himself, must be on the alert, must himself or herself construct indeed the poem ... metaphysical essay-the text furnishing the hints, the clue, the start or framework."1) (We notice particularly what he says here and are taking "Leaves of Grass" for our "poem" and "Democratic Vistas" for our "metaphysical essay".)

Let us now consider the age in which Whitman lived. Whitman lived in the nineteenth century, at a time when the transcendental movement was sweeping over the United States and found its highest expression in the works of Emerson. This movement can be traced back to its origin through Coleridge, the mystical seer Swedenborg, the German idealists: Fichte, Schelling, Hegel and Kant, and thence to Plato. All of these men Whitman recognized and read with deepest interest, and from them, undoubtedly, drew much poetic inspiration. Furthermore, he lived at a time when the American nation was in its second formative state and was carrying on its second war 2) for the Idea. The effect that these movements or influences, especially the Civil War, had on Whitman is at once apparent in his writings. We may at times wish to comfort ourselves, not so much in our position relative to the transcendental movement as in our attempt to understand Whitman's speculative poems (however impossible) this may be), by recalling to mind Charles Dickens' experience when he was in Boston. Dickens declared that he was left under the impression that whatever was unintelligible was transcendental". It is not to be hoped that the converse of this was meant to be true, although the particular reader may often deplore the fact that Whitman allowed himself to be saturated with so much transcendentalism, however good its material may be for poetry.

1) p. 81.

2) The Civil War, 1861-1865.

3) Whitman himself says: "For I lull nobody, and you will never understand me". (To a Certain Civilian.)

Both in theory and in practice, strictly speaking, Whitman cannot be said to belong to any particular school— he is so original and different from all others (eccentric, as his enemies1) call him) that he is a school by himself or the founder of a school which common authority is becoming less reluctant to recognize, a school which, if it has not anticipated, has, at least, grown up alongside of that vast humanitarian movement sweeping over the whole American democracy and involving the principles of right living along real, genuine and scientific lines. The nearest that can be said is something like this, that he belongs among the metaphysical poets or that he is a "Back-to-Nature" poet. Nor does he acknowledge, and much less does he claim, any connection:

"In the midst of all it (Leaves of Grass) gives one man's - author's identity, ardors, observations, faiths and thoughts, colored hardly at all with any coloring from other faiths, other authors, other identities or times... unstopped and unwarped by any influence outside the soul within me, I have had my say entirely my own way, and put it unerringly on record." (My Book And I.)

Our study, therefore, will not be one of comparison, but rather one of implied contrast. Between two extremes, Whitman usually takes an intermediate position - he is so fond of the fair average” — and where there is only one extreme, he feels that a readjustment should set

1) ""I find a solid line of enemies to you everywhere'. Letter from W. S. K." (My Book And I.)

There probably never has been a writer over whom there has been more controversy than over Whitman. In the eyes of his admirers, "a small band of the dearest friends and upholders ever vouchsafed to man or cause", he is the greatest poet, the, prophet-poet, of America's democracy. His picture forms the frontispiece of W. J. Linton's "Poetry of America". Essays showing in what high regard he is held by still others are: "Democratic Art; with special reference to Walt Whitman", by J. A. Symmonds "The Poet of Democracy", by Edward Dowden; "Walt Whitman as Poet and Person" by John Burroughs; etc. Biographers are Richard Maurice Bucke and Wm. Clarke (London 1892).

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something to offset, to form a balance and so often-times he carries himself to what seems to be the ridiculous extreme. To him the scale of America's poetry is out of balance, and something must be done to restore the balance. There are two ways: either to take off from the one pan the excess weight or to put on the other pan an equal weight. Whitman chooses the latter generally-to be "modified and temper'd".

It will be observed further that few are the works of literature into which the personality of the author enters so strongly, or seems to thrust itself so forcibly upon the reader. In fact, "the volumes were intended to be most decided, serious bona-fide expressions of an identical individual personality—egotism if you choose".1), In almost every line is reflected his positive or his negative conscious self. This conscious self is Whitman, the philosopher-"poet", as seen through the side-lights which he himself throws on the portrait. Over and against this will be the unconscious self of Whitman, the philosopher-poet, as seen through the light of timeworn standards of criticism. We shall not act contrary to Whitman's will (even though he says, "that the largely prevailing range of criticism on my book has been either mockery or denunciation-and that I, as its author, have been the marked object of two or three to me pretty serious) official buffetings-is probably no more than I ought to have expected",1) by throwing the searchlight of these standards upon him and his works, upon his "speech... a failure by the standard called criticism",") but we shall rather apply, according to directions or indirections,3) his own test to the

1) A Backward Glance.

2) p. 37.

3) "No one will get at my verses who insists upon viewing them as a literary performance or attempt at such performance, or as aiming mainly toward art and aestheticism." (How I made a Book.)

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genuineness of the portrait and at the same time seek to reconcile the two. Ours will be a process of synthesis rather than of analysis.

And now for a key to our study. Whitman, as we shall observe, is a scholasticist in the strictest sense of the word, and at the same time a prophet. If, therefore, after having tested the sincerity of his faith ("Faith without works is dead", says Saint James), we wish to get to a full appreciation of his teachings, we must first accept with him the dogma of democracy (say "Credo ut intelligam"), or at least put ourselves into that mental attitude in which we may get into harmony with the dogma, and then reason with him to prove the reasonableness of the dogma, the truth as by faith we see it. First faith and then reason, is about the only avenue left open to us, surely the only avenue where the inner-light 2) does not lead to the self-evident truth at once. (We are not forgetting in our consideration that prejudices will be at variance with one another.) In this way and this way only shall we insure Whitman the full justice he asks, whatever inconsistencies he may be guilty of will come to light, and he will be given the true place he holds as poet. Our work will then resolve itself into one, not of biography, criticism, or the like, but of labelling and cataloging within the boundary of our subject.

If one should feel inclined to do so, one might find in Whitman's works much room for harsh literary criticism, as intimated above. Whitman encroaches so freely upon the laws (so-called) governing the premises of the

"For grounds for 'Leaves of Grass' for poetry I have abandoned the conventional themes, which do not appear in it: none of the stock-ornamentation, or choice of plots of love or war, or high, exceptional personages of Old World song; nothing as I may say, for beauty's sake. . . no legend or myth, or romance, nor euphemism, nor rhyme." (My Book and I.)

1) Whitman is a mysticist, making the inner-light the ultimate point of truth.

various phases of literature that he allows himself to be attacked from all sides, but then, too, very often, in quick retreat he betakes himself to a position so lofty and so securely his own that he cannot be approached or assailed with any weapon of offence. At such or other times he comes out so nakedly into the open field (demonstrating his doctrine of the freedom of the Will) and exposes himself so defiantly to his hostile critics that an attack upon him with all the implements for use in modern tactics of literary warfare would seem ridiculous. Such criticism, however, is not included within the scope of our present work-we will leave it to history alone to prove, as he himself hopes, whether he is the David that slew the colossal Goliaths of literature, whether then hot from surrounding war and revolution, our speech. comes forth real as the lightnings" (p. 37). So much is evident, however: he is often guilty of such incorrect speech (grammatically speaking), and of such ineffective or obscure language (rhetorically speaking and making due allowance for mannerisms), that it is necessary to recast or retouch these expressions before they can be accepted as true vistas. Good examples are: "Observing... art" (p. 74); "Leaping... demands", (p. 16). It may be mentioned also that it is interesting to notice how skilful, so to speak, Whitman is in clothing the same thought in different words, or in redundancy of thought. For example, paragraphs in Democratic Vistas referring to the same subject are: 68, 98, 107; 24, 34, 44, 109, etc. The same thing is true also in "Leaves of Grass".

Part I. Subject-Matter of "Leaves of Grass”. (With special reference to "Democratic Vistas".)

Purpose of the poems: "I would sing solely with reference to America and myself and to-day", but "we have to say there can be no complete or epical presen