Walt Whitman “Over the Roofs of the World”

Abstract

Leaves of Grass , Whitman's unique collection of poems, has been the object of numerous and varied responses, which contributed to establish a transatlantic poetic field. The “poets to come” that Whitman called for engaged in vivid dialogues and debates with him. The idea of a modern poetry, grounded on immediacy and the refusal of hierarchies, as well as the invention of free verse, were central to this dynamic reception, especially in Europe and the Americas. Moreover, Whitman was seen as the inventor of a continental poetry and was a major reference in hemispheric literary exchanges. His reception also triggered more polemical debates, especially about its sexual and political stakes. Whitman was celebrated as a gay poet and was considered a socialist or pre‐communist poet, especially in Britain, in the USSR, and in Latin America. Such polemical aspects were enhanced in the United States only after this intense international reception.