Translating Whitman into the Classroom

First, returning to Whitman and the "uniform hieroglyphic" -

In "A Backward Glance O'er Traveled Roads" (available in Prose Works 1892: The Collected Works of Walt Whitman, Vol. II), Whitman compares his years of work on Leaves of Grass to the work of Jean-Francois Champollion, the "father of Egyptology," who is most famous for  beginning the unlocking of Egyptian hieroglyphs using the Rosetta Stone. Studying the Rosetta Stone, Champollion recognized that some hieroglyphs are alphabetic, some are syllabic, and others are determinative (representing an entire idea). He began to record and publish translations in the early 1820s, but his Egyptian grammar and dictionary were not published until after his death. On his death bed, Champollion is said to have given the corrected proofs of the grammar to the printer, saying, "Be careful of this. It is my calling card to posterity." It is this story that Whitman references in "A Backward Glance" - he writes that he looks upon Leaves of Grass as his "definitive carte visite to the coming generations of the New World" (Prose Works 1892, 712-13).

The Rosetta Stone itself is a massive stone slab (3 feet tall x 2.4 feet wide x 1 foot deep), with inscriptions of the same text (a decree) written in three languages: Egyptian hieroglyphics, demotic Egyptian (ancient everyday Egyptian), and Greek. The opportunity to compare these three scripts proved to be the key to translating ancient hieroglyphics. These close-ups (thanks, JonesBlog!) of the Rosetta Stone show demotic Egyptian on the left, classical Greek in the middle, and hieroglyphics on the right:

So, the classroom assignments I'm considering for "Song of Myself" and the universal hieroglyphic are:


1) free write (5 min.) on connection(s) you might see between Whitman the poet and Champollion the translator/historian/explorer/surveyor and/or what you think might interest Whitman above the carved/drawn symbols of hieroglyphics


2) then find at least 5 instances in the poem where you think Whitman is touching on issues/ideas of translation. Include these in a blog post with your thoughts or answers to the questions below. You can either incorporate the quotes/instances into your writing, or post them as a kind of found poem. You will also need to include in your post a (brief) explanation of the reading strategy (or strategies) you've used to think about or answer these questions.
What is Whitman translating/interpreting/reading? In other words, what are his "texts"? How are his "texts" like hieroglyphics? How does he imagine himself (or poets) to be like Champollion, the historian/explorer/surveyer/translator? Who is he translating for? What role does Whitman imagine for readers? 


3) Then, in class we'll discuss the students' ideas about "Song of Myself" and translation, moving toward a discussion of the imagined reader's role in the poem, and questions like these:
What strategies does Whitman use to encourage this role, or recruit his readers? What is the relationship between poet and reader? Reader and "text"? How do we read poetry? What does Whitman think (in "Song of Myself")  that poetry can do? What might the heroic quest (for knowledge? for self? for truth?) have to do with writing/reading/poetry?


4) We'll read and discuss the Norton Anthology of Poetry's "translation" or curation of "Song of Myself" (which uses the 1881 version and includes section 1 (I celebrate myself...), section 6 (the grass), section 11 (28 bathers), section 24 (through me many voices...), and section 52 (barbaric yawp and bootsoles)). We will focus on questions of curation, of what this version emphasizes, and in essence, argues about "Song of Myself."


5) Students will be assigned to curate their own version of "Song of Myself" and post it to their blog. They will be asked write an explanation of the choices they made and the effects they hoped to achieve with those choices (a more formal written piece that will be turned in to me). Finally, they will be asked to read and comment on at least 2 of their classmates' curations.