Of Life Immense: The Prophetic Vision of Walt Whitman

Walt Whitman and His new bible! "No one will get at my verses," Walt Whitman wrote, "who insists upon viewing them as a literary performance." He may well be the premier literary figure in American history, and "Leaves of Grass" may be the single most important work in American poetry, but Whitman did not see himself primarily as a literary figure. First and foremost the poet saw himself as a prophet articulating an appropriate religion for his time. He was, he said, "inaugurating a new rel...