Whitman's collection of poems in Leaves of Grass is usually interpreted according to the individual poems contained within its individual editions. Discussion is often focused upon the major editions typically associated with the early respective versions of 1855 and 1856, to the 1860 edition, and finally to editions late into Whitman's life. These latter editions would include the poem "When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom'd", Whitman's elegy to Abraham Lincoln after his death.
While Whitman has famously proclaimed (in "Song of Myself") his poetry to be "Nature without check with original energy", scholars have discovered that Whitman borrowed from a number of sources for his Leaves of Grass. For his Drum-Taps, for instance, he lifted phrases from popular newspapers dealing with Civil War battles.[32] He also condensed a chapter from a popular science book into his poem "The World Below the Brine".[33]
In a constantly changing culture, Whitman's literature has an element of timelessness that appeals to the American notion of democracy and equality, producing the same experience and feelings within people living centuries apart.[34] Originally written at a time of significant urbanization in America, Leaves of Grass also responds to the impact such has on the masses.[35] The title metaphor of grass, however, indicates a pastoral vision of rural idealism.
Particularly in "Song of Myself", Whitman emphasizes an all-powerful "I" who serves as narrator. The "I" attempts to relieve both social and private problems by using powerful affirmative cultural images;[36] the emphasis on American culture in particular helped reach Whitman's intention of creating a distinctly American epic poem comparable to the works of Homer.[37]
As a believer in phrenology, Whitman, in the 1855 preface to Leaves of Grass, includes the phrenologist among those he describes as "the lawgivers of poets." Borrowing from the discipline, Whitman uses the phrenological concept of adhesiveness in reference to one's propensity for friendship and camaraderie.[38]
Thematic changes
Whitman edited, revised, and republished Leaves of Grass many times before his death, and over the years his focus and ideas were not static. One critic has identified three major "thematic drifts" in Leaves of Grass: the period from 1855 to 1859, from 1859 to 1865, and from 1866 to his death.
In the first period, 1855 to 1859, his major work is "Song of Myself", which exemplifies his prevailing love for freedom. "Freedom in nature, nature which is perfect in time and place and freedom in expression, leading to the expression of love in its sensuous form."[39] The second period, from 1859 to 1865, paints the picture of a more melancholic, sober poet. In poems like "Out of the Cradle Endlessly Rocking" and "When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom'd", the prevailing themes are of love and of death.
From 1866 to his death, the ideas Whitman presented in his second period had experienced an evolution: his focus on death had grown to a focus on immortality, the major theme of this period. Whitman became more conservative in his old age, and had come to believe that the importance of law exceeded the importance of freedom. His materialistic view of the world became far more spiritual, believing that life had no meaning outside of the context of God's plan.[39]
