Whitman's celebration of human complexity influenced generations of poets.

- Presents the most important 20th-century criticism on major works from The Odyssey through modern literature- The critical essays reflect a variety of schools of criticism- Contains critical biographies, notes on the contributing critics, a chronology of the author's life, and an index- Introductory essay by Harold Bloom

'The password primeval' : Whitman's use of science in 'Song of myself' / Robert J. Scholnick -- Grass and its mate in "Song of myself" / William E. McMahon -- Hegel's phenomenological dialectic and the structure of Whitman's "Song of myself" / Zong-Qi Cai -- Whitman's language of the self / Mark Bauerlein -- Union and disunion in "Song of myself" / Herbert J. Levine -- "Song of myself" as Whitman's American Bible / Herbert J. Levine -- Texts, interpretations, and Whitman's "Song of myself" / Mark Delancey -- Reading 'Song of myself
" assuming what Whitman assumes / Gayle L. Smith -- Whitman's song of the possible american self / William Birmingham -- Whitman and genre : the dialogic in "Song of myself" / Dana Phillips -- Whitman's Leaves of grass and thewriting of a new American Bible / W.C. Harris -- Walt Whitman, the apostle / Michael D. Sowder -- Walt Whitman and the epic tradition : political and poetical voices in "Song of myself" / Bill Hardwig.