Specimen Days: Cedar-Apples

In this installment, Whitman describes his first experience with Cedar Apples; he calls them a "peculiar fruit," and talks of his happiness upon discovering them and their, "homely beauty and novelty." He describes the "profusion", or abundance, of the fruit twice in the same sentence. It makes for an interesting commentary when one contrasts this idea with the last line of the poem. Whitman ends the installment by saying: "These cedar-apples last only a little while however, and soon crumble and fade."

Just like the lifespan of the cedar-apples, this entry is short. Whitman spends only two (admittedly longer) sentences describing his experience, and then with the third and final sentence, abruptly undermines it. Although the cedar-apples are abundant, they are short lived. I think that this turn from discovery to pessimism may be telling regarding Whitman's personal view of the world at this stage of his life. This entry comes after many about the Civil War, hospital conditions, and most importantly the assassination of Abraham Lincoln. With this entry, Whitman seems to be saying that hope, and life, are much too fleeting. It is an interesting interpretation to consider the cedar-apples representative of young soldiers- initially abundant and new, but as they are plucked from their "bush", or home, they crumble and fade, and are not able to survive (literally) in the face of war.

Whitman's Poetic Peers

When reading works by Whitman's Contemporaries, such as Longfellow's "The Village Blacksmith" and Smith's "An Incident" the first similarity that comes to mind is the existence and importance of nature in each of the works. In "The Village Blacksmith," the poem begins with a natural setting; the smithy is "under a spreading chestnut tree" (line 1). Longfellow's placement of the man's workplace under a tree is important because it serves to define his character for the reader from the onset of the work. The blacksmith is later described as "mighty" (3) and his sweat is "honest" (9). Ultimately, the reader gets the sense that the blacksmith is like the chestnut tree his smithy stands under. Through this depiction, Longfellow is creating then reinforcing the man's character and, by extension, the way he lives his life. The blacksmith is a man who works with his hands; he works for himself and "looks the whole world in the face/for he owes not any man" (11-12). Although this man does not loaf in nature as Whitman does, his existence seems to be the type Whitman would approve of.

Elizabeth Oakes Smith's "An Incident" follows along on the same vein; she incorporates the natural world in almost every line of her work. She says, "The ocean lay before me, tinged with beams/that lingering draped over the west a wavering stir;/ and at my feet down fell a worn gray quill" (4-6). Here, Smith's speaker is having a direct experience with nature (a very "Whitmanian" theme) in that the eagle drops its feather at her feet. She uses her experience with the ocean and the eagle to draw conclusions about her experience with the world.