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Walt Whitman looked to many different areas of American culture to develop a distinctively American poetry. This book investigates four of the areas he found most fertile for his own poetic development: the evolution of American dictionaries, the growth of the national sport of baseball, the decimation of American Indians, and the development of American photography. From each of these cultural activities, Whitman absorbed key aesthetic lessons that helped him compose his poetry.
This book offers the most comprehensive and detailed reading to
date of Song of Myself. One of the most distinguished critics in
Whitman studies, Ed Folsom, and one of the nation's most prominent
writers and literary figures, Christopher Merrill, carry on a
dialog with Whitman, and with each other, section by section, as
they invite readers to enter into the conversation about how the
poem develops, moves, improvises, and surprises. Instead of picking
and choosing particular passages to support a reading of the poem,
Folsom and Merrill take Whitman at his word and interact with
"every atom" of his work. The book presents Whitman's final version
of the poem, arranged in fifty-two sections; each section is
followed by Folsom's detailed critical examination of the passage,
and then Merrill offers a poet's perspective, suggesting broader
contexts for thinking about both the passage in question and the
entire poem.
This comprehensive volume celebrates the 150th anniversary of the
1855 edition of Walt Whitman's "Leaves of Grass" with twenty essays
by preeminent scholars representing a variety of critical
perspectives that focus exclusively on the original edition. Once
regarded as primarily a collector's item, this edition is now
viewed as the poet's most bold and compelling articulation of the
possibilities of American democracy. The essays weave a rich
tapestry of the most current, innovative criticism on this
foundational book of American poetry. The contributors treat
Whitman's poetry, his biography, his politics, his reception in the
United States and abroad, race and ethnic issues,
nineteenth-century America, and even the complex typographical
history of the first edition of "Leaves of Grass." The volume also
includes a tribute from the renowned poet Galway Kinnell.
This book is the first to offer a comprehensive selection of Walt
Whitman's Civil War poetry and prose with a full commentary on each
work. Ed Folsom and Christopher Merrill carry on a dialogue with
Whitman (and with each other) as they invite readers to trace how
Whitman's writing about the Civil War develops, shifts, and
manifests itself in different genres throughout the years of the
war. The book offers forty selections of Whitman's war writings,
including not only the well-known war poems but also his prose and
personal letters. Each are followed by Folsom's critical
examination and then by Merrill's afterword, suggesting broader
contexts for thinking about the selection. The real democratic
reader, Whitman said, 'must himself or herself construct indeed the
poem, argument, history, metaphysical essay-the text furnishing the
hints, the clue, the start or frame-work,' because what is needed
for democracy to flourish is 'a nation of supple and athletic
minds.' Folsom and Merrill model this kind of active reading and
encourage both seasoned and new readers of Whitman's war writings
to enter into the challenging and exhilarating mode of talking back
to Whitman, arguing with him, and learning from him.
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