Editing Song of Myself (section)

==Reception==
Following its 1855 publication, "Song of Myself" was immediately singled out by critics and readers for particular attention, and the work remains among the most acclaimed and influential in American poetry.<ref>Gutman, Huck. "Walt Whitman's 'Song of Myself'". ''The Oxford Encyclopedia of American Literature''. Ed. Jay Parini. Oxford University Press, 2004. ''Oxford Reference Online''. Oxford University Press. Web. 20 October 2011</ref> In 2011, writer and academic [[Jay Parini]] named it the greatest American poem ever written.<ref>{{cite news|url=https://www.theguardian.com/books/booksblog/2011/mar/11/best-american-poems|title=The 10 best American poems|last=Parini|first=Jay|newspaper=[[The Guardian]]|date=March 11, 2011|access-date=October 31, 2017}}</ref>

In 1855, the ''Christian Spiritualist'' gave a long, glowing review of "Song of Myself", praising Whitman for representing "a new poetic mediumship," which through active imagination sensed the "influx of spirit and the divine breath."<ref>[[Reynolds, David S.]]'' Walt Whitman’s America: A Cultural Biography.'' New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1995. Print.</ref> [[Ralph Waldo Emerson]] also wrote a letter to Whitman, praising his work for its "wit and wisdom".<ref name="Greenspan" />

Public acceptance was slow in coming, however. Social [[conservatives]] denounced the poem as flouting accepted norms of morality due to its blatant depictions of [[human sexuality]]. In 1882, [[Boston]]'s [[district attorney]] threatened action against ''Leaves of Grass'' for violating the state's obscenity laws and demanded that changes be made to several passages from "Song of Myself".<ref name="Greenspan" />