Tweet-A-Week: Martin F. Tupper

        Martin Farquhar Tupper (1810-1889) was a dude. He wrote poetry, and notably wrote Proverbial Philosophy, A Book of Thoughts and Arguments, which was a book about thoughts and arguments. He dropped knowledge over the pages, while other authors just clumsily spilled knowledge (I stole that one from Immortal Technique). Why do I say he dropped knowledge instead of spilled? He wrote the book in prose, but not necessarily sticking to any traditional poetry form either. He wrote in what would today be called free-verse, which is what Whitman liked to do as we've seen in Leaves of Grass. He was a bit of a pioneer in that sense and no doubt influenced writers of the future.(Whitman called him "a rare man of our time.")

        In a contemporary review of Whitman's 1860/1861 version of Leaves of Grass, one reviewer notes:

Can it be possible that Mr. Tupper's "Proverbial Philosophy" has inspired Mr. Walt Whitman with the idea of his Leaves? We have most of us probably heard and read of persons who solved mathematical problems or composed poetry while asleep; and we think it just possible that the author of "Proverbial Philosophy" may unconsciously, while suffering from a fit of the nightmare, have had something to do with the composition of these American Leaves. At least we trace in them some wild fantastic resemblance to his style; such as to make us pretty sure that Mr. Whitman has occasionally "tasted the simple store and rested one soothing hour" with the English poetaster whose words we quote.

        The reviewer notes how similar the writing styles are, and finishes the review by saying that "Sense, grammar, and metre are but very minor parts in the composition of poetry; but nevertheless, pace Walt Whitman, poetry cannot exist without this humble triad."

He's basically saying poetry needs sense, grammar, and meter in order to exist.

Walt and Martin's response?:

You know which one Whitman be!