Whitman the political poet / Betsy Erkkila.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Erkkila, Betsy, 1944-

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Whitman, Walt, 1819-1892--Political and social views.

Whitman, Walt.

Whitman, Walt, 1819-1892.

Political poetry, American--History and criticism.

Political poetry, American.

Poets, American--19th century--Biography.

Poets, American.

Political and social views.

United States--Politics and government--19th century.

United States.

Politics and government.

Genre:

Biographies.

Physical Description:

vi, 360 pages : illustrations ; 22 cm

Place of Publication:

New York : Oxford University Press, 1989.

Summary:

Recent critical studies have emphasized the formal, mystical, and psychological dimensions of Walt Whitman's art, dwelling mainly upon his Emersonian and Transcendental sources. This study is the first book to undertake a detailed analysis of Whitman's entire work in relation to the political struggles of the 19th century. Erkkila repairs the split between the private and the public, the personal and the political, the poet and history, that has in the past defined the analysis and evaluation of Whitman's work. Her approach combines close reading and historicist analysis, examining his poems as both products and agents of the political culture of his time. Among the topics explored are the ways in which the politics of race, class, gender, capital, technology, western expansion, and war enter into the poetic design of "Leaves of Grass"; the relation between Whitman's (homo)sexual body and the body politic of his poems; and the ways in which the Civil War and its aftermath affected Whitman's artistic ordering and reordering of his work.

Notes:

Includes index.

ISBN:

0195054385

OCLC:

17548902