The Writer, Volume VI, April 1892. / A Monthly Magazine to Interest and Help All Literary Workers

With the death and burial of Walt Whitman passes away the most picturesque figure of contemporary literature.
It is true that in England the name of the poet is more familiar than his poetry, and that students of literature are more conversant with the nature of his writings than are the mass of general readers; yet the character of the man and the spirit of his compositions were rapidly beginning to be appreciated by, and to sway an influence over, the whole higher intelligence of the country.
Considering the man and his works, it is almost surprising to find how easily he did conquer for himself an audience, and even admirers, in England. He was par excellence a contemporary American. Not that American who clings to the Puritanic traditions of his English ancestors, but that characteristic product of the New World who looks more with eagerness to the future than with satisfaction on the past, and whose pre-eminent optimism is inspired by his ardent appreciation of the living present. Walt Whitman stood forth as an innovator into such realms, where the rigor of conditions demanded an abstract compliance with rules which were based on absolute truths, and where a swerving from them was evidence of impotence. His unconventional forms, the rhymeless rhythm of his verses, which, in appearance, resembled more a careless prosody than a delicately attuned poesy,—this alone was enough to provoke, at first, an incredulous smile, even among those whose tastes were endowed with more penetration. But Walt Whitman stood forth, besides, as the representative of a principle which, as yet, is looked upon with suspicion by the old world,—of the principle of a broad, grand, all-embracing democracy, which elevates manhood above all forms, all conditions, and all limitations.
The question where metre comes in in poetry, whether it is simply a means of accentuating rhythm, and is not the rhythm itself, and whether it is legitimate to do as Whitman did, to prolong the rhythmic phrase at the expense of metre, until the sense is completed,—all this was a problem for the professors and the critics to decide, and they might wrangle as they pleased. But here was Walt Whitman, recognizing no beauty higher than creative nature, recognizing no law greater than the spontaneous dictates of the moral personality; here was Walt Whitman, a pagan, a pantheist, who recognized more divinity in an outcast human being than in a grandly ordained king, who acknowledged nothing higher than the dignity of the human individuality,—all this was enough to make sober people pause and think, if not shudder.