Passage to India

by Walt Whitman

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“Passage to India” is an 1869 free verse poem written by Walt Whitman. It is the title poem in a collection of the same name, which contained seventy-four poems, and was penned after the opening of the Suez Canal. The canal linked Europe to the East, a connection that Whitman saw as a physical manifestation of mankind’s growing unity—not just physical but metaphysical. Indeed, the canal is more than simply a technological achievement to the poet; it was a part of God’s evolutionary plan for humanity.

The poem follows the speaker along a metaphorical journey through the canal, which ultimately takes him to India. The poem hinges on anachronistic comparisons, as the speaker frequently revels in the wonders of ancient wisdom he encounters while simultaneously marveling at the modern technology that allows him to pass through this history.

By traveling to India—where, as the speaker argues, both civilization and human thought began—the speaker embarks on a symbolic journey that unites time and disciplines, connecting the past to the present and the scientific to the mythological.

Structurally, the poem is divided into thirteen unequal parts, which follow no consistent rhyme or metrical scheme. Within each section, Whitman makes frequent use of many literary devices, weaving a complex and extended narrative that begins with a tribute to human technological achievements.

From this praise, the speaker soon narrows his focus, turning to the Suez Canal. He heralds the canal as a masterpiece of human ingenuity and architecture, praising its potential to merge peoples and ideas. However, he is careful to note that it is not the only modern marvel to be lauded for its unifying features, also praising the laying of the first trans-Atlantic cable and the American transcontinental railway system.

These three technological wonders, the speaker adds, seem designed to bring the world together, a vision he hails as the next phase in God’s human evolutionary plan.

In tandem with the physical expansion of humanity across previously unconquerable lines, the speaker also praises the spread of ideas across people, including the great thinkers and ideologies of the East. Certain concepts, he explains—such as journeying and man’s unending drive to explore and expand physically and mentally—are gifts from God. Importantly, they are man’s imperative alone.

The speaker continues, arguing his belief that the canal and the railway shall unite man. However, beyond this physical unity, he sees an additional step ahead. The most important future achievement in the evolutionary chain, he explains, is the complete unification of man, by which he means the ending of all wars and the creation of global understanding through shared knowledge and ideas.

The railway and canal provided the potential for physical unity, and the speaker praises them for that. However, he also expresses his belief that exploration into new realms was futile—unless it provided for the expansion of the mind. Then, both the internal and external explorations of body and soul, place and people, were of equal importance.

Through a symbolic wedding, he highlights the importance of marrying the arts and sciences into one vision—as well as bringing people together across oceans and continents to achieve true human unity.

Throughout the poem, the speaker praises Christopher Columbus as a brave explorer who awakened the known world to new possibilities, new worlds, and new peoples. The speaker argues that human exploration peaked with Columbus, and chastises the nations of the world that no longer explore, saying they have turned from God’s ultimate vision for mankind.

Columbus died destitute, a sign that nations—and people—turned away from exploration. Those who do not explore, both physically and mentally, the speaker says,...

(This entire section contains 779 words.)

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are doomed to die in sin, having turned from God’s song.

The poem concludes with the speaker stating that the enlightened poet will be humanity’s guide into the future, merging both the sciences and the mind. He explains this external and internal expansion to humanity, acting as a mediator between God’s plan for humanity and the people who remain ignorant of it without interpretation. He is the explorer of the world and the mind, one who journeys boldly into the unknown—just as Columbus once did.

Across these thirteen sections, the speaker lingers in his faithful praise of exploration, calling it man’s destiny to voyage through the past, present, and future to forge a sense of physical and spiritual unity. Ultimately, his voyage through the canal brings him a new, impassioned love for the world and God’s plan for it and, through this poem, aims to share it with the world in hopes of bringing it ever closer to fruition.

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