ABSTRACT
Extracts from John Addington Symonds, Walt Whitman: A Study (1893), pp. I-II.
John Addington Symonds (1840–93), English critic, poet and historian, must undoubtedly be given one of the most important places in the circle of Whitman’s earliest disciples. The authority with which he spoke because of his own accomplishments in letters undoubtedly played a role in sustaining the old poet’s confidence in himself and in supporting his conviction that he was destined in the future to receive a more respectful and sympathetic hearing than was his portion in his own time.
