Whitman, Walt,--1819-1892--Leaves of Grass

The voice of Leaves of Grass is the voice of nature "without check
with original energy." Zen, as described by its followers, is Nature
itself. This thesis is a comparison of Zen nature and Whitman's
voice of nature.
Zen-- A monk was anxious to learn Zen and said: "Will you be gracious
enough to show me the way to Zen?" The master said: "Do you hear
the murmuring sound of the mountain stream?" The monk answered: "Yes
I do." The master said: "Here is the entrance."
Whitman-- Was somebody asking to see the soul?
See your own shame and countenance, persons, substances,
beasts, the trees, the running rivers, the rocks and sands.
Zen insight rests somewhere within perception or consciousness of the
mountain stream. Whitman places a similar value on perception of nature.

Walt Whitman's visual imagination was influenced by paintings, panoramas, and photography. His expansive vision reflects changes in methods of perception. Whitman was also an influence on early filmmakers, like Dziga Vertov. Vertov's "Kino-Eye" theory and Whitman's poetry reflect each other in their attempts to attain a "fresh" perception, to see the world "photogenically." Consequently, there is more than just similitude between Whitman and cinema. In fact, both are meant to be seen. Although the idea of reading Whitman "cinematographically" has been mentioned by some critics, none has suggested how this reading process is to be enacted or understood by the reader. The Reader Response theory of Wolfgang Iser is used to show that the reader, when encountering a text, is involved in a process of ideation, during which mental images are influenced by and derived in part from textual schemata and indeterminacies. The cinematographic reading is, then, highly imaginative, resulting in the creation of a "virtual" text. When examined, it can be shown how Walt Whitman's catalogues intend to carry the reader along in a process of "indirect" ideation during which the structures and images of the catalogues become realized by the reader's imagination.