Book contents
- The Cambridge History of American Poetry
- The Cambridge History of American Poetry
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Notes on Contributors
- Acknowledgments
- Introduction
- Part I Beginnings: Poetry before 1800
- Part II A New Nation: Poetry from 1800 to 1900
- Chapter 7 Asserting a National Voice
- Chapter 8 The Emergence of Romantic Traditions
- Chapter 9 Linen Shreds and Melons in a Field
- Chapter 10 Edgar Allan Poe’s Lost Worlds
- Chapter 11 Longfellow in His Time
- Chapter 12 Whittier, Holmes, Lowell, and the New England Tradition
- Chapter 13 Other Voices, Other Verses
- Chapter 14 American Poetry Fights the Civil War
- Chapter 15 Walt Whitman’s Invention of a Democratic Poetry
- Chapter 16 Emily Dickinson
- Chapter 17 The South in Reconstruction
- Chapter 18 The “Genteel Tradition” and Its Discontents
- Chapter 19 Disciplined Play
- Chapter 20 Dialect, Doggerel, and Local Color
- Chapter 21 Political Poets and Naturalism
- Part III Forms of Modernism, 1900–1950
- Part IV Beyond Modernism: American Poetry, 1950–2000
- Selected Bibliographies
- Index
Chapter 15 - Walt Whitman’s Invention of a Democratic Poetry
from Part II - A New Nation: Poetry from 1800 to 1900
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 December 2014
By
Book contents
- The Cambridge History of American Poetry
- The Cambridge History of American Poetry
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Notes on Contributors
- Acknowledgments
- Introduction
- Part I Beginnings: Poetry before 1800
- Part II A New Nation: Poetry from 1800 to 1900
- Chapter 7 Asserting a National Voice
- Chapter 8 The Emergence of Romantic Traditions
- Chapter 9 Linen Shreds and Melons in a Field
- Chapter 10 Edgar Allan Poe’s Lost Worlds
- Chapter 11 Longfellow in His Time
- Chapter 12 Whittier, Holmes, Lowell, and the New England Tradition
- Chapter 13 Other Voices, Other Verses
- Chapter 14 American Poetry Fights the Civil War
- Chapter 15 Walt Whitman’s Invention of a Democratic Poetry
- Chapter 16 Emily Dickinson
- Chapter 17 The South in Reconstruction
- Chapter 18 The “Genteel Tradition” and Its Discontents
- Chapter 19 Disciplined Play
- Chapter 20 Dialect, Doggerel, and Local Color
- Chapter 21 Political Poets and Naturalism
- Part III Forms of Modernism, 1900–1950
- Part IV Beyond Modernism: American Poetry, 1950–2000
- Selected Bibliographies
- Index
Summary
Walt Whitman devoted his career to defining and enacting a new poetics that would be distinctive to the American nation and its democratic aspirations. Whitman's influence has extended well beyond poetry. He has been examined seriously by political scientists and cultural theorists as a philosopher of democracy, and he has been a central figure in gay history and queer studies, often credited with inventing the language of homosexual love. Whitman's notebooks and surviving manuscripts reveal the intensity and fluidity of the development of his poetic style. He was teaching Americans how to begin to think and speak democratically, in a freer and looser idiom, in a more conversational and less formal tone, in an absorptive and indiscriminate way. Major historical events like the Civil War and Reconstruction had a palpable effect on the physical makeup of his books.
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- The Cambridge History of American Poetry , pp. 329 - 359Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2014
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