Description
Book SynopsisWalt 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 publication of Leaves of Grass, and his cultivation of the persona of the “working-class” writer. In addition to establishing Whitman’s attention to the Civil War through journalism and memoirs, the book takes the approach of following Whitman’s life through his poems. Utilizing contemporary perspectives on class, Wagner-Martin provides a new reading of Whitman’s economic situation. This is an accessibly written synthesis of Whitman’s publication history bringing attention to under-studied aspects of his writing.
Table of ContentsIntroduction.- Chapter One: The Pride of Family.- Chapter Two: Whitman’s Romance with Work.- Chapter Three: To Travel.- Chapter Four: Leaves of Grass, 1855.- Chapter Five: Whitman’s Life as “Poet”.- Chapter Six: Family and The Civil War.- Chapter Seven: The Horrors of American War.- Chapter Eight: Still More War.- Chapter Nine: Whitman and Lincoln.- Chapter Ten: The Wages of Class.- Chapter Eleven: Afterwar.- Chapter Twelve: Reconstruction.- Chapter Thirteen: Suggestions of Success.- Chapter Fourteen: The Hardiness of Fame.- Chapter Fifteen: To Travel, II.- Chapter Sixteen: The Last Years.
