Without, perhaps, ever having read Spinoza,' or Nineteenth-Century Pantheism as Heretical Materialism

Haines:In a review of the first edition of Leaves of Grass, a critic for The Washington Daily National Intelligencer writes: “The reader who has proceeded only thus far begins already to discover that Walter Whitman is a... [ view full abstract ]

Haines:

In a review of the first edition of Leaves of Grass, a critic for The Washington Daily National Intelligencer writes: “The reader who has proceeded only thus far begins already to discover that Walter Whitman is a pantheist. Without, perhaps, ever having read Spinoza, he is a Spinozist.” The critic makes sure to let the reader know that this Spinozism, which he equates with atheism and pantheism, is a sin against good taste and morals. This paper argues that, more than a transgression of religious or moral sensibilities, the name “Spinoza” registers in the nineteenth century as the trace of a heretical materialism – a materialism that does away with the Cartesian division between spirit and matter. This paper examines the appearance of Spinoza’s specter in works as divergent as Herman Melville’s novel Pierre and Edward Hitchcock’s treatises on geology and religion. The poetics of pantheism that emerges in such work is a queer materialism, one that aligns immanence with bent feeling. It is only through queer forms of friendship and love that materiality subsumes transcendence in a thoughtful mode of sensuality.