Martin Tupper: Didacticism

Martin Tupper, a poet from Whitman's time era, represents a genre paralellism- IE a style of writing growing onto another branch of poetries trunk. Martin Tupper focused on morality, a didactic approach toward teaching masses stronger moral values than was prevalent- a difficult yet noble cause. Whitman's own genre, mostly free-verse celebratory poetry, tends to stray away from overt didacticism, focusing on celebrating the positive aspects of life rather than critiquing moral mistakes of the past. These two writers provide valuable insight toward what made Whitman popular, canonized, and remembered, whereas Tupper remains relatively in the wake of Whitman's allegorical power-boat. I would argue this happened from something fairly and simply- genre. Whitman strayed away from teaching entire groups morality, something most believe to be intrinsic, innate, and extremely relative. People, generally, dislike being told how to behave, what actions are socially "correct" and "incorrect," or to have another bash each decision that they make with an air of sophisticated morality. Whitman's morals are weaved into the threads of his texts, being exposed through character actions, narrative restraint, dictorial selection; whereas Tupper provides clear religious and moral instructions,

"Despise not, shrewd reckoner, the God of a good man’s worship,
Neither let thy calculating folly gainsay the unity of three:
Nor scorn another’s creed, although he cannot solve thy doubts;" (Of a Trinity).

His work tells how, it does not recount how. Whitman's tales, on the other hand, recount a narrative structure, a way of life, an individual experience- He does not appear to wish for his readers to behave in the same manner, no, he celebrates their differences. Whereas Martin Tupper seems to wish for each reader to follow the same moralistic and religious guidelines as his narrator. These two differences explain not only what gained Whitman more support in his generation, as well as those which followed, but also divulged important information as to persuasive and rhetorical techniques utilized by institutionalized churches (represented through Tupper). Rather than celebrating differences and recounting favorite personality and charactorial types, it provides a routine, a copy-pasted structure of similarness, it strives to craft identities to not necessarily become identical, no, for this would be too obvious and perfect to them, but instead to formfit each individual to follow structural and overarching guidelines. Whitman gained support because he restrained from telling people how to behave, whereas Tupper gained some sort of inner-satisfaction supporting an institutionalized life path. Each benefits in their own respect, however, Whitman seems to have attained the popular vote, so to speak.