Song of ourselves : Walt Whitman and the fight for democracy / Mark Edmundson.
Publisher:
Harvard University Press,
Copyright Date:
2021
Description:
xiii, 217 pages : illustrations ; 22 cm
Notes:
Includes bibliographical references and index.
Contents:
Part I: Song of ourselves: I celebrate myself -- Undisguised and naked -- The marriage of self and soul -- The grass -- All in -- A vision of democracy -- These states -- Songs of triumph -- Poet of the body -- The sun -- The generative god -- The animals -- Walt becomes other -- A massacre -- A sea fight -- American Jesus -- Democratic Go��Itterda��Immerung -- Walt and the priests -- Walt's god -- Walt and the reader -- Death and democracy -- Part II. In the hospitals: Publication -- In Washington -- Letters home -- Tom Sawyer -- The vision completed -- Part III. Song of myself (1855).
Summary:
"Mark Edmundson finds in Walt Whitman's Song of Myself the evolution of a democratic spirit, for the individual and the nation. Breaking from the past literature he saw as "feudal"-obsessed with the noble and great-Whitman created a story of commonplace egalitarian selfhood, a story he lived as a hospital volunteer during the Civil War"-- Provided by publisher.
This resource is supported by the Institute of Museum and Library Services under the provisions of the Library Services and Technology Act as administered by State Library of Iowa.