Walt Whitman and the Birth of Modern American Poetry

In this course we'll explore how Walt Whitman broke with the tyranny of European literary forms to establish a broad, new voice for American poetry. By throwing aside the stolid conventions and clichéd meters of old Europe, Walt Whitman produced a vital, compelling form of verse, one expressive of the nature of his new world and its undiscovered countries, both physical and spiritual, intimate and gloriously public.
Passionate democracy is what Whitman called his invention, and like the inventions of Edison, it would transform not only the practices of its field but also the larger dimensions of American life.

Walt Whitman (Bloom's Classic Critical Views)

Walt Whitman transcended the conventional sentiments and romanticized morality of his era with a body of work that incorporated new poetic forms and controversial subject matter. This volume examines Whitman’s innovations with an introduction by Professor Harold Bloom, an extensive biography of Whitman, and a critical analysis of his work, including "Leaves of Grass."

 

Revised Lives examines self-representation in U.S. culture from the American Revolution through the nineteenth century. Drawing on studies of the history of the book, Pierre Bourdieu's sociology, and ethnic and gender revisionism, this book focuses on the processes of national development, the self-construction of authorial personae, and the appropriation of the personae by interpretive communities. Special emphasis is given to Walt Whitman, but other figures are treated at length: P. T. Barnum, Edward Carpenter, Frederick Douglass, Benjamin Franklin, and Edgar Allan Poe.

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.

"Critical Companion to Walt Whitman" contains entries on every one of Walt Whitman's poems, from the widely recognized "Song of Myself," "When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom'd," and "Out of the Cradle Endlessly Rocking," to his minor works. His major prose works, such as "A Backward Glance O'er Travel'd Roads" and "Democratic Vistas", each edition of "Leaves of Grass", and unique terms used or coined by Whitman, such as "Eidolons" and "Paumanok," are also covered. Helping readers understand the influences on his life are entries on Whitman's family, friends, relatives, and acquaintances; important places where he lived and worked; and ideas important to his work.