Review. Leaves of Grass (1856)

From the Boston Intelligencer, May 3d, 1856 LEAVES OF GRASS. Brooklyn, New York, 1855.

We were attracted by the very singular title of the work, to seek the work itself, and what we thought ridiculous in the title is eclipsed in the pages of this heterogeneous mass of bombast, egotism, vulgarity, and nonsense. The beastliness of the author is set forth in his own description of himself, and we can conceive no better reward than the lash for such a violation of decency as we have before us. Speaking of "this mass of stupid filth," the Criterion says: "It is impossible to imagine how any man's fancy   [ begin page 384 ]ppp.00237.392.jpg could have conceived it, unless he were possessed of the soul of a sentimental donkey that had died of disappointed love."

This book should find no place where humanity urges any claim to respect, and the author should be kicked from all decent society as below the level of the brute. There is neither wit nor method in his disjointed babbling, and it seems to us he must be some escaped lunatic, raving in pitiable delirium.