Author: Walt Whitman Publisher: Pickle Partners Publishing ISBN: 1789128390 Category : History Languages : en Pages : 83
Book Description
The sentimental value of these letters from Walt Whitman to his mother is increased by our knowledge of her influence upon the poet and his poetry. This influence, emotional and not intellectual, was one of the most important forces of his life. Born in 1793, Louisa Van Velsor, the daughter of a Long Island farmer and his Welsh wife, grew up, as Perry says, almost illiterate. In 1816, Louisa married Walter Whitman, an itinerant carpenter, and settled In West Hills for a while. The next twenty years, spent in various parts of Long Island, the Whitmans devoted to raising their nine children, the greater burden falling on the mother. After the death of her husband in 1853, Mrs. Whitman lived in Brooklyn and Camden for eighteen years, living to see the time when George was wounded in the Civil War, when Andrew died, when Hannah’s husband, Charles Heyde, attempted to ruin his wife’s family, when Jeff was in St. Louis, when Walt lived in Washington. These few facts of her life are without significance except that in their unity of purpose Whitman found some of the ideas for ‘Leaves of Grass’. For in his own home, he found the typical American family; in his own home he found the ‘perfect mother’. During the last years of her life Whitman desired nothing more than for them to live together. Their letters constantly discuss the plan, and only finances prevented its realization. How Walt must have admired the even temper, good sense, and cheerfulness which Bucke says Mrs. Whitman possessed! These are the same qualities which come out in her son’s letters. The occasional touches of humor (which many think cannot be found in Whitman), the bits of friendly gossip—’snack talk’ Walt calls it, all the homely business of Walt’s life. In the following pages, we have the privilege of seeing Whitman’s exquisite respect for his mother, his gentleness, his kindness, and his efforts to make her final years peaceful.—Rollo G. Silver
Author: Walt Whitman Publisher: Applewood Books ISBN: 1557091323 Category : Poets, American Languages : en Pages : 102
Book Description
During the Civil War, from 1862-1865, Walt Whitman spent much of his time with wounded soldiers, both in the field and in the hospitals. The 40 notebooks he filled became the basis for the extraordinary diary of a medic in the Civil War.
Author: Anne Gilchrist Publisher: Good Press ISBN: Category : Fiction Languages : en Pages : 196
Book Description
'The Letters of Anne Gilchrist and Walt Whitman' is a collection of personal correspondence between the two, showcasing their deep and meaningful friendship. These letters, most of which were written by Anne Gilchrist to Walt Whitman, offer a unique glimpse into their lives and relationship. Though Whitman initially hesitated to share the letters, he preserved them for over twenty years, indicating that they were significant to him. This collection is a valuable resource for those interested in the life and work of one of America's great poets.
Author: Roy Morris Publisher: Oxford University Press ISBN: 019802889X Category : History Languages : en Pages : 289
Book Description
For nearly three years, Walt Whitman immersed himself in the devastation of the Civil War, tending to thousands of wounded soldiers and recording his experiences with an immediacy and compassion unequaled in wartime literature anywhere in the world. In The Better Angel, acclaimed biographer Roy Morris, Jr. gives us the fullest account of Whitman's profoundly transformative Civil War years and an historically invaluable examination of the Union's treatment of its sick and wounded. Whitman was mired in depression as the war began, subsisting on journalistic hackwork, his "great career" as a poet apparently stalled. But when news came that his brother George had been wounded at Fredericksburg, Whitman rushed south to find him. Deeply affected by his first view of the war's casualties, he began visiting the camp's wounded and found his calling for the duration of the war. Three years later, he emerged as the war's "most unlikely hero," a living symbol of American democratic ideals of sharing and brotherhood. Brilliantly researched and beautifully written, The Better Angel explores a side of Whitman not fully examined before, one that greatly enriches our understanding of his later poetry. Moreover, it gives us a vivid and unforgettable portrait of the "other army"--the legions of sick and wounded soldiers who are usually left in the shadowy background of Civil War history--seen here through the unflinching eyes of America's greatest poet.
Author: Roger Asselineau Publisher: University of Iowa Press ISBN: 1609380339 Category : Biography & Autobiography Languages : en Pages : 816
Book Description
Now, nearly forty years after its original translation into English, Roger Asselineau's complete and magisterial biography of Walt Whitman will remind readers of the complex weave of traditions in Whitman scholarship. It is startling to recognize how much of our current understanding of Whitman was already articulated by Asselineau nearly half a century ago. Throughout its eight hundred pages, The Evolution of Walt Whitman speaks with authority on a vast range of topics that define both Whitman the man and Whitman the mythical personage. Remarkably, most of these discussions remain fresh and relevant, and that is in part because they have been so influential. In particular, The Evolution of Walt Whitman inaugurated the study of Leaves of Grass as a lifelong work in progress, and it marked the end of the habit of talking about Leaves as if it were a single unified book. Asselineau saw Whitman's poetry “not as a body of static data but as a constantly changing continuum whose evolution must be carefully observed.” Throughout Evolution, Asselineau placed himself in the role of the observer, analyzing Whitman's development with a kind of scientific detachment. But behind this objective persona burned the soul of a risk taker who was willing to rewrite Whitman studies by bravely proposing what was then a controversial biographical source for Whitman's art—his homosexual desires. The Evolution of Walt Whitman is a reminder that extraordinary works of criticism never exist in and of themselves. In this expanded edition, Roger Asselineau has provided a new essay summarizing his own continuing journey with Whitman. A foreword by Ed Folsom, editor of the Walt Whitman Quarterly, regards Evolution as the genesis of contemporary Whitman studies.
Author: Walt Whitman Publisher: NYU Press ISBN: 0814794211 Category : Literary Collections Languages : en Pages : 422
Book Description
General Series Editors: Gay Wilson Allen and Sculley Bradley Originally published between 1961 and 1984, and now available in paperback for the first time, the critically acclaimed Collected Writings of Walt Whitman captures every facet of one of America’s most important poets. In discussing letter-writing, Whitman made his own views clear. Simplicity and naturalness were his guidelines. “I like my letters to be personal—very personal—and then stop.” The six volumes in The Correspondence comprise nearly 3,000 letters written over a half century, revealing Whitman the person as no other documents can. Volume I includes the poet’s correspondence from Washington, DC, during the Civil War, where he nursed wounded and dying soldiers. In letters to his mother, Whitman describes the suffering and sorrow he encountered in unsanitary hospitals. He wrote to the parents of soldiers and offered hope—or consolation at the loss of an unsung hero. Soldiers who recovered and left the hospitals often wrote to Whitman, and he replied with friendly advice and paternal solicitude. As Whitman himself admitted, rarely was his heart so engaged as in these hospital scenes and war letters, which, like his greatest poems, reflect his characteristic themes—love and death.
Author: Walt Whitman
Author: Walt Whitman
Author: Walt Whitman
Author: Anne Gilchrist
Author: Roy Morris
Author: Thomas B. Harned
Author: Roger Asselineau
Author: Walt Whitman
Author: Walt Whitman
Author: Walt Whitman