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counter of a bank'.25 Both writers seek to encourage humanity to escape from the 'faint dream' which is the lot of many, to embrace a 'thoroughly alive' existence, to be in touch with the vein of 'woodland poetry' which is perhaps accessible to man, if only he were to look for it.26 However, Stevenson is wary of what he perceives as the 'cold, distant personality' of Thoreau, whose position as societal outsider affords liim the status of an observer, rather than an active participant in human life. Stevenson is more interested in 'a man rather than a manner of elm-tree' and as such is closer to Whitman's absorption in the hfe of tlie people. Comparing the two, Stevenson argues that Thoreau's self-improving is merely theoretical, and focused inwards on the self, thus becoming 'arid, abstract, and claustral', whilst Whitman's interpretation of the 'same doctrine' appears 'buxom, blythe and debonair' - and is so precisely because it includes others in its self-celebration.27

One senses tliat what appealed most to Stevenson about Whitman, as it did to his other admirers, was that startlingly frank approach to life. 'Voluptuous, inliabitive, combative, conscientious, ahmentive, intuitive, of copious friendship, subhmity, firmness, self-esteem, comparison.

25 Robert Louis Stevenson. 'Hemy David Thoreau: Character and Opinions'. Familiar

Studies of Men and Books. London: Chatto & Windus, 1920. p.96 23 Robert Louis Stevenson. 'The Silverado Squatters', p.238

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individuality, form, locality, eventuality': Whitman chants the list of his attitudes and attributes, revealing the fullness of his 'luscious', multitudinous character.2» The poet's self-portrait in Leaves of Grass

reveals himself as 'Walt Whitman, a kosmos, of Manhattan the son, | Turbulent, fleshy, sensual, eating, drinking and breeding, | No

s e n t i m e n t a l i s t ' . 29 The sensuality and directness of Whitman's poetry are

all the more remarkable since tliat poetry was produced in an age where Victorian tender sentiment and delicate sensibility were sanitising tlie human experience in its poetic representations. It is not for nothing that Whitman contrasts himself, as self-proclaimed poetic voice (or 'Barbaric yawp') of America, witli Britain's contemporary poet laureate, Alfred Lord Tennyson. It is difficult to imagine a greater gulf Üian the stylistic, moral, and cultural disparity which existed between these contemporaries. The impressions of wilting youth and fashionable melancholia given by Tennyson's polished verses, accomplished as they may be, was of course aU grist to Whitman's rough-hewn American mill. Whitman admits in an essay on Tennyson that he admires the English

28 Walt Wliitman. 'Song of tlie Broad-Axe'. Leaves of Grass. Ed. Sculley Bradley and

Harold W. Blodgett. New York and London: W.W. Norton & Co., 1973. pp.184-195.

29 Walt Whitman. 'Song of Myself'. Leaves of Grass. Ed. Sculley Bradley and Harold W.

Blodgett, New York and London: W.W. Norton & Co., 1973. pp.28-89; p.52

30 Walt Whitman. 'Anonymous Self-Review'. Milton Hindu (Ed.) Walt Whitman: The

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poet, but does not share his point of view or aesüietics.^^ Stevenson picked up on this stance towards Old World writers, quoting Whitman's wish for American and democratic 'hymns of the praise of things...a brave delight fit for freedom's athletes' in contrast to the English 'literature of woe'. The notion of Old World artifice and dissipation was the favoured conceit of American cultural propagandists such as Whitman, who were seeking to forge a new art which was to reinforce culturally America's political independence from Europe - and to engage in a little cheerful iconoclasm along the way. This new method of representation must reflect a new aesthetic of 'roughs and beards and space and ruggedness and n o n c h a l a n c e ' . 32 The experience of the

'common people' is paramount, and within this diversity Whitman detects vast scores of 'unrhymed poetry' which 'awaits tlie gigantic and generous treatment wortliy of it'. Stevenson was sensitive to, and attracted by, the epic scale of this American poetic impulse, recognising in Whitman the desire both to theorise and to facilitate the emergence of a specifically American voice, celebrating diversity whilst emphasising unity. As such, democracy and human interrelationship form the core of Whitman's poetic vision - and these are certainly important values for Stevenson's own work and travels. Such observational wanderings.

31 See Walt Whitman, 'A Word about Tennyson', Prose Works 1892. Collect and Other

Prose. Vol. II. Ed. Floyd Stovall. 2 vols. New York; New York University Press, 1964. pp.568-572; p.568

Chapter 2: Rural Flâneurs 115

though, are related to a co-emergent poetic practice which he helped to influence and develop: the observational walks and wanderings of the

flaneur, the figure who, as Walter Benjamin suggests, enjoys 'botanizing

on the asphalt'.33

Hie flaneur, largely through the work of Benjamin and his landmark

study, Charles Baudelaire: A Lyric Poet in an Era of High Capitalism, has come to be seen as the quintessential figure of the nineteenth century city. An urban stroller and observer, he remains detached, leisurely, fascinated by the bustle of tlie crowd and the life of the city streets. By turns a dandy, detective, poet or philosopher, the flaneu/s perspective is typically one of urban modernity and bohemian sensibility. In his student days, Stevenson cultivated this sort of persona, as the idling truant who explores the city for purposes of poetic inspiration and private reflection. Valuing the knowledge gleaned tlirough his youthful wanderings, he celebrated his capacity for idleness m 'An Apology for Idlers', where he contrasts the worth of knowledge gained through school room (or lecture room) study and the superior value of 'certain other odds and ends that I came by in the open street while I was playing

33 Walter Benjamin. Charles Baudelaire: A Lyric Poet in an Era of High Capitalism. Trans.

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t r u a n t ' .34 Stevenson took a certain pride in his profligacy, and even

flaunted his idleness, to the mixed amusement and chagrin of his fellow- students. It was at this time that he began to experiment with prose poetry and vers libre, which enjoyed a limited vogue in European poetry at the time. Baudelaire experimented with the form, most notably in his

Petits poemes en prose (1869), the result of his admiration of Whitman's

poetry, whose lyrical flashes and epic listings are framed in stanzas of sprawling prose.

Stevenson read tlie work of both Baudelaire and Whitman, and the mixed influence of tliese are visible in his poetry and essay writing of this period. The poem, 'My brain swims empty and light', shows the student

flaneur speaking of his city spectatorship as one 'stand[ing] apart from

living...In my new-gained growtli of idleness'. His detached gaze takes on a secular sacredness. 'Apart and holy, he wanders the streets with an ambiguous purpose.

I walk the sti eets smoking my pipe And I love the dallying shop-girl

That leans with rounded stern to look at the fashions. And I hate the bustling citizen.

The eager and hurrying man of affair I hate. Because he bears his intolerance writ on his face

And every movement and word of him tells me how much he hates me.

34 Robert Louis Stevenson 'An Apology for Idlers'. Virinibus Puerisque, and other papers.