A Historical Guide to Walt Whitman

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:	9780195120813
Publisher:	Oxford University Press
Publication date:	01/13/2000
Series:	Historical Guides to American Authors
Pages:	288
Product dimensions:	5.60(w) x 8.30(h) x 1.00(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

	Abbreviations	vii
	Introduction	3
	Walt Whitman, 1819-1892: A Brief Biography	15
	Whitman in His Time
	Lucifer and Ethiopia: Whitman, Race, and Poetics before the Civil War and After	45
	The Political Roots of Leaves of Grass	97
	Whitman and the Gay American Ethos	121
	Whitman and the Visual Arts	153
	Whitman the Democrat	205
	Illustrated Chronology	235
	Bibliographical Essay	251
	Contributors	261
	Index	265