No More Learning

The type of that edition was set up entirely by himself. He was moved to
undertake this formidable poetic work (as indicated in a private letter of
Whitman's, from which Mr. Conway has given a sentence or two) by his sense
of the great materials which America could offer for a really American
poetry, and by his contempt for the current work of his
compatriots--"either the poetry of an elegantly weak sentimentalism, at
bottom nothing but maudlin puerilities or more or less musical verbiage,
arising out of a life of depression and enervation as their result; or else
that class of poetry, plays, &c. , of which the foundation is feudalism,
with its ideas of lords and ladies, its imported standard of gentility, and
the manners of European high-life-below-stairs in every line and verse. "
Thus incited to poetic self-expression, Whitman (adds Mr. Conway) "wrote on
a sheet of paper, in large letters, these words, 'Make the Work,' and fixed
it above his table, where he could always see it whilst writing.
Thenceforth every cloud that flitted over him, every distant sail, every
face and form encountered, wrote a line in his book. "

The _Leaves of Grass_ excited no sort of notice until a letter from
Emerson[5] appeared, expressing a deep sense of its power and magnitude. He
termed it "the most extraordinary piece of wit and wisdom that America has
yet contributed. "

[Footnote 5: Mr. Burroughs (to whom I have recourse for most biographical
facts concerning Whitman) is careful to note, in order that no
misapprehension may arise on the subject, that, up to the time of his
publishing the _Leaves of Grass_, the author had not read either the essays
or the poems of Emerson. ]

The edition of about a thousand copies sold off in less than a year.
Towards the end of 1856 a second edition in 16mo appeared, printed in New
York, also of about a thousand copies. Its chief feature was an additional
poem beginning "A Woman waits for me. " It excited a considerable storm.
Another edition, of about four to five thousand copies, duodecimo, came out
at Boston in 1860-61, including a number of new pieces. The _Drum Taps_,
consequent upon the war, with their _Sequel_, which comprises the poem on
Lincoln, followed in 1865; and in 1867, as I have already noted, a complete
edition of all the poems, including a supplement named _Songs before
Parting_. The first of all the _Leaves of Grass_, in point of date, was the
long and powerful composition entitled _Walt Whitman_--perhaps the most
typical and memorable of all of his productions, but shut out from the
present selection for reasons given further on. The final edition shows
numerous and considerable variations from all its precursors; evidencing
once again that Whitman is by no means the rough-and-ready writer,
panoplied in rude art and egotistic self-sufficiency, that many people
suppose him to be. Even since this issue, the book has been slightly
revised by its author's own hand, with a special view to possible English
circulation. The copy so revised has reached me (through the liberal and
friendly hands of Mr. Conway) after my selection had already been decided
on; and the few departures from the last printed text which might on
comparison be found in the present volume are due to my having had the
advantage of following this revised copy. In all other respects I have felt
bound to reproduce the last edition, without so much as considering whether
here and there I might personally prefer the readings of the earlier
issues.

The selection here offered to the English reader contains a little less
than half the entire bulk of Whitman's poetry. My choice has proceeded upon
two simple rules: first, to omit entirely every poem which could with any
tolerable fairness be deemed offensive to the feelings of morals or
propriety in this peculiarly nervous age; and, second, to include every
remaining poem which appeared to me of conspicuous beauty or interest. I
have also inserted the very remarkable prose preface which Whitman printed
in the original edition of _Leaves of Grass_, an edition that has become a
literary rarity. This preface has not been reproduced in any later
publication, although its materials have to some extent been worked up into
poems of a subsequent date. [6] From this prose composition, contrary to
what has been my rule with any of the poems, it has appeared to me
permissible to omit two or three short phrases which would have shocked
ordinary readers, and the retention of which, had I held it obligatory,
would have entailed the exclusion of the preface itself as a whole.

[Footnote 6: Compare, for instance, the Preface, pp. 38, 39, with the poem
_To a Foiled Revolter or Revoltress_, p. 133.