Critical Reception

The three critical responses I choose to look at all seem to have read Leaves of Grass as this sort of absurd and unexplainable piece of writing that goes against all classic characteristics of what poetry is. However, despite this opposition to what the critic would normally find to be aesthetically pleasing, there is a sense of beauty that exists, and is even perpetuated, by the critics inability to pinpoint what exactly it is. These three critics seem to focus completely on the images created through Whitman's expansive cataloging. For instance, one of the anonymous critics wrote, "Many of the lines are such perfect pictures in themselves, that an artist might draw them without reference to any other material, and produce pictorial compositions" (The Merchant's Magazine and Commercial Review 34). The most important thing seems to be the beauty that lies in the imagery the poem creates. This is due in large to the fact that these critics are working on the assumption that a poems beauty is created through the classic ideas of poetry structure in addition to the images created and they seem to be portraying Leaves of Grass as a success in spite of instead of because of the unusual structure.

Another critic says that "They are destitute of rhyme, measure of feet, and the like, every condition under which poetry is generally understood to exist being absent; but in their strength of expression, their fervor, hearty wholesomeness, their originality, mannerism, and freshness, one finds them a singular harmony and flow, as if by reading, they gradually formed themselves into a melody, and adopted characteristics peculiar and appropriate to themselves alone"(The London Weekly Dispatch). This critic explains exactly what it is without even realizing it. Instead of Leave's of Grass being beautiful despite is lack of normal poetic structure, this critic shows that this is actually the exact reason it is beautiful.

Whitman's contemporary critics that I read placed much of the volumes importance within the framework of knowing who Walt Whitman is and only touch on the thematic significance of the book. One anonymous critic writes, "He will soon make his way into the confidence of his readers, and his poems in time will become pregnant text-book, out of which quotation as sterling as the minted gold will be taken and applied to every form and phase of the inner or the outer life; and we express our pleasure in making the acquaintance of Walt Whitman, hoping to know more of him in time to come." So on one hand, some of these critics are aware of the destined greatness of Whitman but no one is able to specify reasons for this. The underlying themes of the book and the meaning beyond Whitman as the narrator weren't discussed very much.