. 29 That is why, besides those generic synonyms as “companionship,” “attachment,” and “affection,” Whitman also used such specific descriptions as “athletic” and “robust” before love to emphasize the male aspect; see, e.g., 1860-1861: 341-342, C1 (later “In Paths Untrodden”); 1860-1861: 364, C19 (later “Behold This Swarthy Face”).
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