Specimen Days: "My Tribute to Four Poets"

Whitman is responding to his critics, those that think he regards his contemporaries with ill will, by openly expressing admiration for his peers, including Emerson, Longfellow, Bryant, and Whittier. “I can’t imagine any better luck befalling these States for a poetical beginning and initiation,” he writes. Did the critics believe he was “deriding” these poets simply because his style and approach was markedly different from theirs? It seems so. But Whitman corrects them by not only announcing his appreciation for these poets’ work, but reasons for that appreciation—Emerson for his “vital-tasting melody”; Longfellow for his “rich color”; Bryant for “ever conveying a taste of open air”; and Whittier for his “moral energy.”

In my previous blog post, I pointed out the differences in style between Whitman, Bryant and Whittier. This did not mean that Whitman detested that kind of work. He recognized these voices as the beginning of a distinctly American poetry. He clearly respected them. However, it’s hard to say from the entry whether Whitman actually enjoyed the poetry of Bryant and Whittier. When he says that they constitute a “beginning” and an “initiation” to poetry in America, I think its rather indicative of his thinking. Maybe he believed that these poets had built a foundation, and that now a new poetry could be built, and would be built on that foundation.. It's worth noting that both Bryant and Whittier have fallen into obscurity since their time, and that their names mean next to nothing to most people in America, unlike Walt Whitman.