A Historical Guide to Walt Whitman / Edition 1

by David S. Reynolds

Overview

Few authors are so well suited to historical study as Whitman, who is widely considered America's greatest poet. This Guide combines contemporary cultural studies and historical scholarship to illuminate Whitman's diverse contexts. The essays explore dimensions of Whitman's dynamic relationship to working-class politics, race and slavery, sexual mores, the visual arts, and the idea of democracy. The poet who emerges from this volume is no "solitary singer," distanced from his culture, but what he himself called "the age transfigured," fully enmeshed in his times and addressing issues that are still vital today.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780195120820
Publisher:	Oxford University Press
Publication date:	01/13/2000
Series:	Historical Guides to American Authors
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	288
Product dimensions:	8.23(w) x 5.48(h) x 0.79(d)
Lexile:	1550L (what's this?)

About the Author

David S. Reynolds is Distinguished Professor of American Literature at Baruch College in New York. His publications include Walt Whitman's America: A Cultural Biography (1995).

Table of Contents

Introduction, David S. ReynoldsCapsule Biography, David S. ReynoldsLucifer and Ethiopia: Whitman, Race, and Poetics before and after the Civil War, Ed FolsomThe Political Roots of the First Leaves of Grass, Jerome LovingWhitman's "Calamus": A Rhetorical Prehistory of the Gay American Ethos, M. Jimmie KillingsworthWhitman and the Visual Arts, Roberta K. TarbellTo Be Free and Rule: Whitman on the Razor's Edge, Kenneth CmielBibliographical Essay, David S. ReynoldsDual Chronology, David S. Reynolds