Leaves of Grass by Walt Whitman Essay Example

father a farmer and his mother a devout Quaker. Quakerism was the only religious inheritance the

His use of thee and thou in his poetry, his reference to the months by their sequential number (ninth month for September), and his instinctive adoption of the inner lightall of these Walt could trace back to his Quaker background. (Miller 17)

This Quakerism also contributed to the style of Leaves, told with certain closeness and a certain emphasis paralleling that of a preacher. Miller comments on this style: His was a day of evangelism and oratory. As a child he was no doubt frequently exposed to both. The passionate intimacy and pleading of many lines in Leaves of Grass couldhave been used by an itinerant preacher (Miller 43)

Aside from his Quaker traces, Leaves of Grass has been criticized as being an extension of Whitmans life. Just as Miller described the work as Whitmans child, John Kinnaird comments on the great level of importance at which Whitman held his masterpiece:

Leaves of Grass suggests so much of the original existential Whitman that criticism must continue to recover and understand, particularly since this is the first poet who ever insisted that his book was in reality no book. (Kinnaird 24) Kinnaird reinforces the criticism of Miller Jr. as he emphasizes the autobiographical and introspective nature of Leaves. It seems that Whitman used this work as a release, and

The power to destroy or remold, is freely used by him (the greatest poet) but never the power of attack. What is past is past. If he does not expose superior models and prove himself by every step he takes he is not what is wanted.

(Whitman 8) The introduction from which the passage was taken is one of great length, with elaborative and expressive sections, in which Whitman further explains the muse behind his book, the child he conjured up at the time, as he was without any family of his own. James A. Wright comments on the introduction and his poetic brilliance:

Whitmans poetry has delicacy of music, of diction, and of formI mean it to suggest powers of restraint, clarity, and wholeness, all of which taken together embody that deep spiritual inwardnesswhich I take to be the most beautiful power of Whitmans poetryHe knows that the past exists, and he knows that, as a poet and a man, he has a right to live. His duty is precisely this: to have the courage to live and to create his own poetry. (Wright 88)

The uncertainty that Wright speaks of is an oft-selected aspect of Whitmans work. While it has been attributed to Whitmans childhood and general disposition towards life, John Kinnaird selects a different facet of Whitmans life, homosexuality. Whitmans uncertaintywas always sexual. The biographical evidence, (Leaves of Grass), in itself inconclusive, does seem to confirm what anyone may intuit from the poems: that Whitman was predominantly homosexual in his elementary responses, but neverin overt conduct and perhaps never in private relations.

Perhaps the most cherished single poem within Leaves is Song of Myself. It is the opening poem of the work, and is probably the most often recognized poem of Whitmans writings.

With this opening proclamation of his own lifes study, Whitman encompassed the reader into his lifes observation as he answers the question What is the grass? using long and

descriptive stanzas to interject the feeling of wonder he had about his everyday life. James Miller comments on Song of Myself:

By far the best, as well as the longest poemwas the opening Song of Myself. Like no other poem in American literatureindeed unlike any poem ever written before anywherethis long self-centered and prophetic chantseemed designed to shock and startle, surprise and disturb. (Miller 47) As other critics have done, Miller describes Whitman and particularly Leaves of Grass as a prophetic work, visionary and predictive. However, critics have also taken the opposite

The hard factso its seems to meis that Whitman fails as prophetic poet, precisely because he was such a powerfully humane poetwhen he tried to write prophetic poetry, he came eventually to sacrifice man (Pearce 66) Perhaps the most appealing aspect of Leaves was Whitmans style of discourse, as the American people could easily and willingly relate to it. Ezra Pound has described Whitman as the only one of the conventionally recognized American poets who is worth reading. She goes on to articulate what seems to be the general sentiment among critics:

He (Whitman) is Americaentirely free from the renaissance humanist ideal of the complete man of from the Greek idealism, he is content to be what he is, and he is his time and his people. He is genius because he has a vision of what he is and of his function. He knows that he is a beginning and not a classically finished work. (Pound 8)

In essence, Leaves of Grass was an extension of Whitmans soul. He used his work as a vehicle in which he could convey his opinion of life, and he

succeeded. D.H. Lawrence writes: Whitmans essential message was the open road. The leaving of the soul free unto herself, the leaving of his fate to her and to the loom of the open road. Which is the bravest doctrine man has ever proposed to himself. (Lawrence 20) It is this brave doctrine that literary critics seem to be most attracted to, and they give high praise to Whitman for his courage in manufacturing this dogma.