Getting health and fitness tips from ... poet Walt Whitman
Exercise guru Richard Simmons is not on the scene, but could the great American poet Walt Whitman replace him?
Consider, for example, this cheery Simmons-like exhortation (Whitman was a 19th-century poet much given to Simmonslike exhortation) in a long-lost and just published manifesto by
Whitman called Manly Health & Training: To Teach the Science of a Sound and Beautiful Body.
“To you, clerk, literary man, sedentary person, man of fortune, idler ...
UP! The world (perhaps you now look upon it with pallid and disgusted eyes) is full of zest and beauty for you, if you approach it in the right spirit!”
It turns out Whitman was just as obsessed with the state of his body as we are. He died in 1892 at age 72 but he’s been revived with
Manly, a collection of newspaper articles he published in a New York newspaper in 1858 that was only recently discovered in a digital database under one of his pseudonyms.
With tips for men on diet and exercise, grooming and dress, food and drink, dancing and sports, and the link between mental and moral health, Whitman’s health opus totals 47,000 words, published in February by Regan Arts.
It offers new insight into Whitman’s poetic preoccupation with his body, expressed in I Sing the
Body Electric from his masterpiece, Leaves of Grass.
Ten Speed Press is bringing out
a mini, boiled-down version, Walt Whitman’s Guide to Manly Health & Training, aimed at 21st-century Millennials accustomed to reading bite-size online listicles instead of books.
This version, which goes on sale Tuesday, features about 75 excerpts, is just 122 pages and is meant as a goofy gift for those who like working out and lyrical poetry.
Some of it will raise eyebrows: “A man that exhausts himself continually among women, is not fit to be, and cannot be, the father of sound and manly children.” This declaration would seem to confirm the standard scholarly view that Whitman preferred the company of men: He is presumed to have been gay, although it wouldn’t have been called that at the time.
Kenneth Price, a professor of English and expert on Walt Whitman at the University of Nebraska, says
Manly reflects Whitman’s poetic celebration of the body in Leaves.
“His view that the body was of crucial importance is different from that of most people of the time, who would have said the mind, heart or soul were most important. And it was where he would make his mark as a poet,” Price says. “His sense that mind and body are integrated and if you neglect the body you damage the mind — that’s something he’s committed to.”
Oddly enough, Whitman’s words, though they were written 150 years ago, could pass for the content found now in men’s magazines, online or on TV:
ON WHERE TO TRAIN: Not in a gym. “Places of training, and all for gymnastic exercises should be in the open air — upon the turf or sand is best. Cellars and lowroofed attics are to be condemned, especially the former.”