Leaves of Grass: The "Death-Bed" Edition

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Leaves of Grass: The "Death-Bed" Edition

4.12 of 5 stars 4.12 · rating details · 37,575 ratings · 1,061 reviews

Abraham Lincoln read it with approval, but Emily Dickinson described its bold language and themes as "disgraceful." Ralph Waldo Emerson found it "the most extraordinary piece of wit and wisdom that America has yet produced." Published at the author's expense on July 4, 1855, Leaves of Grass inaugurated a new voice and style into American letters and gave expression to an o...more

Hardcover, 736 pages

Published October 12th 1993 by Modern Library (first published 1855)

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May 17, 2013 Steve aka Sckenda rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: poetry, favorites, on-going, american-literature, civil-war, death, love

Walt Whitman is my prophet of love and optimism. His words, his attitude, and his exemplary life have summoned me to deeper humanity. Did you know that Whitman spent all his free time and money upon the wounded and the dying soldiers in army hospitals during the American Civil War? “I am faithful, I do not give out.” He brought them candy and nuts and good cheer. He held their maimed limbs, played games with them, and wrote letters home for them.

He whispered comfort in the ears of the dying. Wh...more

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Sep 11, 2007 Selby rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: poetry

Whitman used to right fake reviews under false names for Leaves of Grass and send them to publishers, newspapers, and periodicals. I love that about him. So over the top. He had love for everything. Especially himself. As for the quality of the work the words speak for themselves:
"This is what you shall do: Love the earth and sun and the animals, despise riches, give alms to every one that asks, stand up for the stupid and crazy, devote your income and labor to others, hate tyrants, argue not co...more

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Mar 12, 2013 Ben Winch rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: american, poetry, anglo

A child said, What is the grass? fetching it to me with full hands;
How could I answer the child?.... I do not know what it is any more than he.

I guess it must be the flag of my disposition, out of hopeful green stuff woven.

Or I guess it is the handkerchief of the Lord,
A scented gift and remembrancer designedly dropped,
Bearing the owner's name someway in the corners, that we may see and remark, and say Whose?

I'm no expert on Walt Whitman, and given that this poem ('Song of Myself') has been celeb...more

A child said, What is the grass? fetching it to me with full hands;
How could I answer the child?.... I do not know what it is any more than he.

I guess it must be the flag of my disposition, out of hopeful green stuff woven.

Or I guess it is the handkerchief of the Lord,
A scented gift and remembrancer designedly dropped,
Bearing the owner's name someway in the corners, that we may see and remark, and say Whose?

I'm no expert on Walt Whitman, and given that this poem ('Song of Myself') has been celebrated by everyone from Neruda to Borges to Pessoa to Robin Williams in Dead Poet's Society ('I sound my barbaric yawp over the roofs of the world'), I doubt I'm educating anyone by bringing it again to their attention. That said, this was just what I needed this morning as I warmed into my first day alone in the country after too many weeks of a lack of privacy so intense that I have read and written almost nothing. Nervous, wondering if I might piss away the week allotted to me if I couldn't become inspired, I flicked idly through these pages over coffee, remembering, as I often have in the maybe ten years since I first read them, how they once impressed me, and soon found myself enthralled, a tear in my eye, as I read of the child and his unanswerable question. Now, by any popular notion of the word I am not religious, and I have a handful of staunchly anti-religious friends who'll attest to it, though I'll own that these friends strike me as both too literal-minded and too combative (they 'protesteth too much'), and that these days I either ignore or attempt to dissuade them every time they head off on a rant, so narrow and senseless and insensitive do such rants seem to me. The point is: God? 'The Lord'? Hell, to be honest I could give a shit, at least as regards any organised religion's conception of the subject. But something in that line about the handkerchief ('that we may see and remark, and say Whose?') moves me, the same way Bob Dylan (the born again Dylan!) moves me when he sings 'In the fury of the moment / I can see the master's hand / In every leaf that trembles / In every grain of sand.'

And I call to mankind, Be not curious about God,
For I who am curious about each am not curious about God,
No array of terms can say how much I am at peace about God and about death.

I hear and behold God in every object, yet I understand God not in the least,
Nor do I understand who there can be more wonderful than myself.

Why should I wish to see God better than this day?
I see something of God each hour of the twenty-four, and each moment then,
In the faces of men and women I see God, and in my own face in the glass;
I find letters from God dropped in the street, and every one is signed by God's name,
And I leave them where they are, for I know that others will punctually come forever and ever.

Forever and ever. The constant mystery we know is beyond our powers to explain; even the smallest child who looks at the stars knows that. The constant, ever-renewing mystery which we can tap into now and then, loafing and 'observing a spear of summer grass', but which ultimately we must, again and again, leave behind, knowing it will never go away, but equally that we cannot gaze at it for long.

I celebrate myself,
And what I assume you shall assume,
For every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you....

These are the thoughts of all men in all ages in all lands, they are not original with me,
If they are not yours as much as mine they are nothing or next to nothing,
If they do not enclose everything they are next to nothing,
If they are not the riddle and the untying of the riddle they are nothing,
If they are not just as close as they are distant they are nothing....

It is you talking just as much as myself.... I act as the tongue of you,
It was tied in your mouth.... in mine it begins to be loosened.

Big words, huh? As bold as can be. As earnest and without irony (Pessoa did it with irony) yet hardly at all portentous or laughable. Strange, that Whitman should say here 'Logic and sermons never convince', when it seems that this whole epic rant (all 60 pages) is the sermon to end all sermons. But he admits to contradicting himself, explaining 'I am large.... I contain multitudes.' And at one point he falters in his ecstasy:

Somehow I have been stunned. Stand back!
Give me a little time beyond my cuffed head and slumbers and dreams and gaping,
I discover myself on a verge of the usual mistake.

That I could forget the mockers and insults!
That I could forget the trickling tears and the blows of the bludgeons and the hammers!
That I could look with a separate look on my own crucifixion and bloody crowning!

For all its joy and exulting in the simple fact of life, 'Song of Myself' is ever aware of suffering: 'the suicide on the bloody floor of the bedroom', the runaway slave ('He staid with me a week before he was recuperated and passed north'), 'the mother condemned for a witch and burnt with dry wood, and her children gazing on'.

I do not ask the wounded person how he feels.... I myself become the wounded person'....

I play not a march for victors only.... I play great marches for conquered and slain persons....

This is the meal pleasantly set.... this is the meat and drink for natural hunger,
It is for the wicked just the same as the righteous.... I make appointments with all....

I am the poet of commonsense and of the demonstrable and of immortality;
And am not the poet of goodness only.... I do not decline to be the poet of wickedness also....

I don't claim that Whitman's work is perfect, and in fact I skipped or skimmed several passages this morning (I've never been one for lists, and Whitman, in his passion to encompass multitudes – of people and places – is occasionally enamoured of them), but I do think 'Song of Myself' is some kind of a masterpiece. The introduction to this edition (Penguin's 1986 reprinting of 'The First (1855) Edition') compares it to the Bhagavad-Gita, the Upanishads, The Marriage of Heaven and Hell, Rimbaud's Illuminations, The Chants of Maldoror, Thus Spake Zarathustra and the works of the Beats, and suggests that 'Song of Myself' 'should be judged... as one of the great inspired (and sometimes insane) prophetic works that have appeared at intervals in the Western world'. I agree (though not necessarily with the 'insane' part). With its insistence on a universal spirit beyond the senses or the intellect, and its bold adoption of the voice of that spirit, it resembles nothing so much as one of those letters dropped in the street, signed with the name of God. I said it is without irony, but a gentle self-mockery runs through it, enough to convince us of the humility of the man as he wrestles his personality into submission to hear snatches of the inner voice. 'Backward I see in my own days where I sweated through fogs with linguists and contenders,' he says early on (sounding again like Dylan: 'You've been with professors and they've all liked your looks'), and just before the famous yawp he admits: 'The spotted hawk swoops by and accuses me.... he complains of my gab and my loitering.' But in the end, though he can't refrain from fictionalising his own portrait in a dandy's effort to give his outpourings the credibility of the proletariat ('Walt Whitman, an American, one of the roughs'), the impression he leaves is one of deepest attachment to, regard for and identification with the reader.

I bequeath myself to the dirt to grow from the grass I love,
If you want me again look for me under your bootsoles.

You will hardly know who I am or what I mean,
But I shall be good health to you nevertheless,
And filter and fibre your blood.

Failing to fetch me at first keep encouraged,
Missing me one place search another,
I stop some where waiting for you.

Leaves of Grass was self-published by Whitman, a printer's assistant, in Brooklyn in 1855.
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Mar 24, 2008 Ben Wilson rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: democrats, republicans, flag-shitters

Recommended to Ben by: President Clinton gave this as a present to Monica Lewinsky

Shelves: neverfinished

Leaves of Grass is like reading every single instant message that I and a friend of mine ever wrote to one another over the course of the last ten years. Likely way too long, too self-serving and would have shocked the general public if they cared to read it when it was written. But nestled in there are some real, true brilliant moments.

This is after all Whitman's life work, laid bare and un-edited for the most part. What else are we to expect? He is literally singing a song of himself, which he...more

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Jun 09, 2011 Dan rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Alright, my rating here is very misleading. I haven't read Leaves Of Grass. I don't even intend to read Leaves Of Grass. Not all the way through any way. It seems sort of weird to just read a big fat collection of poetry all the way through. The five star rating is for one poem, "Song of the Open Road".

I've never really appreciated poetry. I've liked song lyrics and that's poetry, but it seemed like I needed a tune to go with it. I've liked scripture which can be pretty poetic, but it seemed I n...more

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Jul 30, 2007 Andrew rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: Everyone

Shelves: all-timefavorites, favorites, poetry

Literary rapture. I don't know how else I could describe my first experience reading Leaves of Grass. It was pure literary rapture.

I highly recommend Leaves of Grass to everyone - especially those who still believe, or want to believe, in the basic goodness of the American Experiment.

Pick up the slim first edition (Whitman revised and expanded Leaves of Grass throughout his life. The final product, which is what is most often seen on bookshelves, is a bloated, redundant beast.

Read the whole t...more

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Aug 23, 2010 Kathryn rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: poetry, americana

In 1860, when the United States was on the brink of civil war, Walt Whitman produced a book of poems that he hoped would provide a roadmap for preserving the Union. It was “Leaves of Grass,” the third edition.

Reading Whitman is always an exhilarating experience but when reading from this facsimile edition put out by the University of Iowa Press, there’s a touch of something else – a sense of history. The introduction by antebellum historian and Whitman scholar Jason Stacy does an excellent job o...more

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Sep 04, 2008 Collin rated it 1 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: gave-up-on

Holy shit this is self-important and tedious.

--update: This has sat untouched on my desk all year. I can think of a hundred books I'd rather start than finish this, so I doubt I'll pick it back up unless I run out of books to read, I'm too poor to buy any more books, all my friends turn on me and refuse to loan me anything else, and all the nearby libraries are set on fire simultaneously.

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Apr 02, 2009 Jenny Beth rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: pour-y-vivre

Few people know that I curl up with Song of Myself whenever i am depressed. i gave a nice boy from England my beautiful edition once as a birthday gift, so now i curl up with this dreadful Norton Anthology edition where the pages are thinner than onion skins. once i get to the end and reread some of my favorites bits i always find i am ready to rejoin the family of mankind again as tolerable, if not pleasurable, company. I think, as many do, that the affirmation and daring and greed and urgency...more

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Nov 17, 2010 Jeanette rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: classics, poetry, america

Did you know that the letters in "Leaves of Grass" can be rearranged to spell "Asses of Gravel"?
If you find yourself anagramming the letters in the title rather than reading the poetry, it's a good sign you're not into the book. But I really wanted some of whatever Whitman was smoking that made him so ecstatically, ebulliently enthusiastic about every molecule on the planet. Including his own b.o.

"The scent of these arm-pits aroma finer than prayer."

Huh??? Was this guy sniffing glue along wit...more

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Jul 07, 2008 Lindsay Russo rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I always thought it was too spacey for me... His language is so wide open and goes everywhere. But to sit and read it from cover to cover in one sitting was enlightening. Not that I didn't see Whitman in other authors before, but I see so many layers of him now. So well worth the time. I almost wish I had read it aloud.

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Nov 03, 2012 D.R. Haney is currently reading it · review of another edition

I'm determined to read Leaves of Grass in its formidable entirety, including the annexes of the so-called death-bed edition, convinced, without a shadow of a doubt, that my time is far better invested in Leaves of Grass than it would be in reading, for instance, Infinite Jest, which inspires support groups offering spiritual bread and water to those willing to accompany DWF on his Pynchonesque pilgrimage through a grad-school amusement park. What I've read already of Whitman, including "I Sing t...more

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Oct 27, 2012 Dina Nabil rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: pdf

http://suchasmallaffairs.blogspot.com...

طفلٌ قال، ماهو العُشب؟
طفل قالَ ما هو العُشْب؟ كان يحمله إلَيّ بكلتا يديه؛

كَيْفَ يُمكنُ أن أُجيبَ الطفل؟ . . .

إنني لا أعرف عن ذلك أكثرَ مما يعرفه هو.

أظنّه قد يكون الرّاية لحيودي،

بعيداً عن تموّج المادةِ الخضراءِ المتفائلة.

أَو أظنُّ أنّه مِنديلُ اللوردِ،

تذكارٌ و هديّةٌ عَبِقة سَقطَت على عَمد،

يزمُّ اسمَ المالكَ بطريقةٍ ما في الزوايا،

ذاك الذي قد نراهُ ونشيرُ إليه، ونقول مَن!

أَو أظنّ أنّ العشبَ نفسه طفلة. . . أنجبتْ فتاة النبات.

أَو أنني أظنّ أنّه بزّةٌ ...more

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Aug 07, 2010 Mon rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: Emos, or whatever they call themselves these days

Recommended to Mon by: Michael Cunningham's Specimen Days

Shelves: poetry

How do you review a poem? You can go for the academic angle: the composition, historical context, stylistic importance, Or you can write about your subjective reaction, and a bunch of bullshit theory as to what Whitman was actually on about, which is exactly what I'm going to do because I never bothered attending that literary criticism lecture.

There are a few things about Whitman:
1) He was gay
2) He was American
3) His parents were Quakers.

These are important because (in corresponding order)...more

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May 26, 2009 Evan rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: world-literature-top-100-list-poll, epic, currently-reading-slowly, my-faves, __in-my-collection, gay-interest, sexuality, poetry, philosophy, travel, adventure-fiction, bohemian-rhapsodies, history-americana, favorites

There are a lot of bullshit abridged editions of "Leaves of Grass" out there, some just over 100 pages, which is just a joke. A lot of them are listed here at GR. I'm reading the complete unabridged version with "posthumous" additions, and it runs about 700 pages.

I was feeling kind of lonely and lowdown today and Bret Easton Ellis' "Less than Zero" was kind of making me feel less than zero and not helping. I picked Whitman up on a complete lark and became completely absorbed; he was picking up m...more

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Nov 14, 2008 Ibrahim rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: literature, thinkers-i-adore

Whitman so constantly deals with the body. Here we
are in the presence of one of those contradic-
tions, or rather, unifications, which make him in
a certain sense a Hegelian poet. He sings of the
body when he means to sing of the soul simply
because the body, like everything else, is funda-
mentally a manifestation of the soul:

I have said that the soul is not more than the body,

And I have said that the body is not more than the soul.

And he asks:

If the body were not the soul, what is the soul...more

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Nov 19, 2007 J.P. rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Another title I'm forever dipping into.

There are many editions of LEAVES; the 1892 'deathbed' edition (Whitman was knocking on Heaven's door when he was editing it) is one I've never been able to finish, mainly because it's just so. . .voluminous. Many poems for the ages there, but just as much dead wood, too, which always bogs me down.

This first, 1855 edition---this is my favorite. I call it the rock n' roll edition. Here, you'll find the poems---in their unadulterated, original versions---tha...more

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Mar 12, 2008 Frankie rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

my southern baptist american lit professor told me his work was vulgar and humanist, citing whitman's line – "Divine am I inside and out, and I make holy whatever I touch or am/touch'd from,/The scent of these arm-pits aroma finer than prayer,/This head more than churches, bibles, and all the creeds." these words were the seed to my introspection and doubts of much of the dogma i later rejected.

Song of Myself (quoted above) eventually helped shake me out of quite a few delusions i had in college...more

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Sep 15, 2007 Michelle Taylor rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

52. To a Stranger

PASSING stranger! you do not know how longingly I look upon you,
You must be he I was seeking, or she I was seeking, (it comes to me, as of a dream,)
I have somewhere surely lived a life of joy with you,
All is recall’d as we flit by each other, fluid, affectionate, chaste, matured,
You grew up with me, were a boy with me, or a girl with me, 5
I ate with you, and slept with you—your body has become not yours only, nor left my body mine only,
You give me the pleasure of your eyes,...more

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Mar 21, 2009 Lindsay Wing rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This is my new Bible. I can't imagine a spiritual text that better encompasses the joy of existence. I know its roots are in Eastern philosophies and Buddhist teachings, which is fine by me, but it also incorporates those philosophies with the Western experience and introduces an organic and concrete aspect that makes the whole doctrine beautiful and warm and fragrant and REAL. Whitman, you are my hero!

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Oct 17, 2012 Xdyj rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: l-f-ar-af-s, q, us

Read it several years ago before I came here. IMHO a nice portrait of a certain part of the American experience in 19c & has some of the best ideas in the American cultural tradition.

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Jun 05, 2007 Bryan (Beej) Jones rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

"Song of Myself" is a work of pure genius comparable to Shakespeare's greatest. I love these last three stanzas especially. When my wife and I were dating long distance and when I was deployed, I would end alot of my letters with "I stop somewhere waiting for you."

I bequeath myself to the dirt to grow from the grass I love.
If you want me again look for me under your bootsoles.
You will hardly know who I am or what I mean,

But I shall be good health to you nevertheless,
And filter and fibre your blo...more

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May 10, 2007 Nils Samuels rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Almost impossible to imagine how this pansexual poem made its way into the hearths and hearts of American critics and readers. The 1855 original version is more impressionistic than later versions. All feature Whitman's aeronautical lists of places and people from all over America. The poem's first word is "I." Its last is "you." The quest is to bridge that gap. A quintessential transcendental poem of the sort that Emerson imagined and was lucky enough to witness if not write. Whitman and Dickin...more

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Oct 02, 2012 Anne Nikoline rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: poetry readers

Recommended to Anne Nikoline by: book club

Shelves: american-literature, poetry, own-a-copy, university-1st-semester, 19th-century

Walt Whitman's Leaves of Grass is actually my very first poetry read, so you can imagine that I was fairy excited to get started on it. With a language which is so wide open, the author manage to travel everywhere he possibly could within this poem, which can be just as good as it can be bad, however, I happen to see what he had to say about everything.

Since this is my first poetry read I find it very hard to rate it, because I got nothing to compare it too other than John Keats's Ode To a Nigh...more

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Apr 13, 2008 Claudia rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: poetry readers

Recommended to Claudia by: indirectly Susan and Jennifer

Shelves: classics-i-should-have-read-years-b

I read this for several reasons: my American literature background is pathetic; I bought this book (the 1855, self-published edition) in DC at a Whitman exhibit, and a book I recently finished, "Self Storage," had the main character quoting Whitman. Come to find out, her pivotal decision is greatly informed by knowing and loving Whitman! So glad I did finally read it. I was drawn to two contradictory thougths as I read: the amazing strength and passion of the poetry, and the secret desire for a...more

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Mar 23, 2013 Matthew added it · review of another edition

What can I say? Whitman set out to create an American bible and in my estimation he succeeded. These poems are simply gorgeous, powerful texts filled with imagery.

Maybe one day I'll come back and give a more detailed analysis but right now I can only offer a selection of what I consider to be his most beautiful poems.

EIDÓLONS
BEGINNING MY STUDIES.
WHEN I READ THE BOOK.
AS I PONDER'D IN SILENCE.
TO A CERTAIN CANTATRICE.
ME IMPERTURBE.
AH POVERTIES, WINCINGS, AND SULKY RETREATS.
A CLEAR MIDNIGHT.
AS THE T...more

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Dec 08, 2008 Mark rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: just about anyone with a heart

Shelves: bigass-tomes-iconicworks2finish

Yesterday's Washington Post book section featured a review of yet another Walt Whitman biography (the reviewer notes the yet-anotherness of any such effort and maintains that this author has found a fresh perspective).

In reading the review, it dawned on me that it had been years since I read Leaves of Grass, so before I went to bed I picked up my Bantam Classic paperback edition from the '80s to see what I might be able to recall or find anew (Whitman scholars and the otherwise detail obsessed w...more

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Dec 01, 2008 Antonio rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: Anyone woth a love for life and words.

Recommended to Antonio by: I found it decades ago.

The best poetry I've ever read. Difficult to describe or analyze, but Walt was a mystic best understood intuitively. The sheer power of the words alone might be enough to just read and forget trying to understand. Walt's command of the English language and the way he blends words together is inexplicable. Going to the index and reading the first lines of the poems is an experience in and of itself. I imagine that if Beethoven expressed himself verbally, this would be how it would sound.

Walt is...more The best poetry I've ever read. Difficult to describe or analyze, but Walt was a mystic best understood intuitively. The sheer power of the words alone might be enough to just read and forget trying to understand. Walt's command of the English language and the way he blends words together is inexplicable. Going to the index and reading the first lines of the poems is an experience in and of itself. I imagine that if Beethoven expressed himself verbally, this would be how it would sound.

Walt is at once spiritual and yet completely ensconced in matter. In one sentence he will look into space at the stars in perfect, awed silence and in another sentence he will prepare to meet a prostitute.

There are SO many poems in "Leaves of Grass" that are not the popular ones ("Miracles", "To Him That Was Crucified", "Come Up From The Fields Father", "A Noiseless Patient Spider") that are just so magnificent.

Walt's life is as wild as his poems. Carpenter, journalist, Civil War nurse, printer and dandy, but through it all, a poet. There is a lot of controversy about Walt's sexual identity. To me it seems obvious he was gay, but quibbling about someone's sexual identity is absurd. For me, it wouldn't matter if Walt was a eunuch. The person that wrote these poems is in many ways beyond sex, even though there are 2 sections in "Leaves of Grass" completely dedicated to sexuality. One section. "Calamus", is about manly love and affection and another, "Children of Adam", is about heterosexual love. I think it's important to know that Walt was vehemently condemned when these poems were first published.

There is a section titled, "Drum Taps", which are Walt's Civil War poems. They describe Walt's experience as a Civil War Nurse and some are almost impossible to read without crying. War is the same experience regardless of time-----horrifying. There are many that believe that the intensity of these experiences (in the War) diminished Walt's health.

I have visited Walt's house on Mickle Street in Camden, NJ. I am not a "hero worshipper" nor am I starstruck, but if you get a chance to visit Walt's house, do so. It is cool and I swear you can almost feel Walt in the room. His hat is there, the one from all the famous photos. I also visited Walt's grave not far from his Camden house. I don't make it a habit of visiting graves, but even this was interesting.

I hope that you will read some of Walt's poems, some you may remember for the rest of your life.(less)

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May 19, 2013 Aziz rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I love him. I love Walt. I love how passionate and happy he is. So full of pride and so very content. And it fits right, it does, when you picture him the huge man he is.

Walt Whitman, an American, one of the roughs, a kosmos,
Disorderly fleshy and sensual ... eating drinking and breeding,
No sentimentalist ... no stander above men and women or apart from
them ... no more modest than immodest.

He's comforting, his words are soothing. He does not present answers, but rather asserts the questions, hen...more

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Feb 24, 2013 Philip Cartwright rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: poetry

First the pros:

Whitman's free verse is years ahead of its time. I kept having to remind myself that he published this work in 1855. Wordsworth had only been dead for five years, Tennyson and Browning were at the height of their powers and Longfellow was still churning them out. Whitman was an important moderniser.

His verse has tremendous energy. It crackles off the page and I was often swept giddily along by the blizzard of words. Plus, there are some truly striking images to be found. At its be...more First the pros:

Whitman's free verse is years ahead of its time. I kept having to remind myself that he published this work in 1855. Wordsworth had only been dead for five years, Tennyson and Browning were at the height of their powers and Longfellow was still churning them out. Whitman was an important moderniser.

His verse has tremendous energy. It crackles off the page and I was often swept giddily along by the blizzard of words. Plus, there are some truly striking images to be found. At its best, his poetry is deeply evocative yet also disorientating, allowing the reader to see the "mundane" through new eyes.

This is linked to Whitman's celebration of ordinary men and women, which I also welcomed. While Tennyson was writing about Greek myths and Browning was constructing the interior monologues of Renaissance aristocrats, Whitman's focus was the beauty and profundity of the everyday. In this respect he was the heir to Wordsworth.

Finally, his positivity is forcefully expressed and can be uplifting or even inspiring. Sometimes.

This caveat brings us to the cons:

There are, frankly, way too many words. Image tumbles after imagine in an incontinent stream. I'm sure this was intentional; Whitman wants to overwhelm the reader and the sheer variety of people, objects, occupations, landscapes, etc can sometimes produce a sense of wonder. But it can also bore the reader as Whitman hammers his point into the ground for page after page. Like Dylan Thomas, he seems to have had a facile knack for poetic turns of phrase - they just flowed out of him. But the danger is that the significance of his words diminishes as their volume spirals towards infinity.

Finally, there is something a bit cheap about Whitman's unfailingly positive mysticism. All is good, he blithely assures us, even suffering, pain, ruin and death. But there's absolutely no sense that he's had to struggle to achieve this benign equanimity. He was what William James described as a "healthy-minded", "once-born" writer; someone who was constitutionally incapable of being distressed by the darker side of life. As a result, his mysticism can seem less like an insight and more like a sort of cheerful stupidity. He is not so much a Buddha as a village idiot with an exceptional vocabulary.(less)

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About Walt Whitman

Walter Whitman was an American poet, essayist, journalist, and humanist. He was a part of the transition between Transcendentalism and realism, incorporating both views in his works. Whitman is among the most influential poets in the American canon, often called the father of free verse. His work was very controversial in its time, particularly his poetry collection Leaves of Grass, which was desc...more

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Poetry and Prose (Library of America #3)

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“Resist much, obey little.” — 3,483 people liked it

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Perhaps it is everywhere - on water and land.” — 475 people liked it

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