Leafs Of Grass By Whitman Essay, Research Paper
Some old ages ago, when a few transcripts of a volume called Leafs of Grass found their
manner into this state from America, the general finding of fact of those who had an
chance of analyzing the book was that much of it was ineffably foul,
most of it mere incoherent rhapsody, none of it what could be termed poesy in
any sense of the word, and that, unless at the custodies of some enterprising
Holywell Street publishing house, it had no opportunity of the honor of an English reissue.
Besides, it would be idle to deny that Walt Whitman has many attractive forces for
heads of a certain category. He is loud, disdainful, and self-asserting, and so
gets recognition for strength with those who worship nil that is non strong. He
is utterly lawless, and in effect base on ballss for being a great original mastermind.
His green goods is unlike anything else that has of all time appeared in literature, and
that is adequate for those who are ever on the look-out for freshness. He is rich
in all those qualities of haziness, incoherency, and obscureness which seem to be
the first that some readers nowadays expression for in poesy. But, above all, he runs
amuck with conventionalities and decencies of every kind, which of course
endears him to those cockamamie people who take a infantile delectation in seeing the
reputabilities of the universe pulled by the olfactory organ, and what they consider its
stupid biass shocked. Spoken by Mr. Rosetti, stand foring British Publisher
of Whitman? s Leaves of Grass. We can see no ground for sing Walt
Whitman powerful. Strong he may be, but it is merely in the sense in which an
onion is strong. His noise, bluster, and haughtiness are no more indicants of
true strength than the swagman of the professional jock at a state carnival,
who struts up and down the phase in salmon-coloured leotardss, and base on ballss for a
Heracless with the crowd from the manner in which he feels his musculuss in public.
That he is American in one sense we must acknowledge. He is something which no other
state could hold produced. He is American as certain signifiers of rowdiness and
coarseness, bulges on American establishments, are American. But that he is
American in the sense of being representative of American gustatory sensation, mind, or
cultivation, we should be really regretful so to believe. New he surely is, but
it is merely in his audaciousness, and in the unnatural construction of his poesy ; there
is non a new idea in his Hagiographas from get downing to stop.
