Walt Whitman: A Literary Life

Walt Whitman: A Literary Life highlights two major influences on Whitman’s poetry and life: the American Civil War and his economic condition. Linda Wagner—Martin performs a close reading of many of Whitman’s poems, particularly his Civil War work (in Drum—Taps) and those poems written during the last twenty years of his life. Wagner—Martin’s study also emphasizes the near—poverty that Whitman experienced. Starting with his early career as a printer and journalist, the book moves to the pub...