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e other poets have succeeded often where Whitman has failed; they have shown the beauty and cosmic significance, when Whitman has been merely cataloguing the stark facts. It may be objected, of course, that Whitman does not aim in his sex poems at imaginative beauty, that he aims at sanity and wholesomeness; that what he speaks--however rank--makes for healthy living. May be; I am not concerned to deny it. What I do deny is the implication that the wholesomeness of a fact is sufficient justification for its treatment in literature. There are a good many disagreeable things that are wholesome enough, there are many functions of the body that are entirely healthy. But one does not want them enshrined in Art. To attack Whitman on the score of morality is unjustifiable; his sex poems are simply unmoral. But had he flouted his art less flagrantly in them they would have been infinitely more powerful and convincing, and given the Philistines less opportunity for blaspheming. I have dwelt at this length upon Whitman's treatment of Sex largely because it illustrates his strength and weakness as a literary artist. In some of his poems--those dealing with Democracy, for instance--we have Whitman at his best. In others, certainly a small proportion, we get sheer, unillumined doggerel. In his sex poems there are great and fine ideas, moments of inspiration, flashes of beauty, combined with much that is trivial and tiresome. But this I think is the inevitable outcome of his style. The style, like the man, is large, broad, sweeping, tolerant; the sense of "mass and multitude" is remarkable; he aims at big effects, and the quality of vastness in his writings struck John Addington Symonds as his most remarkable characteristic. {186} This vast, rolling, processional style is splendidly adapted for dealing with the elemental aspects of life, with the vital problems of humanity. He sees everything in bulk. His range of vision is cosmic. The very titles are suggestive of his point of view--"A Song of the Rolling Earth," "A Song of the Open Road," "A Song for Occupation," "Gods." There are no detailed effects, no delicate points of light and shade in his writings, but huge panoramic effects. It is a great style, it is an impressive style, but it is obviously not a plastic style, nor a versatile style. Its very merits necessarily carry with them corresponding defects. The massiveness sometimes proves mere unwieldiness,
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