Walt Whitman: Critical Assessments (Helm Information Critical Assessments of Writers in English) - Hardcover

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 187340316X ISBN 13: 9781873403167

Publisher: Routledge, 1994

Synopsis

When Ralph Waldo Emerson declared, in his seminal letter of 1855 to Walt Whitman, :E greet you at the beginning of a great career, be was both prophetic and unknowingly ironic. Walt Whitman remains one of the greatest American poets, an exemplary figure whose work is key to understanding the culture of the 19th century. And yet Whitman's career was hardly great in the way Emerson suggested. Although he did become a celebrity in his own lifetime, he hardly approached the position of the poet he imagined in the Preface to the 1855 edition of Leaves of Grass or the prophetic stature he suggested in his central autobiographical poem Song of Myself. Recent studies show that the private Whitman was a very different man from the mythic public figure he constructed of himself. The response to Whitman has been extreme and diverse. For instance, in the 19th century, he was admired by Emerson and Rossetti but rejected by Henry James and Swinburne. Even now the consensus on Whitman both as a poet and as a person is for from settled. His poetry underscores the writing of Ezra Pound and the imagists; it is seminal to the work of William Carlos Williams, Hart Crane, Charles Olson, Robert Duncan, and Allen Ginsberg. Indeed, Whitman remains at the heart of any understanding of American literature and culture--a touchstone for its myths, ideals, a key to its continuities and contradictions. This critical assessment is divided into four sections: The Man and the Myth, The Response to the Writing, Writers on Whitman's Writing, and Walt Whitman in the 20th Century: A Chronological Overview.

About this title

Review

." . .this work is essential for serious students of literature. Libraries that purchase only this book will be well-armed for Eliot scholars and the college/high school term-paper crowd alike."
From reviews of T. S. Eliot: Critical Assessments
-Library Journal

Synopsis

Part of the "Critical Assessments of Writers in English" series, the aim of which is to provide complete collections of previously published, formative critical assessments covering the whole work of individual writers. The titles should be useful to serious readers of literature, researchers and advanced students. Many of the pieces included were originally published in journals or books which are now out of print or very difficult to obtain. Each set has an authoritative introductory survey, as well as a full bibliography and biographical details. This collection attempts to present as wide a view as possible of Walt Whitman's work, taking into account biographical, aesthetic and other concerns and, ultimately, allowing the reader to return to the original texts.

Edition details

• Publisher: Routledge
• Publication date: 1994
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 187340316X
• ISBN 13: 9781873403167
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 2112
• Editor: Clarke Graham