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Among American authors there is one named Walt Whitman, who, in 1855, first issued a small quarto volume

city, and brought up in Brooklyn and in New York.

They are certainly filled with an American spirit, breathe the American air, and assert the fullest American

Year 85 of the States (1860—61). London: Trübner & Co.

cantos were published in 1773.

The first three cantos of his epic poem, The Messiah (Der Messias), were published in 1749; the final

cantos were published in 1773.

Review of Leaves of Grass (1860–61)

Leaves of Grass (Boston: Thayer and Eldridge, year 85 of the States—1860–61. London: Trübner.)

.* Some eight or ten years ago there was delivered to the world a volume of what were called poems by

In Walt Whitman we are called upon to recognise "the founder of American poetry rightly to be so called

By way of showing us what a superior animal is this American poet, Mr.

. . . of the questions of those recurring; Of the endless trains of the faithless—of cities filled with

The performed American and Europe grow dim, retiring in shadow behind me; The unperformed, more gigantic

For the first time in American history a native poet sings to us of America.

hates, and all the fiery passions of the people; may write themselves unbelievers in the destiny of American

holds the right reader with a magnetism as strong as the Poles. he is the most oriental and the most American

of Americans.

True as the needle to the North is he true to his country, to the brave mother language, and to the American

For if those pre-successes were all—if they ended at that—if nothing more were yielded than so far appears—a

gross materialistic prosperity only—America, tried by subtlest tests, were a failure—has not advanced

Both the cash and the emotional cheer were deep medicines; many paid double or treble price.

printer, carpenter, author, and journalist, domiciled in nearly all the United States and principal cities

of that time, tending the Northern and Southern wounded alike—work'd down South and in Washington city

breadth, the democratic kindliness, and homespun sense that marks the very soul and gait of our American

He ought to winter in some pleasant Southern city where he could sit by open windows.

valued them for the "barbaric yawp," which seems to them the note of a new, vigorous, democratic, American

STRANGELY impudent agitation has just been started with regard to what is called "Walt Whitman's Actual American

Whitman, it may be explained, is an American writer who some years back attracted attention by a volume

of so-called poems which were chiefly remarkable for their absurd extravagance and shameless obscenity

"The real truth," says an American journal, which has taken up the subject apparently in the interest

All the established American poets studiously ignore Whitman."

"Walt Whitman's Actual American Position" was an unsigned article published in the West Jersey Press

Louis, Indianapolis, Chicago, Cincinnati, Iowa City, Philadelphia, Baltimore, Raleigh, Savannah, Charleston

, Mobile, New Orleans, Galveston, Brownsville, San Francisco, Havana, and a thousand equal cities, present

inevitably united, and made one identity, Nativities, climates, the grass of the great Pastoral Plains, Cities

Islip, Long Island , June 5th , 1860 Leaves of Grass

Whitman The poems of Walt Whitman have been much praised and wondered at in this country since they were

sometimes in that of Hiawatha , sometimes absolutely prosaic, but always original and audaciously American

In the most outward city pageant the open-eyed poet sees what the mere world-eyed mass never sees.

hive-bees, The North—the sweltering South—Assyria—the Hebrews—the Ancient of ancients, Vast, desolated cities—the

Whitman says that "the volumes were intended to be most decided, serious, bona fide expressions of an

If the critic or the laborious reader were to devote himself to this "poem," what would he find in it

Cicero, Virgil, and Horace were not trammeled by the polished completeness of Latin.

In all his labor there were system, consecutiveness, and art; otherwise, he would have failed.

Whitman desires an original American literature, his plea is praiseworthy.

It is time, however, that an attempt were made to arrive at a sober estimate of his real value; and to

Nor does it mean that the merit of the author was quite unrecognized: on the contrary, by some who were

But the mass of his countrymen were not and are not strong enough to accept him; they have perhaps too

If we were asked for justification of the high estimate of this poet, which has been implied, if not

They themselves were fully at rest, they suffered not; The living remained and suffer'd.

Bucke informs us, were given away, most of them were lost, abandoned, or destroyed. ∗ According to Mr

'On the whole, it sounds to me,' were his words, 'very brave and American, after whatever deductions.

First we may notice that in spirit he is intensely American.

There is little in them that is distinctively American.

Were it not that we have Mr.

communist and utopian communities in the United States, including La Reunion in Texas and North American

Whitman," an American—one of the roughs—a kosmos, and what he says he will, he does—"utters his barbaric

of healthy Americans, than in never-so-much psalm-singing and opera.

silly ostrich, the poet hastens to hide his better, and expose his more indecent parts—as though it were

What he calls ‘Feudal Literature’ could have little living action on the tumult of American democracy

If verbal logic were sufficient, life would be as plain sailing as a piece of Euclid.

To glance with an eye, were it only at a chair or a park railing, is by far a more persuasive process

for city and land for land.

A statement which is among the happiest achievements of American humour.