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This is the first sustained examination of Walt Whitman's influence
on British socialism. Harris combines a contextual historical study
of Whitman's reception with focused close readings of a variety of
poems, books, articles, letters and speeches. She calls attention
to Whitman's own demand for the reader to 'himself or herself
construct indeed the poem, argument, history, metaphysical essay',
linking Whitman's general comments about active reading to specific
cases of his fin de siecle British socialist readership. These
include the editorial aims behind the Whitman selections published
by William Michael Rossetti, Ernest Rhys, and W. T. Stead and the
ways that Whitman was interpreted and appropriated in a wide range
of grassroots texts produced by individuals or groups who responded
to Whitman and his poetry publicly in socialist circles. Harris
makes full use of material from the C. F. Sixsmith and J. W.
Wallace and the Bolton Whitman Fellowship collections at John
Rylands, the Edward Carpenter collection in the Sheffield Archives,
and the Archives of Swan Sonnenschein & Co. at the University
of Reading. Much of this archive material - little of which is
currently available in digital form - is discussed here in full for
the first time. Accordingly, this study will appeal to those with
interest in the archival history of nineteenth-century literary
culture, as well as the connections to be made between literary and
political culture of this era more generally.
This is the first sustained examination of Walt Whitman's influence
on British socialism. Harris combines a contextual historical study
of Whitman's reception with focused close readings of a variety of
poems, books, articles, letters and speeches. She calls attention
to Whitman's own demand for the reader to 'himself or herself
construct indeed the poem, argument, history, metaphysical essay',
linking Whitman's general comments about active reading to specific
cases of his fin de siecle British socialist readership. These
include the editorial aims behind the Whitman selections published
by William Michael Rossetti, Ernest Rhys, and W. T. Stead and the
ways that Whitman was interpreted and appropriated in a wide range
of grassroots texts produced by individuals or groups who responded
to Whitman and his poetry publicly in socialist circles. Harris
makes full use of material from the C. F. Sixsmith and J. W.
Wallace and the Bolton Whitman Fellowship collections at John
Rylands, the Edward Carpenter collection in the Sheffield Archives,
and the Archives of Swan Sonnenschein & Co. at the University
of Reading. Much of this archive material - little of which is
currently available in digital form - is discussed here in full for
the first time. Accordingly, this study will appeal to those with
interest in the archival history of nineteenth-century literary
culture, as well as the connections to be made between literary and
political culture of this era more generally.
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