“Re-examine everything you were told in school or church or in any book, discard anything that insults your soul,” Walt Whitman (May 31, 1819–March 26, 1892) wrote in giving his timeless advice on living a healthy and rewarding life in the preface Leaves of Grass. When Whitman first published his masterpiece in 1855, it was met with indifference and an explosion of harsh criticism. It's hard to imagine how insulting it was to accept the young poet's soul, or what it took for him to shake it off and continue writing. What revived his spirit in the midst of a great wave of indifference was a wonderful letter of appreciation from Ralph Waldo Emerson – the most respected literary figure of the era and Whitman's greatest hero, his 1844 essay. A poet he was inspired Leaves of Grass. The young poet wore Emerson's reputation for “incomparable things said incomparably well” like a suit of armor, almost literally—he carried the book folded in his shirt pocket over his heart, reading it regularly to friends and loved ones.
It is very easy, though not easy, to reject that which insults one's soul when it comes from critics who have not yet gained one's self-confidence— “Don't ignore someone who doesn't respect you,” Jeanette Winterson offers her ten wise rules for writing. But rejecting soul-crushing criticism from someone we respect—or, even more, love—requires superhuman strength of spirit. How do we hold on to the integrity and strength of our convictions and our vision, whether it is art or existence, when it is opposed and criticized by someone we look up to with high intellectual respect and compassion?
Whitman modeled this well when he met Emerson himself.
On a cool February afternoon in 1860, five years after the publication of the Leaves of Grassthe two men took a two-hour walk on Boston Common. By then they had become friends and formed a warm, frank relationship that included Emerson's best friendship: “A friend is someone I can be loyal to.” On that winter day, Whitman found Emerson “in his prime, sharp, magnetic physically and morally, armed at all times, and when he chose, using emotion and reason.” When criticism came, Whitman knew it came from that same source – a quality of character that he deeply respected, and respected. However, rather than being put off by doubts, he was able to stay focused on his principles and vision.
Writing Sample Dates (public library) – an endlessly rewarding collection of prose pieces and diary entries, which gave us Whitman's insight into the wisdom of trees, the power of music, the essence of joy, the “meaning” of art, and hope as a force of resistance – he recounts:
In those two hours he was the speaker and I was the listener. It was a debate, a re-examination, a revision, an attack, and oppression at home, (as the army respectively, artillery, cavalry, infantry,) in all that can be said against that part (and the principal part) in the composition of my poems, “The Children of Adam.” More precious than gold to me is that dissertation – it gave me, from that time, this strange and perplexing lesson; each point of E's statement. it was unanswerable, no case of a judge was ever more perfect or more convincing, I never heard the points better put – and I felt deep in my soul a clear and indisputable conviction of disobeying all, and pursuing my own way. “So, what do you say about such things?” said E., pausing in conclusion. “It's just that although I can't answer myself at all, I feel more comfortable than ever to stick to my opinion, and I'm an example,” was my honest answer. We went and had dinner at the American House. And since then I have never wavered or been affected with depression, (as I confess I had been two or three times before).
Emerson—the patron saint of self-confidence, who urged: “Be confident: every heart trembles on that iron string.” – he undoubtedly appreciated this direction of the spirit. Whitman's first and foremost biographer, the great naturalist John Burroughs, goes further in his remarkable 1896 poetic biography. Whitman: A Study:
In many ways it was Whitman, unbeknownst to him, the man Emerson asked for and prayed for — a man of complete confidence; a man who must earn his own day and enough land; who had no desire to be Greek, or Italian, or French, or English, but himself; that he should not complain, or apologize, or go abroad; that he should not duck, or despise, or borrow; and who could see through the obscurity and degradation of our times the lines of the same gods who hacked the poles of old.
To be sure, Whitman did not dismiss criticism – rather, he separated the wheat from the chaff with a sieve of self-confidence and a positive creative vision. But he believed that criticism can be more important than praise. In Leaves of Grasswrote under the heading “POWERFUL LESSONS”:
Have you ever learned lessons only from those who loved you and were kind to you? and stood by your side?
Have you not learn'd great lessons from those who forsake you, and strengthen themselves against you? or anyone who insults you, or who disputes with you about a passage?
The type of criticism that he immediately rejected was that of professional critics and opinion makers – those whose aim is to destroy rather than improve the artist's art, because their judgment is based on the standards of their time and therefore they tend to criticize any radical departure from convention. Such critics are able to say that any work that comes from the truth is bad, and then apply WH Auden's opinion that “one cannot review a bad book without showing it off.”
Burroughs noted this in his eulogy of Whitman, written at a time when the poet was still more rejected than celebrated by his age:
There are no more precious and powerful pages in history than the records of men who faced dislike, odium, hatred, ridicule, rejection, in listening to the inner voice, and who did not lose courage or good nature.
[…]
Everyone participates in his victory who is always true to himself and does not compromise with traditions, schools, or ideas.
Whitman himself had announced Leaves of Grass:
I don't strain my spirit to prove myself or be understood.
Later in life, he would think:
Has it never occurred to anyone that the final judging tests that apply to a book are completely outside of technical and grammatical, and that any production of the first class has little or nothing to do with the rules and standards of ordinary critics?… I have desired the sea and the daylight, the mountain and the forest, to put their spirit in the judgment of our books. I have longed for the soul of a different person who makes his decision.
[…]
The level of BEING, in the essence of the thing, according to its main idea and purpose, and the growth from there to that – not to be criticized by other levels, and its correction – is the study of Nature.
Whitman's poetry, founded on the unshakable foundation of his creative and spiritual vision, eventually catapulted him to the top of the English language literature. Leaves of Grass it endures as one of the most beloved poetic works of all time, has influenced generations of writers and developed the common courage of life through its worst chaos – that power of poetic truth directed by the unshakable stability of self-confidence and vision.
Complete with Descartes on the important difference between self-confidence and pride, Bruce Lee on strength and self-confidence, and the best advice from great writers on how to survive criticism, then revisit Whitman on creativity, democracy, his advice to the young, and his precise definition of happiness.
