The Worthington advance. [volume] (Worthington, Minn.) 1874-1908, 1881-12-22
THE FIRST AMERICAN POET.

THE FIRST AMERICAN POET
Walt Whilindn.-.Justice ut laSt-A
Great Poet Completes q Great Work.
The announcement was made some
time ago that Walt Whitman was in
Boston personally experimenting the
publication Of his poems under the title
of Leaves of Grass, " the name used in
issuing his first thin volume, which
threw all the conventional critics into
spasshs of laughter and disgust. But
twenty years have wrought a mighty
change. Whitman has steadily grown
III favor in Europe and hence his own
countrymen have taken him up and
have gradually come to see that a great
and original poet has been among
them.
James R. OsgoSd & Co., Of Boston,
have just issued volume Of 1872 pages
containing Whitman's complete works.
It is now discovered that from the be-
ginning the poet had a purpose to
which he has steadily adhered; that for
thirty years he has been laboring on u
great work with one aim, and that what
seemed fragmentary were the parts of a
great Whole, the segmcn,s Of Il mighty
circle, which the purblird public could
not see or comprehend at one view.
The Pioneer Press 4 few days ago
noticed these poems in Il colemn arti.
Gle, doing justice to the poems and the
poet. From England and America we
expect to hear reversal Of the judy
aent of tile flippant and shallow critics
0f twenty years ago and henceforth
Walt Whitman vii! take u permanent
place in history as the father and foun.
der Of dlstinctively American liter
ature.
We rejoice at this. for We were among
those who first hailed Whitman as po-
etc star Of great magnitude rising over
the horizon. In the year 1860, we pub
lished a literary paper called 1.-The
Fireside" in which we devoted Il page
to Whitman, quoting from the West
minister Review al adverse criticism
and taking issue with the shallow re-
viewer. The British reviewer thus
spoke of the poems:
III form these poems, if poems they
can be called. are composed Of irregu lar
rhythmical Lines, after the manner OF
Topper. and III fact they may M de-
scribed by the following equation as
Upper is to English Humdrum, so is
Walt Whitman to the American Row.
dy.
That = drunken Halot should dis
play himself without shame in the mar
ket place, speaks sad reproacl, to the
public that does not. scourge him back
to his cellar.
To this the Cincinnati Commercial
added:
This is deserved, aud yet there are
dirty dogs and ounces who praise Whit
mans indecency, and Call him mas
culine poet" because lie is an obscure
ass.
In reply to this we said twenty-one
years ago, page 106 Of the ''Fireside:"
Nevertheless, Walt Whitman is \
poet. We expected better things of
the Westminster Review. The above
is of that shallow kind of criticism
which founders about on the surface
and cannot reach down and feel the
drift and great undercurre,,t of work.
Whitman Is rs much i wOrd-painler us
Bryant and \ great deal more original,
simple and masculine. No writer has
eyer given such a complete and natural
picture of the external life OF America.
The man who is too much shocked by
its 'indecency" to find any beauty in
LEAVES IF Grass" must have very
tasty taste. Whitman is q poet, but u
poet rather in the rough.
We envy Mr.. Conway, of the Dial, -
his remark, viz: "Walt Whitman has
set the pulses Of America to sml,sic:.''
There il more business and apprecia-
ton, and comprehensive criticism i'll
that short sentence than in all the con-
servative critics have SAID about Whit.
man.
We well remember how the ''thothie-
tyr editors and the smart youths s:hose
conception Of poetry extended only to
"Marco Bozzdris" and "Holenlinden' -
jeered at these poems! How they refer
red to the poet himself rs u product OF
the I" Brooklyn Flats" and as tile "rt d.
shirted omnibus driver" of the metrop-
oils. Yet Walt Whitman has made Il
profound impression on his time. And
while he will probably not he generally
read any more than Ghaucer is. Yet
the time will come when Whitman will
be looked upon as.the father Of an A.
mercsn literature, tllst is of litcra.
tare d;st:nctively and in all respects A.
nerican, without any kingly, or mon
orchical o. European Influences in it.
He has laid the foundations, started
The idea, Of a genuine Democratic, New
World, thoroughly American .litera-
ture, and after him will come some great
poet who will he the Shakespeare to this
Chaucer. Moreover lie is Il genuine
American man, the most origina! and
tr.lest Democrat Of his time. Tie man
is greater than his poems. Ills works,
as the expression of i thoroughly Origi-
nal, democratic, human being, are i'll
valuable, and on this foundation some
mighty genius hereafter will build :.
literature and the gates of hell and
time shall not prevail against it. Long
fellow, Bryant, Whittier, Lowell and
the rest will be remembered in the Cy-
clopedias as poets who did crefitable
work in English literature, but Whit
man and his class will loom over the
future us the founders and makers Of
an american literature.
CREIj lfEKIEN.
Messrs. Sampson 4 French, of Storm
Lake, Iowa, write to the Jackson Re.
public upon the subject of creameries.
They are operating one of the largest
creameries in Iowa, and are intelligent
men. They say: