Walter Whitman, een Amerikaanse dichter en essayist, werd een spilfiguur in de Amerikaanse literatuur. Zijn werk, dat de grenzen tussen transcendentalisme en realisme overschrijdt, biedt een humanistische viering van de mensheid in uitgestrekte vrije versen, wat hem de titel 'vader van het vrije vers' opleverde. Whitmans ervaringen als journalist, klerk en verpleger tijdens de Burgeroorlog hebben zijn schrijven diepgaand beïnvloed, en zijn door baanbrekende dichters geprezen om zijn unieke en krachtige stem. Zijn meesterwerk wordt gevierd als een hymne aan de mensheid, en zijn invloed blijft doorklinken.
This exploration delves into Whitman's journey of self-discovery, highlighting his profound and mystical connection with the world around him. The narrative reveals how his experiences shaped his identity and artistic expression, offering a deep understanding of his philosophical and poetic evolution.
When Walt Whitman self-published Leaves of Grass in 1855 it was a slim volume of twelve poems and he was a journalist and poet from Long Island, little-known but full of ambition and poetic fire. To give a new voice to the new nation shaken by civil war, he spent his entire life revising and adding to the work, but his initial act of bravado in answering Ralph Waldo Emerson's call for a national poet has made Whitman the quintessential American writer. This rich cross-section of his work includes poems from throughout Whitman's lifetime as published on his deathbed edition of 1891 and other works.
As he was turning forty, Walt Whitman wrote twelve poems in a small handmade book he entitled "Live Oak, With Moss." The poems were intensely private reflections on his attraction to and affection for other men. They were also Whitman's most adventurous explorations of the theme of same-sex love, composed decades before the word "homosexual" came into use. This revolutionary, extraordinarily beautiful and passionate cluster of poems was never published by Whitman and has remained unknown to the general public--until now. New York Times bestselling and Caldecott Award-winning illustrator Brian Selznick offers a provocative visual narrative of "Live Oak, With Moss," and Whitman scholar Karen Karbiener reconstructs the story of the poetic cluster's creation and destruction. Walt Whitman's reassembled, reinterpreted Live Oak, With Moss serves as a source of inspiration and a cause for celebration.
“I am large, I contain multitudes” A Penguin Classic When Walt Whitman self-published his Leaves of Grass in July 1855, he altered the course of literary history. One of the greatest masterpieces of American literature, it redefined the rules of poetry while describing the soul of the American character. Throughout his great career, Whitman continuously revised, expanded, and republished Leaves of Grass, but many critics believe that the book that matters most is the 1855 original. Penguin Classics proudly presents that text in its original and complete form, with an introductory essay by the writer and poet Malcolm Cowley. “I celebrate myself, and sing myself, And what I assume you shall assume, For every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you.” For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.
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.
In 1855 Walt Whitman published Leaves of Grass, the work that defined him as one of America’s most influential voices and that he added to throughout his life. A collection of astonishing originality and intensity, it spoke of politics, sexual emancipation, and what it meant to be an American. From the joyful “Song of Myself” and “I Sing the Body Electric” to the elegiac “When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom’d,” Whitman’s art fuses oratory, journalism, and song in a vivid celebration of humanity. Containing all Whitman’s known poetic work, this edition reprints the final, or “deathbed,” edition of Leaves of Grass (1891–92). Earlier versions of many poems are also given, including the 1855 “Song of Myself.” Features a completely new—and fuller—introduction discussing the development of Whitman's poetic career, his influence on later American poets, and his impact on the American cultural sensibility Includes chronology, updated suggestions for further reading, and extensive notes
This is a collection of Whitman's sexually and emotionally daring poetry, which challenged his Victorian readers and is still as lively and potent today.
Presents twenty-four poems from "Leaves of Grass," including "I Hear America Singing," "I Sing the Body Electric," and "O Captain! My Captain!"
Walt Whitman's invaluable notebooks have been virtually inaccessible to the public, until now. Maintaining the early notebooks' wild, syncretic feel and sample illustrations of Whitman's beautiful and unkempt pages, Zachary Turpin and Matt Miller's thorough transcriptions have made these notebooks available to all.
Whitman threw down a challenge to the genteel readers of Tennyson's and Longfellow's work through poems of sexual and emotional daring. This book contains both text and commentary.
