This expectation of a transcendent medium has a factual basis:
Its grandeur and simultaneity, resembles the imagined potential of computerĮditing. Medium? Whitman's imagined text of the "not yet published" poem, with all Idealizing urge to encompass all be realized through this more expansive Through the multiple possibilities of electronic presentation? Can Whitman's What is a text? How do different mediaĪffect its representations? Can the rendered text escape its limitations These few lines of Whitman's poem adumbrate the fundamental Reductive nature of the physical act of writing and of publishing technology. Its several printings, includes textual variants and concessions to the And each version, from the manuscript through Was temporarily named during a period of revision, must, therefore, refer Of "Calamus 1," as this poem was named in 1860, or "In Paths Untrodden,"Īs it was subsequently named, or "By the Calamus Pond I Wander," as it
Of editorial choices, emphasizes an aspect of his ideal text. In three manuscripts and printed it, in each edition of Leaves of Grass,Īs the first of his "Calamus" poems. Their simultaneity, to fit the reductive confines of print technology.ĭespite these limitations, Whitman drafted "In Paths Untrodden" Of this imagined text is in fact too great, its "standards" too broad in Not exhibit itself, yet contains all the rest" (l. Suggests that the ideal, authoritative poem resides in a "life that does
Moreover, in casting the unrealized poem as the authoritative one, Whitmanĭemotes the rendered version to an inferior status. Implicitly, publication of a poem is anĪct of representation, not an ideal transcription of the poet's intentions,įor the text in the poet's mind differs from the one that he produces materially. Of an imagined set of conventions, Whitman privileges the "not yet published" Ideal poem from the printed text of the poem. Untrodden," Walt Whitman, a printer by trade, distinguishes his imagined, the Printed Document In the 1881 version of his first "Calamus" poem, "In Paths A Meditation on Print and Multimedia Editing Techniques as Acts of Representation The Imagined Text vs.
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