During Walt Whitman's decade in Washington, DC, 1863-1873, he labored intensely, at times seeming to have three lives at once. He wrote the most distinguished journalism of his career; came into his own as a writer of letters; crafted memorable Civil War poetry, Drum-Taps and Sequel to Drum-Taps and later folded it into heavily revised and expanded versions of Leaves of Grass; and produced his searching but also flawed critique of American culture, Democratic Vistas. Whitman's work through the first three editions of Leaves often receives the highest praise, yet his writing in the Washington years is exceptional, too, by any reckoning-and is all the more remarkable given that he also cared for thousands of wounded and sick soldiers in Washington hospitals, serving as an attentive visitor. In addition, he served as a government clerk in various positions, most notably in the attorney general's office when much was accomplished on the road toward a multi-racial democracy including efforts to suppress the Ku Klux Klan, and much was also missed (both by the attorney general's office and by Whitman) in the efforts to advance a more just and vibrant union. This book analyses Whitman's integrated life, writings, and government work in his urban context to re-evaluate the writer and the nation's capital in a time of transformation. Drawing on an expanded Whitman corpus, including nearly 3,000 Whitman documents the author recently identified in the National Archives, Whitman in Washington demonstrates that the power of Whitman's Civil War and Reconstruction writing emerges, more fully than we could ever before have imagined, from his intimate knowledge of the capital city, its bureaucracies, and its tumultuous post-war history.

More than a century after his death, Walt Whitman remains a fresh phenomenon. Startling discoveries and massive transcription efforts are enabling new insights into his life and achievements. In the past few years new breakthroughs have proliferated, including the publication of a long-lost Whitman novel, Jack Engle, along with a hitherto unknown health guide for urban men and previously undiscovered poems. Myriad other documents have become more readily available, including largely unmined troves of journalism, narrative and documentary prose, and experimental note-keeping. Leaves of Grass and Whitman's literary life as a whole are thus ripe for reconsideration. The Oxford Handbook of Walt Whitman embraces this expanded view of Whitman and charts new pathways in Whitman Studies by bringing in new perspectives, methods, and contexts.

Covering the decades from the 1830s through the end of the century, as well as the eastern, southern, and western regions of the United States, these essays, by a diverse group of scholars, examine a variety of periodicals from the well-known Atlantic Monthly to small papers such as The National Era. They illustrate how literary analysis can be enriched by consideration of social history, publishing contexts, the literary marketplace, and the relationships between authors and editors.

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 volume, a significant contribution to the reception history of Leaves of Grass, Specimen Days and other works, reproduces the full range of the contemporary reviews of Whitman's various books. Brash and iconoclastic, revered and reviled at various times, Whitman - because of his bold literary experiments and frank treatment of sexuality - came in for an astonishing array of commentary ranging from sympathy with his 'hearty wholesomeness' to hostility toward poems that were a 'mass of stupid filth'. Reviews by Rufus Griswold, Fanny Fern, John Burroughs, William Dean Howells, Henry James, Hamlin Garland, Oscar Wilde and (writing anonymously) Whitman himself, together with a host of lesser-known writers clarify much about both the poet and nineteenth-century American culture and its tastes and preoccupations, its myopia and acuity. These reviewers first framed the issues for critical debate and shaped Whitman's long-term reputation.

Walt Whitman "is America," according to Ezra Pound. More than a century after his death, Whitman's name regularly appears in political speeches, architectural inscriptions, television programs, and films, and it adorns schools, summer camps, truck stops, corporate centers, and shopping malls. In an analysis of Whitman as a quintessential American icon, Kenneth Price shows how his ubiquity and his extraordinarily malleable identity have contributed to the ongoing process of shaping the character of the United States.

Price examines Whitman's own writings as well as those of writers who were influenced by him, paying particular attention to Whitman's legacies for an ethnically and sexually diverse America. He focuses on fictional works by Edith Wharton, D. H. Lawrence, John Dos Passos, Ishmael Reed, and Gloria Naylor, among others. In Price's study, "Leaves of Grass" emerges as a living document accruing meanings that evolve with time and with new readers, with Whitman and his words regularly pulled into debates over immigration, politics, sexuality, and national identity. As Price demonstrates, Whitman is a recurring starting point, a provocation, and an irresistible, rewritable text for those who reinvent the icon in their efforts to remake America itself.

This volume, a significant contribution to the reception history of Leaves of Grass, Specimen Days and other works, reproduces the full range of the contemporary reviews of Whitman's various books. Brash and iconoclastic, revered and reviled at various times, Whitman - because of his bold literary experiments and frank treatment of sexuality - came in for an astonishing array of commentary ranging from sympathy with his 'hearty wholesomeness' to hostility toward poems that were a 'mass of stupid filth'. Reviews by Rufus Griswold, Fanny Fern, John Burroughs, William Dean Howells, Henry James, Hamlin Garland, Oscar Wilde and (writing anonymously) Whitman himself, together with a host of lesser-known writers clarify much about both the poet and nineteenth-century American culture and its tastes and preoccupations, its myopia and acuity. These reviewers first framed the issues for critical debate and shaped Whitman's long-term reputation.

The full range of literary traditions comes to life in the Twayne Critical Essays Series. Volume editors have carefully selected critical essays that represent the full spectrum of controversies, trends and methodologies relating to each author's work. Essays include writings from the author's native country and abroad, with interpretations from the time they were writing, through the present day.

Each volume includes:

-- An introduction providing the reader with a lucid overview of criticism from its beginnings -- illuminating controversies, evaluating approaches and sorting out the schools of thought

-- The most influential reviews and the best reprinted scholarly essays

-- A section devoted exclusively to reviews and reactions by the subject's contemporaries

-- Original essays, new translations and revisions commissioned especially for the series

-- Previously unpublished materials such as interviews, lost letters and manuscript fragments

-- A bibliography of the subject's writings and interviews

-- A name and subject index