Books by Walt Whitman

Book SynopsisTells the rags-to-riches story of Franklin Evans, an innocent young man from the Long Island countryside who seeks his fortune in New York City. Corrupted by music halls, theatres, and above all taverns, he gradually becomes a drunkard.Trade Review“Christopher Castiglia and Glenn Hendler provide a truly state-of-the-art introduction to Walt Whitman’s only novel, a lively and thorough account of the varied contexts that best illuminate the significance of Whitman’s rough and rowdy tale.”—Michael Moon, author of Disseminating Whitman: Revision and Corporeality in Leaves of Grass“Readers interested primarily in the social history of the country will find much here that is compelling. The temperance movement was the first wide-spread social reform movement in the United States, and the novel’s greatest claim to interest from a wider readership comes from what it reveals about that movement. . . . [T]here are also glimpses of the young poet’s developing voice. The novel reveals a belief in the power of words to change the lives and influence the actions of individual readers, most of whom would have come from the working class. Joined with more original language, this conviction would give Leaves of Grass, written a decade later, its passion and force.” -- Kim Roberts * White Crane Journal *Table of ContentsAcknowledgments vii Introduction ix I. Franklin Evans, or the Inebriate A Tale of the Times 1 II. Supplementary Texts The Madman 117 The Child and the Profligate 123 An Address Delivered by Abraham Lincoln Before the Springfield Washingtonian Temperance Society, at the Second Presbyterian Church, Springfield, Illinois, On the 22nd Day of February, 1842 135 Bibliography 145

Read more less

Book Synopsis

Read more less

Book SynopsisTrade Review“In harmony, the art, the poems, and the analysis all honor while illuminating Whitman’s work and make it more accessible to contemporary readers.” -- Publishers Weekly

Read more less

Book SynopsisWritten in the aftermath of the American Civil War during the ferment of national Reconstruction, Walt Whitman's ""Democratic Vistas"" remains one of the most penetrating analyses of democracy ever written. Diagnosing democracy's failures as well as laying out its vast possibilities, Whitman offers an unflinching assessment of the ongoing social experiment known as the United States. Now available for the first time in a facsimile of the original 1870-1871 edition, with an introduction and annotations by noted Whitman scholar Ed Folsom that illuminate the essay's historical and cultural contexts, this searing analysis of American culture offers readers today the opportunity to argue with Whitman over the nature of democracy and the future of the nation. Living in Washington, D.C., where Congress granted male African Americans the right to vote nearly five years before the fifteenth amendment extended that right across the nation, and working for the office charged with enforcing the new civil rights amendments to the Constitution, Whitman was at the volatile center of his nation's massive attempt to reconstruct and redefine itself after the tumultuous years of civil war. In the enduring cultural document that Democratic Vistas has become, the great poet of democracy analyzes the role that literature plays in the development of a culture, the inevitable tensions between the 'democratic individual' and the 'democratic nationality', and the corrosive effects of materialism on the democratic spirit. His own conflicting racial biases notwithstanding, Whitman in ""Democratic Vistas"" offers his most eloquent and extended articulation of the beckoning American democratic future. At a time when the nation has elected a president whom Whitman could never have imagined, his controversial and provocative book is a timely reminder of those occasions when we experience the expansion of America's democratic dream.

Read more less

Book Synopsis

Read more less

Book Synopsis

Read more less

Book Synopsis

Read more less

Book Synopsis

Read more less

Book SynopsisHojas de hierba es la gran epopeya americana y una de las grandes epopeyas de la literatura universal: con una voz tan vigorosa como sutil, canta el nacimiento de los Estados Unidos y su desarrollo como nación. Sus poemas recogen la bullente diversidad del país, sus heterogéneos pobladores y sus paisajes inabarcables, y su carácter indómito, irreverente, exento de artificios. Es una épica democrática, que arrumba los viejos principios de las sociedades europeas y las igualmente viejas estéticas que los ensalzaban, y proclama las esperanzas y necesidades del Nuevo Mundo, donde ricos y pobres, hombres y mujeres, blancos y negros, están llamados a ser libres e iguales, y los afectos imperan sobre los intereses. Pero Hojas de hierba es también el retrato de una persona, Walt Whitman, que vierte sus pasiones singulares y sus anhelos más íntimos en sus páginas: 'Esto no es un libro: / quien lo toca, toca a un hombre', escribe en un poema tardío. El amor por la naturaleza, la fuerza de su erotismo, la turbulencia de la vida en Nueva York y el abrumador ímpetu musical de su voz encuentran un eco dilatado en los poemas del libro. Para Harold Bloom, Whitman constituye el centro del canon norteamericano, porque toda 'voz que en nuestra literatura contemporánea se alza en soledad, herida o estoica, tiende a asumir tonalidades whitmanianas'.

Read more less

Book SynopsisConsiderado de forma unánime el máximo poeta de Estados Unidos, Walt Whitman (1819-1892) es el supremo cantor del Yo y de la naturaleza, del cuerpo y del alma, de la igualdad del hombre y la mujer, de las delicias del sexo, de la fraternidad y la democracia. Profundamente renovadora en cuanto a forma y contenido, su obra suscitó una oleada de entusiasmo y controversias. Aparecida en 1855, ?Hojas de hierba? vio nueve ediciones corregidas y aumentadas en vida del poeta. La presente antología bilingüe, traducida, prologada y anotada por Manuel Villar Raso, ofrece los poemas de Whitman en sus primeras versiones, en las cuales el impulso que les dio origen se manifiesta con mayor fidelidad que en las últimas, expurgadas por el propio poeta.

Read more less

Book SynopsisTestigo de los muchos cambios socioeconómicos y políticos que continuaban erosionando los principios republicanos, y de los innumerables intentos por recomponer el imaginario colectivo democrático norteamericano a través de nuevas formas de intervención públicas, Whitman, fervoroso creyente en las posibilidades que encerraba la prensa como herramienta ideológica al servicio de la mejora social, elabora en estas narraciones una voz profundamente enraizada en las retóricas populares y sensacionalistas de preguerra, con el fin de restañar las heridas abiertas en la utópica comunidad republicana imaginada por los padres fundadores.La producción de relatos de Walt Whitman se concentra entre agosto de 1841 y junio de 1848, y se compone de veinticuatro textos, que aparecieron en muchas ocasiones con pseudónimo o sin firmar. Él mismo haría una selección que aparecería en " Specimen Days & Collect " (1882). Su ficción criticará los males derivados de la acumulación de capital, del poder y l

Read more less

Book Synopsis

Read more less

Book SynopsisEsta novela de juventud publicada anónimamente en 1852 en el New York Sunday Dispatch por el entonces joven escritor Walt Whitman y recuperada recientemente por el estudioso Zachary Turpin, de la Universidad de Houston, y que recrea un universo con toques de Dickens y de Twain, narra las venturas y desventuras de Jack Engle, un joven huérfano que busca el sentido de la vida, el amor y un lugar bajo el sol en un mundo de picapleitos sin escrúpulos, virtuosos cuáqueros, actrices encantadoras y malandrines inolvidables. Todo ello convive en este melodramático ?pero al mismo tiempo lleno de humor? folletín de misterio e intriga en un entorno urbano, el Nueva York de mediados del siglo XIX, que mezcla hábilmente registros y giros inesperados con una genuina aspiración literaria a la verdad y a la belleza del mundo.La obra, con algunas claves autobiográficas del propio Whitman, es una de las primeras incursiones del autor en lo que sería su destino literario; en palabras del especialista David S. Reynolds: El verso libre sensual, filosófico, y salvajemente experimental y totalmente inclasificable de Hojas de hierba.

Read more less

Book SynopsisOne Great Author. One Great CD.A poem by Whitman may be whoops and hollers, or beating of drums, or the ebb of the tide singing to itself among the stones, or laments in the night or cries of ecstasy. Indeed, Whitman was the wind which blew poetry from its moorings in tradition and sent it into fresher waters; his poems celebrating the grandness of the human condition are cadenced for the voice and meant to be spoken aloud. In this recording drawn from the Caedmon archives, reader Ed Begley, Sr. performs selections from Whitman’s lifelong work, Leaves of Grass.

Read more less

Book SynopsisSince 1855, Walt Whitman's Song of Myself has been enjoyed, debated, parodied and imitated by readers, critics and artists crossing national and linguistic boundaries. Many argue that it is the most influential poem ever written by an American. This sourcebook and critical edition provides easy access to:* information on the contexts of Whitman's work, including biographical details and a chronology* an overview of the critical reception of the poem and extracts from important criticism, reprinted with clear introductory headnotes* key passages from the original 1855 edition, with commentary and annotation* the full 'final' 1881 edition of the poem.Cross-references link the critical, contextual and textual sections of the volume, encouraging an integrated understanding of this creative and controversial text. Complementing a wealth of material with suggestions for further reading, this volume is ideal for readers with no knowledge of the poem, or f

Read more less

Book SynopsisThis sourcebook includes the full text of Song of Myself. Since 1855, Walt Whitman's Song of Myself has been enjoyed, debated, parodied and imitated by readers, critics and artists crossing national and linguistic boundaries. Many argue that it is the most influential poem ever written by an American. This sourcebook and critical edition provides easy access to: *information on the contexts of Whitman's work, including biographical details and a chronology *an overview of the critical reception of the poem and extracts from important criticism, reprinted with clear introductory headnotes *key passages from the original 1855 edition, with commentary and annotation *the full 'final' 1881 edition of the poem. Cross-references link the critical, contextual and textual sections of the volume, encouraging an integrated understanding of this creative and controversial text. Complementing a wealth of material with suggestions for further reading

Read more less

Book SynopsisProduced in a numbered limited edition of 350, this is a full-sized facsimile of Wharton Esherick's prototype of Walt Whitman's Song of the Broad-Axe. Each page is as produced by the artist, with hand lettering and illumination. Esherick illustrated the work with eighteen woodblock images that represent the artist's vision and skill. Available for the first time to the public, this book is work of art, interpreting the power of Whitman''s words in Esherick''s unique and beautiful style. Each book is accompanied by a separate 8 x 11 restrike of his original woodcut Welcome are all the earth''s lands, suitable for framing. Also included is an illustrated essay by Paul Eisenhauer, Curator of the Wharton Esherick Museum in Paoli, Pennsylvania, which gives a brief biography of Esherick and the historical background the book. All is contained in a custom cloth case to ensure its longevity as a treasured keepsake.

Read more less

Book SynopsisTrade Review“In harmony, the art, the poems, and the analysis all honor while illuminating Whitman’s work and make it more accessible to contemporary readers.” * Publishers Weekly *“Reading this book, what becomes eminently clear is that Selznick is laying the groundwork for GLBTQIA+ literary history, particularly as it pertains to Whitman.” * School Library Journal *

Read more less

Book SynopsisA collection of poetry by the 19th-century American poet, Walt Whitman.

Read more less

Book Synopsis

Read more less

Book SynopsisWalt Whitman worked as a nurse in an army hospital during the Civil War and published Drum-Taps, his war poems, as the war was coming to an end. Later, the book came out in an expanded form, including “When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom''d,” Whitman''s passionate elegy for Lincoln. The most moving and enduring poetry to emerge from America’s most tragic conflict, Drum-Taps also helped to create a new, modern poetry of war, a poetry not just of patriotic exhortation but of somber witness. Drum-Taps is thus a central work not only of the Civil War but of our war-torn times.But Drum-Taps as readers know it from Leaves of Grass is different from the work of 1865. Whitman cut and reorganized the book, reducing its breadth of feeling and raw immediacy. This edition, the first to present the book in its original form since its initial publication 150 years ago, is a revelation, allowing one of Whitman’s greatest achievements to appear again in all its troubling glory.

Read more less

Book SynopsisThe incomparable wisdom of America's greatest poet, distilled from his late-in-life conversations with Horace Traubel.

Read more less

Book SynopsisIn 1852, young Walt Whitman – a down-on-his-luck housebuilder in Brooklyn – was hard at work writing two books. One would become one of the most famous volumes of poetry in American history, a free-verse revelation beloved the world over, Leaves of Grass. The other, a novel, would be published under a pseudonym and serialized in a newspaper. A short, rollicking story of orphanhood, avarice, and adventure in New York City, Life and Adventures of Jack Engle appeared to little fanfare. Then it disappeared. No one laid eyes on it until 2016, when literary scholar Zachary Turpin, University of Houston, followed a paper trail deep into the Library of Congress, where the sole surviving copy of Jack Engle has lain waiting for generations. Now, after more than 160 years, the University of Iowa Press is honored to reprint this lost work, restoring a missing piece of American literature by one of the world's greatest authors, written as he verged on immortality.

Read more less

Book Synopsis

Read more less