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Verse that shook the world PDF Print E-mail
Friday, 30 September 2005

Walt Whitman’s Leaves of Grass, edited with an afterword by David S. Reynolds. Oxford University Press, 2005. 167 pages, $22.


One hundred and fifty years ago a slim volume of verse appeared that may not have changed the world, but certainly changed the face of American poetry forever. This year marks the sesquicentennial of the publication of Leaves of Grass, by Walt Whitman, a little-known New York journalist. Lovers of the American language must remain grateful.

This anniversary is being marked the world over, with conferences, celebrations and of course, new editions of the famous book. Oxford University Press has put together a beautiful edition. They have reproduced the typeface and layout of the original 1855 edition, reprinting the poems as they appeared. They have included Mr. Whitman’s incendiary manifesto of a preface, the 20 original reviews of the book (and three that Whitman himself authored) and an exchange of letters between Walt Whitman and Ralph Waldo Emerson. ##M:[more]##

Many of us probably feel that we know Leaves of Grass pretty well. We may have the lovely Library of America edition, or a cherished paperback that has traveled with us in backpacks since high school. This edition is different. Walt Whitman endlessly revised and expanded Leaves of Grass through the course of his long life. What is presented in this particular volume is exactly what was set loose on the world in 1855. There are only 12 poems here. “A Noiseless, Patient Spider,” “Out of the Cradle, Endlessly Rocking” and “Song of the Open Road” are all missing from this edition. Logically enough, the Civil War poems and the tributes to Lincoln aren’t here either.

What this book does contain is the raw power of the first version of “Song of Myself” and the explosive sensuality of “I Sing the Body Electric” and “The Sleepers.”

These 82 pages of verse shook the world. It is a difficult thought experiment to go back to the moment before a revolution in art, to see how shocking these verses were in their day. They were considered obscene, and the great, biblical lines were thought of as unpoetic in the extreme. Where was the meter? Where was the rhyme? It isn’t in these pages, but no one can deny the music and the power of these poems.

Walt Whitman was perhaps the first fully American poet. He brought the language of the street into verse. He broke the shackles of inherited forms. He could be crude, and he wasn’t afraid to be sentimental or banal, but he cast a cold eye on the America of his time by casting a close eye on himself.

The Oxford edition of Walt Whitman’s Leaves of Grass is a beautiful volume that allows a reader to re-encounter a well-known work, and to get a sense of its freshness. It is fascinating to see the original reviews and see how the work was received in its day (although, Emily Dickinson’s assessment is missing: “I have not read Mr. Whitman’s poems, but I hear they are disgraceful.”) The afterword, by a renowned Walt Whitman scholar, David S. Reynolds, is clear and concise, and goes a long way towards putting this work in the historical context out of which it arose. It’s been 150 years. It’s time to reconnect with Walt Whitman.

Mark J. Mitchell’s poems can be found in the anthologies Line Drives and Hunger Enough. His novel, Sir Gawain’s Little Green Book, is available from Xlibris.com.
Last Updated ( Saturday, 15 December 2007 )