sound like an iron chord in Leaves of Grass. In fact, he was proud of his
achievement as a poet of death. Comparing his own pronouncements on
death to those of the religious thinkers of the day, he declared boldly, “I
say better things about death than orthodoxy with all its boasts is saying.”
And he agreed with the comment by his devoted amanuensis Horace
Traubel that “if ‘Leaves of Grass’ is remarkable for anything, it is its cele-
bration of death.” “That’s what we think,” he responded, “but they don’t,
or won’t, see it.”^1
Although Whitman’s treatment of death has not been a primary con-
cern of Whitman scholars in recent years, many of his contemporaries
recognized his preeminence as a poet of death. Ethnologist Daniel G.
Brinton displayed a sharp insight into the role that death plays in Whit-
man’s poetry:
Saturated as they are with the zest of life, marvelously sensitive
as they are to every passing thrill of pleasure, to every glad sound
or sight, they are essential peans [sic] of Death. Whatever is, is of
worth as part of the I, and only of worth as that I is immortal, is
the de¤ant conqueror of Death and Time. This was no matter of
tradition or education with Walt. It was the inevitable product
of his genius, the logical result of his conception of man and the
universe. Both, to him, were futile and worthless without the
continuance of the mortal life hereafter. This alone, to his mind,
offered a rational cause for existence. Unless the individual sur-
vives the mutation of matter, the universe is purposeless.... To
Walt it was the positive conclusion to the severest ratiocination.
It is only with this thought constantly in mind that we can read
the poems intelligently or sympathize with his acute love of life.^2Assessing Whitman’s literary achievement, physician and sexologist Have-
lock Ellis ranked Whitman as “one of the greatest English artists,” one
who “aspires to reveal the loveliness of death” and “speaks not only from
the standpoint of the most intense and vivid delight in the actual world,
but [one who] possesses a practical familiarity with disease and death
which has perhaps never fallen to the lot of a great writer.” And in an
effusive oration at Whitman’s gravesite, orator and skeptic Robert Inger-
soll evaluated the importance of death in the poet’s art:
2 / Introduction