Thursday, May 19, 2016

 

Obesity?

Walt Whitman (1819-1892), "By Blue Ontario's Shore," § 4:
Piety and conformity to them that like,
Peace, obesity, allegiance, to them that like,
I am he who tauntingly compels men, women, nations,
Crying, Leap from your seats and contend for your lives!
Obesity makes little or no sense to me here. Did Whitman mean obeisancy, a rare variant of the noun obeisance? He used the recherché adjective obeisant in "Proud Music of the Storm," § 13.



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