SOURCE: "The 'Thought of the Ensemble': Whitman's Theory of Language," in Walt Whitman's Language Experiment, Pennsylvania State University Press, 1990, pp. 7-33.

In the following essay, Warren maintains that, through works such as Leaves of Grass and in several essays, Whitman established a theory of language—one directly connected with literature and linguistic development and specifically focused on the significant role of literature in effecting linguistic change and diversity.

This subject of language interests me—interests me: I never quite get it out of my mind. I sometimes think the Leaves is only a language experiment—that it is an attempt to give the spirit, the body, the man, new words, new potentialities of speech—an American, a cosmopolitan (the best of America is the best cosmopolitanism) range of self-expression. The new world, the new times, the new peoples, the new vista, need a tongue according—yes, what is...