Walt Whitman: A Gay Life - Hardcover

Schmidgall, Gary

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0525943730 ISBN 13: 9780525943730

Publisher: E P Dutton, 1997

Synopsis

A revealing biography of the renowned American poet explores the relationships Whitman had with his male friends, most notably his long-time lover Peter Doyle, and uses such insight as a basis for literary criticism of his work. 10,000 first printing.

About this title

From the Author:

re: New York Times Review
Amazon browsers may be interested in the letter I wrote to the NYT Book Review editor in response to its review of my book (the Editor chose not to print it):

To the Editor:

When Walt Whitman published in 1860 his most daring, most homosexually confident--also his greatest--edition of "Leaves of Grass," the New York Times (19 May 1860) reviewer ridiculed his "delight in the contemplation of scenes that ordinary men...regard as irremediable evils." This poet of "quaint utterances and gross indecencies" was also chided for seeing "nothing vulgar in that which is commonly regarded as the grossest obscenity" and for lacking the "genius...to vivify or adorn that which, when said at all, should be said as delicately as possible." Whitman's 45 "Calamus" poems, the most personal and most explicitly gay he ever wrote, were new in the 1860 edition. The Times reviewer delicately passed over them in silence.

Comes now Renee Tursi, recoiling at my "Walt Whitman: A Gay Life" and asserting the "irrelevance" of the poet's sexual activity to his work. Some things at the Times--and in the world--will never change. In this case, homophobic denial.

I tend to find Whitman's own opinions preferable to Ms. Tursi's. He called sex "always immanent...the root of roots: the life below the life!" He called sex the "most sensitive spot" in "Leaves," and he said it was sex in the early editions that "excited the roundest opposition, the sharpest venom, [and] unintermitted slander."

Your reviewer's purse-lipped prudery, however, cannot spoil my elation at being called "self-hugging" by her. With Walt, praise can't go higher. He must have been similarly gratified when the 1860 Times harrumphed at his "unparalleled self-conceit" and "amusing egotism."

Sincerely etc.

About this edition

• Publisher: E P Dutton
• Publication date: 1997
• ISBN 10: 0525943730
• ISBN 13: 9780525943730
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 428