Manly Love as the American Poet and/or as a Man : Walt Whitman "I Saw in Louisiana a Live-Oak Growing"

“I Saw in Louisiana a Live-Oak Growing” is a lyrical short poem by Whitman. His “manly love” is a clue in catching the message of Leaves of Grass. I would like to discuss the wide range of “manly love” since recent critics have argued Whitman’s homosexuality. Whitman projects his ideal image on a live-oak growing in a wide flat space in Louisiana. Three adjectives applied to the tree, “rude, unbending, lusty” remind me of “Walt Whitman” representing the ideal of Democracy as the American poet. However, Whitman says that he could not “utter joyous leaves,” “without a friend a lover near.” The poet plucks a twig from the tree and he thinks of “manly love” in his room distanced from Louisiana. Whitman changes his tone. This paper is an attempt to consider Whitman’s contradiction. His “manly love” is a desire as well as the ideal