The Cambridge introduction to Walt Whitman

Description

Focusing on his masterpiece 'Leaves of Grass', this volume offers a foundation for the study of Whitman. Alongside close readings of his major texts, there are chapters on Whitman's biography, the history & culture of his time, & the critical reception of his work.;Chapter 1: Life -- Youth and literary apprenticeship (1819-1850) -- The emergence of the poet (1851-1860) -- The war and its aftermath (1861-1873) -- The period of reflection and decline (1873-1892) -- Chapter 2: Historical and cultural contexts -- Democracy -- The body -- The land -- The culture -- Chapter 3: Poetry before the Civil War -- 1855: "Song of myself" -- Other poems dating from the 1855 Leaves of Grass -- 1856: poems of sexuality and the body -- 1856: poems of the earth -- 1856: "Crossing Brooklyn Ferry" -- 1860: Sea-Drift poems -- 1860: gendered clusters -- "Children of Adam" and "Calamus" -- Chapter 4: Poetry after the Civil War -- Elegiac poems -- The emergence of the image -- Minor poetic modes -- Chapter 5: Prose works -- The 1855 preface -- Democratic Vistas -- Specimen Days -- Chapter 6: Critical reception -- The first fifty years, 1855-1905 -- 1905-1955 -- 1955-2005.