1 Leaves and the Retrospective Lands: An Introduction 1
"Terrible Query": An American Literature? 5
"That Wonderful Little Island"-British Literature in Leaves 14
Prospective: "Lacks and Wants Yet" 23
2 Shakespeare & Whitman 27
Whitman and the Bacon Debate 27
Mellifluous and Honey-Tongued Poets 35
Whitman and the Romantics' Shakespeare: Victor Hugo 48
Debutant Poets: 1645, 1855 63
Whitman & America Read Milton 69
Strange Bedfellows, After All? 104
Mystic Tie of Brotherhood 127
The Self-Satisfied Preachers 133
Conscious Painful Being 140
Making the Connection 153
Two Mystics Together Clinging 167
Other, Stronger Lessons 172
Poets of Contrariety and Rebellion 174
Iconoclasts: Poetry Unfettered 179
Poets of Sexual Delight 186
Announcing Adhesiveness 189
6 Wordsworth & Whitman 200
The "Prelude" to Whitman 224
Prospectus: Knowing the World 226
"Green" Poets: Nature and Democracy 230
"Mighty Scheme of Truth": Prophets of a New Religion 234
"Great Social Principle of Life": Comradery 240
At War with General Tendency 245
7 Whitman and Some Other "Big Fellows" 252
