A Defense of Whitman :: Biography Biographies Essays

A Defense of Whitmanâ â â â â â â â Â â Whether they have adored or abhorred his verse, every essayist or pundit who has experienced Leaves of Grass has needed to go to a type of retribution with Walt Whitman. The Good Gray Poet, the granddad of American verse, has been exalted by a few and named a social and masterful brute by others. While Whitman unreservedly conceded in his introduction to the last distribution of Leaves of Grass that the work was defective and a long way from great, a few pundits see no saving graces in Whitman's craft. Henry James ventures to such an extreme as to state, Whitman's verse...is an offense to workmanship. (James, p.16) James chastens Whitman for praising and abusing what James feels are adages. To James, Whitman's verse is totally overconfident; it needs substance and lucidness. Through an assessment of a particular sonnet, The Wound Dresser, the cases of James and other negative pundits can be refuted.â â â â â Â The broadest and most broad evaluates can be excused most promptly. Henry James blames Whitman for declining to manage testing moral inquiries in his verse. Whitman talks about the shades of malice of war, enduring, and silly passing in realistic detail in The Wound Dresser, however to James these disasters are evident focuses for lesser writers. Â A lot of refrain that is only words has, during the war, been thoughtfully murmured over and removed of paper corners since it had a specific basic song. (James, p.16) Â Â James denies Whitman's verse even a basic tune. Whitman is more an enthusiastic go getter than a writer. James even cases that Whitman's essential objective is the glorification of the Union armed force. The sonnet being referred to, in any case, alludes to an alternate end. (is it accurate to say that one was side so bold? The opposite side was similarly fearless) (Whitman, p.249). In managing assumed axioms Whitman's sonnet starts to pose the inquiry: if the natural wrongs of war, enduring, and silly demise are for sure so agonizingly evident to you, Henry James, and your reality, for what reason would they say they are upheld with such intensity? Why in certainty do they exist by any stretch of the imagination? Whitman happens to compose from a genuine good minority of which Henry James is a section. In this way to name Whitman benevolent is to name James also. Â John Jay Chapman levels the most preposterous assault on Whitman:â â â â â Â â The man [Whitman] knew the world only as an outside eyewitness, he was never a living piece of it, and no negligible spectator can comprehend the life about him.