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 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."