Leaves of Grass

Leaves of Grass is a poetry collection by American poet Walt Whitman. After self-publishing it in 1855, he spent most of his professional life writing, revising, and expanding the collection until his death in 1892. Either six or nine separate editions of the book were produced, depending on how one defines a new edition. The continual modifications to Leaves of Grass resulted in vastly different copies of it circulating in Whitman's lifetime. The first edition was a slim tract of twelve poems, and the last was a compilation of over 400 poems.
The book represents a celebration of Whitman's philosophy of life and humanity in which he praises nature and the individual's role in it. He catalogues the expansiveness of American democracy. Rather than dwell on religious or spiritual themes, he focuses primarily on the body and the material world. With very few exceptions, Whitman's poems do not rhyme or follow conventional rules for meter and line length.
Leaves of Grass was notable for its discussion of delight in sensual pleasures at a time when such candid displays were considered immoral. The book was highly controversial for its explicit sexual imagery, and Whitman was subject to derision by many contemporary critics. Over the decades, however, the collection has infiltrated popular culture and become recognized as one of the central works of American poetry.
Among the poems in the early Leaves of Grass editions (albeit sometimes under different titles) were "Song of Myself", "Song of the Open Road", "I Sing the Body Electric", "Out of the Cradle Endlessly Rocking", and "Crossing Brooklyn Ferry". Later editions would contain Whitman's elegy to the assassinated President Abraham Lincoln, "When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom'd".
The first edition of Leaves of Grass was self-published on July 4, 1855. This collection of twelve poems had its beginnings in an essay by Ralph Waldo Emerson entitled "The Poet" (1844), which called for the United States to develop its own new, unique poet who could write about the young country's virtues and vices. This call, along with a challenge to abandon strict rhyme and meter, were partly embodied in the early 19th century works of John Neal: in his poems as well as his novels Randolph (1823) and Rachel Dyer (1828). Whitman, likely having read Neal, consciously set out to answer Emerson's call in the first edition of Leaves of Grass. Whitman later commented on Emerson's influence: "I was simmering, simmering, simmering; Emerson brought me to a boil."
On May 15, 1855, Whitman registered the title Leaves of Grass with the clerk of the United States District Court, Southern District of New Jersey, and received its copyright. The title is a pun, as grass was a term given by publishers to works of minor value, and leaves is another name for the pages on which they were printed. The first edition was published in Brooklyn at the printing shop of two Scottish immigrants, James and Andrew Rome, whom Whitman had known since the 1840s. The shop was located at Fulton Street (now Cadman Plaza West) and Cranberry Street, now the site of apartment buildings that bear Whitman's name. Whitman paid for and did much of the typesetting for the first edition himself.
A calculated feature of the first edition was that it included neither the author's nor the publisher's name (both the author and publisher being Whitman). Instead, the cover included an engraving by Samuel Hollyer depicting Whitman himself—in work clothes and a jaunty hat, arms at his side. This figure was meant to represent the devil-may-care American working man of the time, one who might be taken as an almost idealized figure in any crowd. The engraver, later commenting on his depiction, described the character with "a rakish kind of slant, like the mast of a schooner".
The 1855 edition contained no table of contents, and none of the poems had a title. Early advertisements appealed to "lovers of literary curiosities" as an oddity. Sales of the book were few, but the poet was not discouraged. This was the edition that introduced Whitman's poems "Song of Myself", "I Sing the Body Electric", and "There Was a Child Went Forth".
One paper-bound copy of the 1855 Leaves of Grass was sent to Emerson, who had inspired its creation. He responded with a letter of heartfelt thanks, writing, "I find it the most extraordinary piece of wit and wisdom America has yet contributed." He went on, "I am very happy in reading it, as great power makes us happy." The letter was printed in the New York Tribune—without the writer's permission—and caused an uproar among prominent New England men of letters, including Henry David Thoreau and Amos Bronson Alcott, who were some of the few Transcendentalists who agreed with Emerson's letter and his statements regarding Leaves of Grass.
The first edition was a slim volume, consisting of only 95 pages. Whitman once said he intended the book to be small enough to be carried in a pocket: "That would tend to induce people to take me along with them and read me in the open air: I am nearly always successful with the reader in the open air", he explained. About 800 copies were printed, though only 200 were bound in its trademark green cloth cover. The only American library known to have purchased a copy of the first edition was in Philadelphia. The twelve first edition poems, given titles in later editions, included:
Leaves of Grass went through six or nine editions, depending on how new editions are distinguished. Scholars who hold that a separate edition is characterized by an entirely new set of type will only count the 1855, 1856, 1860, 1867, 1871–72, and 1881 printings; whereas others who do not mandate that criterion will also count the reprintings in 1876, 1888–1889, and 1891–1892 (the so-called "deathbed edition"). The editions were of varying length, each one larger and augmented from the previous version—the final edition reached over 400 poems.
Emerson's positive response to the 1855 edition inspired Whitman to quickly produce a much-expanded second edition in 1856. This new Leaves of Grass contained 384 pages and had a cover price of one dollar. It also included a phrase from Emerson's letter, printed in gold leaf: "I Greet You at the Beginning of a Great Career." Recognized as a "first" for U.S. book publishing and marketing techniques, Whitman has been cited as "inventing" the use of the book blurb. Professor Laura Dassow Walls noted, "In one stroke, Whitman had given birth to the modern cover blurb, quite without Emerson's permission." Emerson later took offense that his letter was made public and became more critical of Whitman's work. The 1856 edition added "Sun-Down Poem" (retitled "Crossing Brooklyn Ferry" in the 1860 edition) and "Poem of Procreation" (retitled "A Woman Waits for Me" in the 1867 edition).
Thayer & Eldridge, publishers of the 1860 edition, declared bankruptcy shortly after the book's publication, and were almost unable to pay Whitman. "In regard to money matters", they wrote, "we are very short ourselves and it is quite impossible to send the sum". Whitman received only $250, and the original plates made their way to Boston publisher Horace Wentworth. When the 456-page book was finally issued, Whitman said, "It is quite 'odd', of course", referring to its appearance: it was bound in orange cloth with symbols like a rising sun with nine spokes of light and a butterfly perched on a hand. Whitman claimed that the butterfly was real in order to foster his image as being "one with nature". In fact, the butterfly was made of cloth and was attached to his finger with wire. The major poems added to this edition were "A Word Out of the Sea" (later retitled "Out of the Cradle Endlessly Rocking"), "Whoever You Are Holding Me Now in Hand", "I Hear America Singing", and "As I Ebb'd With the Ocean of Life".
The 1867 edition was intended to be, according to Whitman, "a new & much better edition of Leaves of Grass complete — that unkillable work!" He assumed it would be the final edition. It included the Drum-Taps section, its Sequel, and the new Songs before Parting. The book was delayed when the binder went bankrupt and its distributing firm failed. When it was finally printed, it was a simple edition and the first to omit a picture of the poet.
In 1879, Richard Worthington purchased the electrotype plates and began printing and marketing unauthorized copies of Leaves of Grass.
Whitman scholar Dennis Renner has written that the 1881 edition gave the poet "a chance to consolidate and unify his work late in his career. He could achieve 'the consecutiveness and ensemble' he had always wanted". He spent the summer of 1881 revising the book and oversaw its October publication in Boston by James R. Osgood and Co. Most modern reissues of Leaves of Grass treat the 1881 edition as the definitive collection. This edition incorporated poems from his prior collections, Passage to India (1871) and Two Rivulets (1876).
The 1889 (eighth) edition was little changed from the 1881 version, but it was more embellished and featured several portraits of Whitman. The biggest change was the addition of an "Annex" of miscellaneous extra poems.
By its later editions, Leaves of Grass had grown to 14 sections:
Earlier editions contained a section called "Chants Democratic"; later editions omitted some of the poems from this section, publishing others in "Calamus" and other sections.
As 1891 came to a close, Whitman prepared a final edition of Leaves of Grass. By this time, he was wheelchair-bound, having suffered a series of strokes that left him partially paralyzed. He wrote to a friend after finishing the final edition: "L. of G. at last complete — after 33 y'rs of hackling at it, all times & moods of my life, fair weather & foul, all parts of the land, and peace & war, young & old." This last version of Leaves of Grass was published in 1892 and is referred to as the 'deathbed edition'. In January 1892, two months before Whitman's death, an announcement was published in the New York Herald:
By 1892, Leaves of Grass had expanded from a small book of twelve poems to a hefty tome of almost 400 poems. As the volume changed, so did the pictures that Whitman used to illustrate himself—the last edition depicts an older Whitman with a full beard and wearing a jacket.
In 1995, Dail Glaswellt, the Welsh language translation was published.
Analysis of Leaves of Grass is complicated by Whitman's continual revisions to the book. Most scholarly discussions have concentrated on the major early editions of 1856 and 1860, along with the collections published in 1881 and 1892. The later editions of Leaves of Grass would include such well-known poems as "Pioneers! O Pioneers!", "A Noiseless Patient Spider", and the poet's elegies to Abraham Lincoln, "O Captain! My Captain!" and "When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom'd".
While Whitman famously proclaimed (in "Song of Myself") that his poetry was "Nature without check with original energy", literary scholars have discovered that Whitman borrowed from a number of sources for Leaves of Grass. For instance, in his war poems collected in Drum-Taps, he lifted phrases from popular newspapers dealing with Civil War battles. He also condensed a chapter from a popular science book into his poem "The World Below the Brine".
In a constantly changing culture, Whitman's literature has an element of timelessness that appeals to the American notion of democracy and equality, producing the same experience and feelings within people living centuries apart. Originally written at a time of significant urbanization in America, Leaves of Grass also responds to the impact such has on the masses. The title metaphor of grass, however, indicates a pastoral vision of rural idealism.
Particularly in "Song of Myself", Whitman emphasizes an all-powerful "I" who serves as narrator. The "I" attempts to relieve both social and private problems by using powerful affirmative cultural images; the emphasis on American culture in particular helped reach Whitman's intention of creating a distinctly American epic poem comparable to the works of Homer.
As a believer in phrenology, Whitman lists in his 1855 Leaves of Grass preface the phrenologist among those described as "the lawgivers of poets". Borrowing from phrenology, Whitman uses the concept of adhesiveness in reference to the human propensity for friendship and camaraderie.
Whitman edited, revised, and republished Leaves of Grass many times before his death, and over the years his focus and ideas were not static. One critic has identified three major "thematic drifts" in Leaves of Grass: the period from 1855 to 1859, from 1859 to 1865, and from 1866 to his death.
In the first period, 1855 to 1859, his major work is "Song of Myself", which exemplifies his love for freedom: "Freedom in nature, nature which is perfect in time and place and freedom in expression, leading to the expression of love in its sensuous form." The second period, from 1859 to 1865, paints the picture of a more melancholic, sober poet who has been scarred by the American Civil War. In poems like "Out of the Cradle Endlessly Rocking" and "When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom'd", the prevailing theme is death and dying.
Whitman experienced further evolution in the post-1865 period when his poems were often meditations on immortality. He grew more conservative in his old age, and had come to value the importance of law above the importance of freedom. His view of the world was less materialistic and more spiritual, and he believed that life had no meaning outside the context of God's plan.
When Leaves of Grass was first published, Whitman was fired from his job at the Department of the Interior after Secretary of the Interior James Harlan read it and said he found it offensive. An early review of the 1855 edition focused on the persona of the anonymous poet, calling him a loafer "with a certain air of mild defiance, and an expression of pensive insolence on his face". Another reviewer labeled the work an odd attempt at reviving old Transcendental thoughts, "the speculations of that school of thought which culminated at Boston fifteen or eighteen years ago". Emerson approved of the collection in part because he considered it a means of reviving Transcendentalism, though even he urged Whitman to tone down the sexual imagery.
Poet John Greenleaf Whittier was said to have thrown his 1855 edition into the fire. Thomas Wentworth Higginson wrote, "It is no discredit to Walt Whitman that he wrote Leaves of Grass, only that he did not burn it afterwards." The Saturday Press printed a thrashing review that advised its author to commit suicide.
Critic Rufus Wilmot Griswold reviewed Leaves of Grass in the November 10, 1855 issue of The Criterion, calling it "a mass of stupid filth", and categorized its author as a filthy free lover. Griswold also suggested, in Latin, that Whitman was guilty of "that horrible sin not to be mentioned among Christians", one of the earliest public accusations of Whitman's homosexuality. Griswold's intensely negative review almost caused the publication of the second edition to be suspended. Whitman incorporated the full review, including the innuendo, in a later edition of Leaves of Grass.
Not all responses were negative. Critic William Michael Rossetti considered Leaves of Grass a classic along the lines of the works of William Shakespeare and Dante Alighieri. A Connecticut woman named Susan Garnet Smith wrote to Whitman to profess her love for him after reading Leaves of Grass and even offered him her womb should he want a child. Although he found much of the language "reckless and indecent", critic and editor George Ripley believed "isolated portions" of Leaves of Grass radiated "vigor and quaint beauty".
Whitman firmly believed he would be accepted and embraced by the populace, especially the working class. Years later, he regretted not having toured the country to deliver his poetry directly by lecturing:
On March 1, 1882, Boston district attorney Oliver Stevens wrote to Whitman's publisher, James R. Osgood, that Leaves of Grass constituted "obscene literature". Urged by the New England Society for the Suppression of Vice, his letter said:
Stevens demanded the removal of the poems "A Woman Waits for Me" and "To a Common Prostitute", as well as changes to "Song of Myself", "From Pent-Up Aching Rivers", "I Sing the Body Electric", "Spontaneous Me", "Native Moments", "The Dalliance of the Eagles", "By Blue Ontario's Shore", "Unfolded Out of the Folds", "The Sleepers", and "Faces".
Whitman rejected the censorship, writing to Osgood, "The list whole & several is rejected by me, & will not be thought of under any circumstances." Osgood refused to republish the book and returned the plates to Whitman when his suggested changes and deletions were ignored. The poet found a different publisher, Rees Welsh & Company, that released a new edition of the book in 1882. Whitman believed the controversy would increase sales, which proved true. Its banning in Boston, for example, became a major scandal and it generated much publicity for Whitman and his work. Though it was also banned by retailers like Wanamaker's in Philadelphia, this version went through five editions of 1,000 copies each. Its first printing, released on July 18, sold out in a day.
Its status as one of the more important collections of American poetry has meant that over time various groups and movements have used Leaves of Grass, and Whitman's work in general, to advance their own political and social purposes. For example:
Nevertheless, Whitman has been criticized for the nationalism expressed in Leaves of Grass and other works. In a 2009 essay regarding Whitman's nationalism in the first edition, Nathanael O'Reilly claims that "Whitman's imagined America is arrogant, expansionist, hierarchical, racist and exclusive; such an America is unacceptable to Native Americans, African-Americans, immigrants, the disabled, the infertile, and all those who value equal rights."