Walt Whitman and the Culture of Democracy

Abstract

I THINK THAT WALT WHITMAN a great philosopher of democracy. Indeed, he may be the greatest. As Thoreau said, Whitman is apparently the greatest democrat the world has ever seen.' To put it more academically, he perhaps the greatest philosopher of the culture of democracy. He writes the best phrases and sentences about democracy. By culture, I mean these things especially. First, culture (or can be) the soil for the creation of new works of high art -great poems and moral writings, in particular. Second, culture (or becoming) a particularist stylization of life-that is, a distinctive set of appearances, habits, rituals, dress, ceremonies, folk traditions, and historical memories. Third, culture (or can be) the soil for the emergence of great souls whose greatness consists in themselves being like works of art in the spirit of a new aristocracy. All these meanings are interconnected and appear in Whitman's writings throughout his life. Perhaps they receive their most powerful expression in Democratic Vistas. But, in my judgment, the central meaning when we study Whitman culture as the setting in which what I have elsewhere called democratic (a phrase close to Whitman's usage) slowly being disclosed. I believe that the setting for individuality a greatly more powerful and original idea than any of the other ideas of culture that I have just mentioned.