I would fain make these introductory remarks to my essay a sort of window
through which the reader may get a fairly good view of what lies beyond.
If he does not here get any glimpse or suggestion of what pleases him, or
of what he is looking for, it will hardly be worth while for him to
trouble himself further.
A great many readers, perhaps three fourths of the readers of current
poetry, and not a few of the writers thereof, cannot stand Whitman at all,
or see any reason for his being. To such my essay, if it ever comes to
their notice, will be a curiosity, may be an offense. But I trust it will
meet with a different reception at the hands of the smaller but rapidly
growing circle of those who are beginning to turn to Whitman as the most
imposing and significant figure in our literary annals.
The rapidly growing Whitman literature attests the increasing interest to
which I refer. Indeed, it seems likely that by the end of the century the
literature which will have grown up around the name of this man will
surpass in bulk and value that which has grown up around the name of any
other man of letters born within the century.
When Mr. Stedman wrote his essay upon the poet early in the eighties, he
referred to the mass of this literature. It has probably more than doubled
in volume in the intervening years: since Whitman's death in the spring of
'92, it has been added to by William Clark's book upon the poet, Professor
Trigg's study of Browning and Whitman, and the work of that accomplished
critic and scholar, so lately gone to his rest, John Addington Symonds.
This last is undoubtedly the most notable contribution that has yet been
made, or is likely very soon to be made, to the Whitman literature. Mr.
Symonds declares that "Leaves of Grass," which he first read at the age of
twenty-five, influenced him more than any other book has done, except the
Bible,--more than Plato, more than Goethe.
When we remember that the man who made this statement was eminently a man
of books, deeply read in all literatures, his testimony may well offset
that of a score of our home critics who find nothing worthy or helpful in
Whitman's work. One positive witness in such a matter outweighs any number
of negative ones.