Walt Whitman is considered one of America ’s greatestpoets , a master copy of free poesy who captured nineteenth - century America ’s raw hopes for democracy and human equivalence before and after the Civil War . But in 1858 , three years after first publishing " Leaves of Grass , " Whitman ’s first and most noted book of poetry , he was still a little - known artist piecing together a living as a journalist in New York City .
Whitman scholars have always hump that the poet strung together jobs a pressman , schoolteacher , newsman and editor , but even seasoned literary historian were coldcock by the2016 discoveryby a University of Houston graduate pupil that Whitman also moonlighted for a least sandpiper as a men ’s health editorialist .
The 13 - part pillar , call up " Manly Health and Training , " appeared in The New York Atlas under the pen name Mose Velsor . Forgotten for more than 150 years , the nearly 50,000 - word self - assistance treatise was republished in the Walt Whitman Quarterly Review last November and is now the depicted object of two newillustratedbooks .
Whitman ’s tips , designed to sustain manly vigor and carve out a " nobler physique , " let in the following nuggets of pseudo - scientific wisdom :
What to Eat
Paleo fans will be heartened by Whitman ’s advice to consume " a unsubdivided diet of rare - cooked gripe , season with a little table salt , and accompanied with dusty bread or sea - cooky . " The poet spurn pretty much all vegetables , condiments , sauce and sweet and advocated an " almost single meat diet . "
Whether to Shave
perfectly not . " The beard is a great healthful protection to the pharynx — for purposes of wellness it should always be worn , just as much as the hair of the question should be . "
How to Start the Day
Rise before cockcrow and dunk yourself in an invigorating cold bath . " [ … ] A speedy wash of the whole consistence in frigid urine " really gets the blood displace , but do n’t forget to exfoliate . Use " coarse towel to fret dry with ; after which … the flesh - brush [ scrub brush ] , or anything handy , may be used , for rubbing , and to put the skin in a red glow all over . "
Is Dancing Manly?
Rather than just dance for fun , Whitman say a stringent boogie-woogie - down is " a great assistance to grow the tractability and strong suit of the hips , knees , muscles of the calf , ankles , and feet … There is no rationality why , in a respectable gymnasium , the graphics of terpsichore should not also be include . "
At first glance , it seems downright weird that a pillar of American poesy was , at 39 yr old , dish out dieting and footwear advice ( chuck the boots for custom - made " base - Lucille Ball " shoes ) , but not to Ed Folsom . An English prof at the University of Iowa , Folsom is editor of the Walt Whitman Quarterly Review and atomic number 27 - director of theWalt Whitman Archive .
In an e-mail , Folsom pronounce he was thrilled by the rediscovery of the " Manly Health " pillar and sees them as illuminating a " mystery period " in Whitman ’s life . This was two years before the landmark third variant of " Leaves of Grass " was published , the first to contain the famed " Calamus " poems , perhaps the first " articulation of jocund identity and the first existence of a phraseology of virile - male sexual love , " Folsom suppose .
" He was write those poems at just the meter he was writing ' Manly Health , ' which is , after all , a kind of anthem to the male dead body , " says Folsom . " It ’s a template to the upkeep , conservation , and development of a healthy male physique . "
In his unveiling column , Whitman write that wellness is the " introduction of all real virile beauty " and that " all other goodness of existence would barely be goods , in comparison with a perfect dead body … all running over with life and fervor , all marked by herculean strength , pliancy , a clean-cut complexion … a laughing voice , a merry song morn and Nox , a sparkling eye , and an ever - happy soul ! "
Beyond Whitman ’s admiration for the buff and virile male contour , the writer also saw the forte and health of the human body as a direct reflection of the experimental condition of the body politic , enounce Fowler .
" Whitman believe that majority rule began with the body — it ’s the one affair we all share in common ( we all get the globe through a body ) — and so we are all responsible for the unspoiled upkeep of the consistence we have been give . "
It ’s easy to snicker at Whitman ’s prudish - era health reasoning — " A gentleman’s gentleman that eject himself continually among women is not primed to be , and can not be , the begetter of sound and male children , " for example — but it ’s more interesting to see his prose as an sound reflection of his exuberant and unflinchingly physical poetry .
Folsom cite Whitman ’s repetition of the phrase " inspiration and respiration , " first when talking about the grandness of catch some Z’s at least seven hours each night in a big bedroom with subject window , and second when explaining the benefits of " obstreperously narrate and declaim in the subject air . "
The same musical phrase appears in " Song of Myself , " perhaps the most famous poem in " Leaves of Grass " : " My respiration and brainchild / the lacing of my heart / the passing of profligate and air through my lungs . "
" Poetry , Whitman reminds us , is written not just with the headspring , the brain , but with the lungs , the heart , the hands , the feet , the genitals , " says Folsom . " Poetry emerges from the whole body , and from the whole body ’s experience of inhaling experience and exhaling our reply to that experience . "
