Democratic Vistas and Other Papers

“MAINLY I think I should base the request to weigh the following pages on the assumption that they present, however indirectly, some views of the West and Modern, or of a distinctly western and modern (American) tendency, about certain matters. 


Then too, the pages include (by attempting to illustrate it,) a theory herein immediately mentioned. For another and different point of the issue, the Enlightenment, Democracy and Fair-show of the bulk, the common people of America (from sources representing not only the British Islands, but all the world,) means, at least, eligibility to Enlightenment, Democracy and Fair-show for the bulk, the common people of all civilized nations. 


That positively “the dry land has appeared,” at any rate, is an important fact America is really the great test or trial case for all the problems and promises and speculations of humanity, and of the past and present I say, too, we are not to look so much to changes, ameliorations, and adaptations in Politics as to those of Literature and (thence) domestic Sociology. I have accordingly in the following melange introduced many themes besides political ones. 


Several of the pieces are ostensibly in explanation of my own writings; but in that very process they best include and set forth their side of principles and generalities pressing vehemently for consideration our age. 


Upon the whole, it is on the atmosphere they are born in, and, (I hope) give out, more than any specific piece or trait, I would care to rest. 


I think Literature—a new, superb, democratic literature—is to be the medicine and lever, and (with Art) the chief influence in modern civilization. I have myself not so much made a dead set at this theory, or attempted to present it directly, as admitted it to color and sometimes dominate what I had to say. In both Europe and America we have serried phalanxes who promulge and defend the political claims: I go for an equal force to uphold the other. 


WALT WHITMAN 

Camden, New Jersey, 

April 1888” 


This classic includes the following essays: 


Democratic Vistas 


A Backward Glance on My Own Road 


Our Eminent Visitors (Past, Present, and Future) 


A Thought on Shakspere 


What Lurks Behind Shakspere’s Historical Plays 


Robert Burns as Poet and Person 


A Word About Tennyson 


“How I Made a Book.” 


Five Thousand Poems 


Notes Left Over 

Nationality—(And Yet.) 

Emerson’s Books, (The Shadows of Them.) 

Ventures, on an Old Theme 

British Literature 

Darwinism—(Then Furthermore.) 

“Society.” 

The Tramp and Strike Questions 

Foundation Stages—Then Others 

General Suffrage, Elections, &c 

Who Gets the Plunder? 

Friendship, (The Real Article.) 

Lacks and Wants Yet 

Rulers Strictly Out of the Masses 

Monuments—The Past and Present 

Little or Nothing New, After All 

A Lincoln Reminiscence 

Freedom 

Book-Classes—America’s Literature 

Our Real Culmination 

An American Problem 

The Last Collective Compaction 


A Letter