ABSTRACT
This chapter presents an extract from an article published in Poet-lore, 3 (1891). The answer to the question "Shall we love Shakespeare less and Whitman more?" lies beyond the realm of science. The scientific process does away with another question "Shall we give up our Shakespeare?" Whitman tells us how glorious Shakespeare is; yet tells us, at the same time, that he is not adapted to America and democracy. One difficulty is that we fail to see how much Shakespeare has done for Whitman in showing, by contrast with our needs, a poetry for America which shall be as much greater than the poetry of Shakespeare. This is because the America of to-day is greater than the England of three centuries ago. That suggestion certainly is enough, and worthily has our American poet followed it.
