This introductory guide to Walt Whitman weaves together thewriter’s life with an examination of his works. · An innovative introductory guide to Walt Whitman. · Weaves together the writer’s life with anexamination of his works. · Focuses especially on Whitman’s evolvingmasterpiece Leaves of Grass. · Examines the material conditions and products ofWhitman’s “scripted life”, including his originalmanuscripts. · Investigates Whitman’s “life in print”– his belief that he could literally embody himself in hisbooks. · Linked to a large electronic archive of Whitman’swork at www.whitmanarchive.org

Was Walt Whitman--celebrated poet of freedom and democracy--a determinist at heart? A close study of Leaves of Grass shows that Whitman consistently acknowledges the inevitability of all things. As John McDonald argues, this seeming contradiction lies at the heart of Whitman's poetry, a fact continually overlooked in the more than 100 years that critics have written about the poet and his magnum opus. This volume contains an extensive study of Walt Whitman's poetry that explores both Whitman's guiding philosophy and its uses to unlock meaning within Leaves of Grass. Beginning with a detailed explanation of determinism, the author examines Whitman's use of indirection, which the poet referred to at times as a game played to evade the reader's comprehension. The work seeks to define a philosophy which was, in the author's opinion, the most significant influence in Whitman's thought and in his art. Various poems are examined in depth, including Song of Myself, Passage to India and the particularly significant With Antecedents. Gathered here will be evidence from Whitman's poems and prose and from his notes and quoted remarks, enough evidence to show beyond doubt that determinism was indeed his most significant influence. An innovative look at one of America's greatest poets.

"Walt Whitman's iconic Leaves of grass has earned a reputation as a sacred American text, so it's fitting that artist and illustrator Allen Crawford has illuminated--like the holy scriptures of medieval monks--the core of Whitman's masterpiece, "Song of myself". Crawford's handwritten text and illustrations intermingle in a way that's both surprising and wholly in tune with the spirit of the poem--exuberant, rough, and wild."--Book jacket.

Walt Whitman created, in various editions of Leaves of Grass, what is arguably the most influential book of poems anywhere in the past 200 years. Whitman absorbed the world, transmuting it into poems that address a spectrum of topics--from democracy and religion to sexuality, gender, class, and identity. He exuberantly incarnated his epoch at the same time as he invoked "you"-- readers and "poets to come"--to join in a "poetry of the future." The first A to Z Whitman reference to incorporate 21st century scholarship, this work is ideal for readers who want a concise introduction to the major poems and prose and to the people, places, and topics central to his life. Each of the book's 142 entries is followed by cross-references to related entries and suggestions for further reading. Also included are a brief biography, a chronology of Whitman's life and major works, and a bibliography of some 300 primary and secondary sources on this most timeless and contemporary of poets.

Walt Whitman is a poet of contexts. His poetic practice was one of observing, absorbing, and then reflecting the world around him. Walt Whitman in Context provides brief, provocative explorations of thirty-eight different contexts - geographic, literary, cultural, and political - through which to engage Whitman's life and work. Written by distinguished scholars of Whitman and nineteenth-century American literature and culture, this collection synthesizes scholarly and historical sources and brings together new readings and original research.

Presents a selection of important older literary criticism of selected works by Walt Whitman.