Patriotism and Humanity in Walt Whitman`s Poetry

Patriotism and Humanity in Walt Whitman 's Poetry

Perhaps no man contributing to world literature ' declared Charles N Elliot in 1915 , has been the subject of so many books , magazine articles and pamphlets as Walt Whitman . Certainly no American has . Even at the time of his death the number of critical studies of his work favorable or adverse , often bitterly so , constituted a formidable array Not even the now almost universal recognition of the poet 's genius and his increasing importance as a major force in world literature wholly explain this ever-continuing

flood of writing about his life and work In the last quarter century Whitman biography and criticism have shown no sign of decreasing in volume , and both at home and abroad he has become a favorite subject for scholarly research . Not even the now almost universal recognition of the poet 's genius and his increasing importance as a major force in world literature wholly explain this ever-continuing flood of writing about his life and work . One explanation is that from the first publication , Leaves of Grass has been a problem ' to critics , friendly and unfriendly alike and the poet succeeded so thoroughly in identifying himself with his book that every reader has felt impelled to search out the secrets of life concealed in the images , ideas , and even the forms of the poems . That is the way Walt Whitman affects his readers - like Shakespeare in his sonnets

In the United States Walt Whitman is commonly regarded as the most nationalistic per of American Democracy because in his first edition (1855 ) he announced a nationalistic program : The United States themselves are essentially the greatest poem .Of them a bard is to be commensurate with a people .His spine responds to his country 's spirit . he incarnates its geography and natural life and rivers and lakes ' Whitman 's emphasis on these ambitions has resulted in the failure of many readers , from 1855 to the present day , to observe that he also declares in this same Preface that , American poets are to enclose old and new ' In fact , he begins the manifesto by acknowledging that , America does not repel the past or what it has produced ' but accepts the lesson with calmness ' Even in this stage of patriotism he is not unaware of Europe and the past as the cultural progenitors of the new nation and the young dream of future greatness . His nationalism rests on the conviction that the creative impulse , in poetry as well as politics , has been handed down to his own time and country : the life which served its requirements has passed into the new life of the new forms .its action has descended to the stalwart and wellshaped heir who approaches . and . he shall be fittest for his days ' Here in this consciousness of an inheritance from the past was the germ of an internationalism to match the cosmic themes of his first great lyric poems (Allen 56

After his Leaves of Grass had won recognition...