No More Learning

[Footnote 1: See _The Chronicle_ for 6th July 1867, article _Walt Whitman's
Poems_. ]

[Footnote 2: Since this Prefatory Notice was written [in 1868], another
eulogistic review of Whitman has appeared--that by Mr. Robert Buchanan, in
the _Broadway_. ]

As it was my lot to set down so recently several of the considerations
which seem to me most essential and most obvious in regard to Whitman's
writings, I can scarcely now recur to the subject without either repeating
something of what I then said, or else leaving unstated some points of
principal importance. I shall therefore adopt the simplest course--that of
summarising the critical remarks in my former article; after which, I shall
leave without further development (ample as is the amount of development
most of them would claim) the particular topics there glanced at, and shall
proceed to some other phases of the subject.

Whitman republished in 1867 his complete poetical works in one moderate-
sized volume, consisting of the whole _Leaves of Grass_, with a sort of
supplement thereto named _Songs before Parting_,[3] and of the _Drum Taps_,
with its _Sequel_. It has been intimated that he does not expect to write
any more poems, unless it might be in expression of the religious side of
man's nature. However, one poem on the last American harvest sown and
reaped by those who had been soldiers in the great war, has already
appeared since the volume in question, and has been republished in England.

[Footnote 3: In a copy of the book revised by Whitman himself, which we
have seen, this title is modified into _Songs of Parting_. ]

Whitman's poems present no trace of rhyme, save in a couple or so of chance
instances. Parts of them, indeed, may be regarded as a warp of prose amid
the weft of poetry, such as Shakespeare furnishes the precedent for in
drama. Still there is a very powerful and majestic rhythmical sense
throughout.

Lavish and persistent has been the abuse poured forth upon Whitman by his
own countrymen; the tricklings of the British press give but a moderate
idea of it. The poet is known to repay scorn with scorn. Emerson can,
however, from the first be claimed as on Whitman's side; nor, it is
understood after some inquiry, has that great thinker since then retreated
from this position in fundamentals, although his admiration may have
entailed some worry upon him, and reports of his recantation have been
rife.
Of other writers on Whitman's side, expressing themselves with no
measured enthusiasm, one may cite Mr. M. D. Conway; Mr. W. D. O'Connor, who
wrote a pamphlet named _The Good Grey Poet_; and Mr. John Burroughs, author
of _Walt Whitman as Poet and Person_, published quite recently in New York.
His thorough-paced admirers declare Whitman to be beyond rivalry _the_ poet
of the epoch; an estimate which, startling as it will sound at the first,
may nevertheless be upheld, on the grounds that Whitman is beyond all his
competitors a man of the period, one of audacious personal ascendant,
incapable of all compromise, and an initiator in the scheme and form of his
works.

Certain faults are charged against him, and, as far as they are true, shall
frankly stand confessed--some of them as very serious faults. Firstly, he
speaks on occasion of gross things in gross, crude, and plain terms.
Secondly, he uses some words absurd or ill-constructed, others which
produce a jarring effect in poetry, or indeed in any lofty literature.
Thirdly, he sins from time to time by being obscure, fragmentary, and
agglomerative--giving long strings of successive and detached items, not,
however, devoid of a certain primitive effectiveness. Fourthly, his self-
assertion is boundless; yet not always to be understood as strictly or
merely personal to himself, but sometimes as vicarious, the poet speaking
on behalf of all men, and every man and woman. These and any other faults
appear most harshly on a cursory reading; Whitman is a poet who bears and
needs to be read as a whole, and then the volume and torrent of his power
carry the disfigurements along with it, and away.

The subject-matter of Whitman's poems, taken individually, is absolutely
miscellaneous: he touches upon any and every subject.