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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, "inauguarating a new religion." He was attempting to write a new bible! Whitman had profound respect for the founders of the great world religions, but felt they spoke to a world long past and not to the modern world . There are many books on Walt Whitman as a poet, but "Of Life Immense" may very well represent the most comprehensive attempt ever to take Whitman seriously and to describe in outline form the major themes of his "new bible," to deal systematically with the major doctrines of his "new religion."

From the time Walt Whitman began work on his great book, "Leaves of Grass," he thought in terms of writing a new Bible for a new world. Throughout his life he thought of himself as a poet/prophet who was attempting to articulate a religious vision appropriate for the modern world. He had hoped that the people of America, a land he truly loved, would read his book, accept his vision and recognze him as a prophet. "The proof of a poet," he wrote in the last words of his preface to the first edition of "Leaves of Grass," "is that his country absorbs him as affectionately as he has absorbed it." That did not happen. The nation did not "absorb" his prophetic vision. His book did not become the Bible of the western world.

The completion of the work had to be left to future generations. Walt Whitman planted the "germs of a greater religion" and it was up to others to cultivate them, nurture them, and bring them to full growth so that they could bear fruit.