Walt Whitman's America: A Cultural Biography"Exploring the full range of writings by and about Whitman - not just his most famous work but also his earliest poems and stories, his conversations, letters, journals, newspaper writings, and daybooks - Reynolds gives us a full, rounded picture of the man, of his creative blending of disparate ideas and images, and his contradictory stances on race, class, and gender." "Whitman's uniqueness is shown to spring primarily from his closeness to and absorption of his contemporary culture. We see how the social convulsions of Jacksonian America were mirrored in the tribulations of the poet's family, and how Whitman's private anguish, which can be felt in his early poems, was swept up in his growing alarm for a nation riven by sectional controversies, political corruption, and class division." "Into the vacuum created by the social and political crises rushed Whitman's gargantuan poetic "I," gathering images from every facet of American life in a hopeful gesture of unity: the cocky defiance of the Bowery b'hoys, the rhythms and inflections of actors and orators, the bloodcurdling sensationalism of penny papers, the incandescent images of luminist painters, the zany visions of popular mystics. We see Whitman in a society rampant with illicit sexual activity, which it refused to acknowledge. We see him aligning his passion for young men with the psychological and behavioral customs of a century in which same-sex love was actually common."--BOOK JACKET.Title Summary field provided by Blackwell North America, Inc. All Rights Reserved |
Contents
Prologue | 3 |
Literary Genealogy Literary Geography | 7 |
Sights Surroundings Influences | 30 |
Copyright | |
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abolitionists African-American American antebellum antislavery appeared artists became Boston Bowery Brooklyn Calamus called Camden cultural daguerreotype Daily death Democratic Eagle early edition of Leaves Emerson father Feinberg fifties Fowler free love free lovers George George Lippard Henry Henry Ward Beecher homosexual images John Junius Brutus Booth kind late later Leaves of Grass lecture letter Lincoln literary living Long Island Manhattan mass mother nation nature never newspaper notebook novel O'Connor Orson Fowler painting party passage phrenological poems poet poet's poetic political popular president prostitution published radical reform religious Review scene seemed sensational sexual singing slavery slaves social society Song soul South Southold spirit story Street style Swedenborgian things thought tion told Traubel took Union University Press Walt Whitman Whit Whitman wrote Whitman's poetry William woman women words working-class writings York young