Whitman's Preface to Leaves of Grass -- The Role of the Poet

     In Walt Whitman's social commentary in the preface to Leaves of Grass, he sets aside the poet from all other men and assigns them many important roles. Whitman asserts that in America, poets will put to use better than anywhere else in the world, performing such tasks as keeping the peace or inciting war through public speaking, encouraging the development of the nation, and even making legal decisions. The poet as described by Whitman is a near-mythical figure who is intellectually and spiritually enlightened far above the masses. The ideal poet will essentially just be a great watcher of the universe. Whitman describes him as follows: “He is a seer … he is individual … he is complete in himself... [h]e is not one of the chorus … he does not stop for any regulation . . . he is the president of regulation." The greatest poets function purely as observers, analyzers, and recorders. They are on the outside looking in at society, so to speak. They do not themselves interact with society or the world; they merely observe, and thanks to their superior knowledge and understanding of the workings of the universe, they are the only ones who are truly able to see what is going on. Their abilities allow them to truly and wholly comprehend the phenomena taking place around them. Above all, the function of the poet is to be a judge. Whitman even goes so far as to say "He is no arguer . . . he is judgment [...] [h]e judges not as the judge judges but as the sun falling around a helpless thing." In this sense, Whitman says the poet should act as a benign yet universal decider of the nature of things. He should never interfere, but always watch and make judgments based on his observations.

--Wald der Schnell