Leaves of Grass

This book is notable for its discussion of delight in sensual pleasures during a time when such candid displays were considered immoral. Where much previous poetry especially English relied on symbolism allegory and meditation on the religious and spiritual Leaves of Grass (particularly the first edition) exalted the body and the material world. Influenced by Ralph Waldo Emerson and the Transcendentalist movement itself an offshoot of Romanticism Whitmans poetry praises nature and the individual humans role in it. However much like Emerson Whitman does not diminish the role of the mind or the spirit; rather he elevates the human form and the human mind deeming both worthy of poetic praise. Leaves of Grass has its genesis in an essay called The Poet by Ralph Waldo Emerson published in 1844 which expressed the need for the United States to have its own new and unique poet to write about the new countrys virtues and vices. Whitman reading the essay consciously set out to answer Emersons call as he began work on the first edition of Leaves of Grass.