Walt Whitman in Jewish American Poetry

Abstract This essay examines the adoption of Walt Whitman’s poetics and ethos in the work of the Jewish American poet Charles Reznikoff, and the influence of both on Allen Ginsberg. Apart from Ginsberg—whose embrace of Whitman is widely recognized—Whitman’s significance in the writing of other Jewish American poets is often overlooked. Reznikoff, of the Jewish objectivist group, was linked to high modernist figures like Ezra Pound and William Carlos Williams. Poets of the era, including Pound, expressed uncertain views of Whitman; moreover, anti-Jewish sentiments were promoted by Pound, T. S. Eliot, and others. In keeping with high modernist sensibilities, Reznikoff’s poetry does not appear to be Whitmanian in style. This essay illuminates Reznikoff’s frequent allusions to Whitman and argues that Ginsberg’s later adoption of Whitman is informed by his interpretation of Reznikoff’s poetics. Together, Reznikoff and Ginsberg are a case study within the genealogy of Jewish poets in America, who turn to the non-Jewish Whitman.