Whitman’s Homotextuality, Homopolitics, and Homonationalism 433 noticed: Jay Grossman, for instance, detects a “public/private oscillation” or “oxymoronic pairings [that] mark the keynote of ‘Calamus’ as a whole” (1990: 209). Indeed, in the cluster, there are roughly equal numbers of poems that glorify camaraderie as a political ideal as those that conspicuously express lack of such concerns for public achievements because what the speaker really cares is the one with whom he is in love. To illustrate, in another poem that appears only in the 1860 edition, the poet first narrates a succession of his progresses—from “obtain[ing] knowledge,” speaking for the American lands, following “the examples of old and new heroes,” to acting as the poet “of the New World” (1860-1861: 354, C8)—only to end up with giving it all up: For I can be your singer of songs no longer—One who loves me is jealous of me, and withdraws me from all but love, With the rest I dispense—I sever from what I thought would suffice me, for it does not—it is now empty and tasteless to me, I heed knowledge, and the grandeur of The States, and the example of heroes, no more, I am indifferent to my own songs—I will go with him I love, It is to be enough for us that we are together—We never separate again. (354-355) Almost a textbook case of “dyadic withdrawal”—namely a loving couple, devoted so thoroughly and solely to each other that they become indifferent to or even retire from the outside world36—no 36 This situation is famously theorized by Freud in the “Postscript” of Group Psychology and the Analysis of the Ego (1921/1957: 140-141); for an extended discussion, see Slater (1963). However, Freud’s theorization is mainly about heterosexual couples, whereas his comments on homosexual ones thereafter are almost the contrary: “It seems certain that homosexual love is far more compatible with group ties, even when it takes the shape of uninhibited sexual impulsions” (1921/1957: 141)—which may throw some relevant light on the following discussion.
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