The Portable Walt Whitman
Published on 5. April 2004
Book
Paperback/Softback
608 pages
978-0-14-243768-1 (ISBN)
Description
When Walt Whitman self-published a collection of 12 poems entitled Leaves of Grass in 1855, he was an unknown, but ambitious, journalist from Long Island - by the time of his death he was beginning to be recognised as one of the most distinctive poetic voices of the modern world. His poetry, which he continually revised and republished over the course of his life, broke new ground in its treatment of the individual, eroticism, mortality and the trauma of the Civil War and created a new, unfamiliar yet unabashedly American, voice for his country and his fellow people.
More details
Edition
Revised edition
Language
English
Place of publication
London
United Kingdom
Product notice
Paperback (trade)
Dimensions
Height: 198 mm
Width: 128 mm
Thickness: 26 mm
Weight
390 gr
ISBN-13
978-0-14-243768-1 (9780142437681)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions
Walt Whitman | Michael Warner
The Portable Walt Whitman
E-Book
12/2003
Penguin Classics
€5.49
Available for download
Previous edition
Walter Whitman | Malcolm Cowley | Mark Van Doren
The Portable Walt Whitman
Book
03/1978
Viking Portable Library
€33.61
Article exhausted; check for reprint
Persons
Walt Whitman (1819-1892) is considered to be one of the greatest American poets. His collection of twelve poems, Leaves of Grass, was first published in 1855 and initially shocked the American public with its unfamiliar form and democratic stance. He was particularly in the public eye in his last nineteen years of life when English writers such as William Rossetti and Robert Stevenson contended that Americans did not fully appreciate him.
Content
The Portable Walt WhitmanIntroduction
Poems From Leaves Of Grass
(dates indicate first book publication)
1855:
Song of Myself
A Song for Occupations
To Think of Time
The Sleepers
I Sing the Body Electric
Faces
There Was a Child Went Forth
Who Learns My Lesson Complete?
1856:
Unfolded Out of the Folds
Song of the Broad-Axe
To You
This Compost
Crossing Brooklyn Ferry
Song of the Open Road
A Woman Waits for Me
To a Foil'd European Revolutionaire
Spontaneous Me
A Song of the Rolling Earth
1860:
Starting from Paumanok
From Pent-up Aching Rivers
Me Imperturbe
I Hear America Singing
As I Ebb'd with the Ocean of Life
You Felons on Trial in Courts
The World below the Brine
I Sit and Look Out
All Is Truth
Out of the Cradle Endlessly Rocking
Native Moments
Once I Pass'd through a Populous City
Once I Pass'd through a Populous City (draft version)
Facing West from California's Shores
As Adam Early in the Morning
Live Oak, with Moss
I. (Not Heat Flames up and Consumes)
II. (I Saw in Louisiana a Live-Oak Growing)
III. (When I Heard at the Close of the Day)
IV. (This Moment Yearning and Thoughtful)
V. (Calamus 8: "Long I thought that knowledge alone would suffice me")
VI. (What Think You I Take My Pen in Hand?)
VII. (Recorders Ages Hence!)
VIII. (Calamus 9: "Hours continuing long, sore and heavy-hearted")
IX. (I Dreamed in a Dream)
X. (O You Whom I Often and Silently Come)
XI. (Earth! My Likeness)
XXI. (To a Western Boy)
Calamus:
In Paths Untrodden
Scented Herbage of My Breast
Whoever You Are Holding Me Now in Hand
For You O Democracy
These I Singing in Spring
Of the Terrible Doubt of Appearances
The Base of All Metaphysics (added 1871)
Are You the New Person Drawn toward Me?
Roots and Leaves Themselves Alone
Of Him I Love Day and Night
City of Orgies
To a Stranger
I Hear It Was Charged Against Me
We Two Boys Together Clinging
Here The Frailest Leaves of Me
A Glimpse
Sometimes with One I Love
Among the Multitude
That Shadow My Likeness
Full of Life Now
To Him That Was Crucified
To a Common Prostitute
To You
Mannahatta
A Hand-Mirror
Visor'd
As if a Phantom Caress'd Me
So Long!
1865-66:
Drum-Taps (1865) and Sequel to Drum-Taps (1865-66):
Shut Not Your Doors
Beat! Beat! Drums!
City of Ships
Cavalry Crossing a Ford
Bivouac on a Mountain Side
An Army Corps on the March (1865-66)
By the Bivouac's Fitful Flame
Come Up from the Fields Father
Vigil Strange I Kept on the Field One Night
A March in the Ranks Hard-Prest, and the Road Unknown
A Sight in Camp in the Daybreak Gray and Dim
As Toilsome I Wander'd Virginia's Woods
The Wound-Dresser
When I Heard the Learn'd Astronomer
A Farm Picture
Give Me the Splendid Silent Sun
To a Certain Civilian
Years of the Modern
Over the Carnage Rose Prophetic a Voice
As I Lay with My Head in Your Lap Camerado (1865-66)
Out of the Rolling Ocean the Crowd
I Saw Old General at Bay
Look Down Fair Moon
Reconciliation (1865-66)
When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom'd (1865-66)
O Captain! My Captain! (1865-66)
Old War-Dreams (1865-66)
Chanting the Square Deific (1865-66)
I Heard You Solemn-Sweet Pipes of the Organ (1865-66)
1867:
One's Self I Sing
The Runner
When I Read the Book
1871:
Passage to India
Proud Music of the Storm
A Noiseless Patient Spider
The Last Invocation
On the Beach at Night
Sparkles from the Wheel
Gods
Joy, Shipmate, Joy!
Ethiopia Saluting the Colors
1872:
The Mystic Trumpeter
1876:
Prayer of Columbus
To a Locomotive in Winter
The Ox-Tamer
1881:
The Dalliance of the Eagles
A Clear Midnight
1888:
As I Sit Writing Here
Broadway
1891:
Unseen Buds
Good-bye My Fancy!
PROSE WRITINGS
"The Child's Champion"
Prefaces and Afterwords from Leaves of Grass:
Preface to "Leaves of Grass", 1855
Letter to Ralph Waldo Emerson, from "Leaves of Grass", 1856
Preface to "As a Strong Bird on Pinions Free," 1872
Preface to the Centennial Edition of "Leaves of Grass", 1876
"A Backward Glance O'er Travel'd Roads," 1888
"Democratic Vistas"
From Specimen Days
"Slang in America"
Suggestions for Further Reading
Index of Titles and First Lines
Poems From Leaves Of Grass
(dates indicate first book publication)
1855:
Song of Myself
A Song for Occupations
To Think of Time
The Sleepers
I Sing the Body Electric
Faces
There Was a Child Went Forth
Who Learns My Lesson Complete?
1856:
Unfolded Out of the Folds
Song of the Broad-Axe
To You
This Compost
Crossing Brooklyn Ferry
Song of the Open Road
A Woman Waits for Me
To a Foil'd European Revolutionaire
Spontaneous Me
A Song of the Rolling Earth
1860:
Starting from Paumanok
From Pent-up Aching Rivers
Me Imperturbe
I Hear America Singing
As I Ebb'd with the Ocean of Life
You Felons on Trial in Courts
The World below the Brine
I Sit and Look Out
All Is Truth
Out of the Cradle Endlessly Rocking
Native Moments
Once I Pass'd through a Populous City
Once I Pass'd through a Populous City (draft version)
Facing West from California's Shores
As Adam Early in the Morning
Live Oak, with Moss
I. (Not Heat Flames up and Consumes)
II. (I Saw in Louisiana a Live-Oak Growing)
III. (When I Heard at the Close of the Day)
IV. (This Moment Yearning and Thoughtful)
V. (Calamus 8: "Long I thought that knowledge alone would suffice me")
VI. (What Think You I Take My Pen in Hand?)
VII. (Recorders Ages Hence!)
VIII. (Calamus 9: "Hours continuing long, sore and heavy-hearted")
IX. (I Dreamed in a Dream)
X. (O You Whom I Often and Silently Come)
XI. (Earth! My Likeness)
XXI. (To a Western Boy)
Calamus:
In Paths Untrodden
Scented Herbage of My Breast
Whoever You Are Holding Me Now in Hand
For You O Democracy
These I Singing in Spring
Of the Terrible Doubt of Appearances
The Base of All Metaphysics (added 1871)
Are You the New Person Drawn toward Me?
Roots and Leaves Themselves Alone
Of Him I Love Day and Night
City of Orgies
To a Stranger
I Hear It Was Charged Against Me
We Two Boys Together Clinging
Here The Frailest Leaves of Me
A Glimpse
Sometimes with One I Love
Among the Multitude
That Shadow My Likeness
Full of Life Now
To Him That Was Crucified
To a Common Prostitute
To You
Mannahatta
A Hand-Mirror
Visor'd
As if a Phantom Caress'd Me
So Long!
1865-66:
Drum-Taps (1865) and Sequel to Drum-Taps (1865-66):
Shut Not Your Doors
Beat! Beat! Drums!
City of Ships
Cavalry Crossing a Ford
Bivouac on a Mountain Side
An Army Corps on the March (1865-66)
By the Bivouac's Fitful Flame
Come Up from the Fields Father
Vigil Strange I Kept on the Field One Night
A March in the Ranks Hard-Prest, and the Road Unknown
A Sight in Camp in the Daybreak Gray and Dim
As Toilsome I Wander'd Virginia's Woods
The Wound-Dresser
When I Heard the Learn'd Astronomer
A Farm Picture
Give Me the Splendid Silent Sun
To a Certain Civilian
Years of the Modern
Over the Carnage Rose Prophetic a Voice
As I Lay with My Head in Your Lap Camerado (1865-66)
Out of the Rolling Ocean the Crowd
I Saw Old General at Bay
Look Down Fair Moon
Reconciliation (1865-66)
When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom'd (1865-66)
O Captain! My Captain! (1865-66)
Old War-Dreams (1865-66)
Chanting the Square Deific (1865-66)
I Heard You Solemn-Sweet Pipes of the Organ (1865-66)
1867:
One's Self I Sing
The Runner
When I Read the Book
1871:
Passage to India
Proud Music of the Storm
A Noiseless Patient Spider
The Last Invocation
On the Beach at Night
Sparkles from the Wheel
Gods
Joy, Shipmate, Joy!
Ethiopia Saluting the Colors
1872:
The Mystic Trumpeter
1876:
Prayer of Columbus
To a Locomotive in Winter
The Ox-Tamer
1881:
The Dalliance of the Eagles
A Clear Midnight
1888:
As I Sit Writing Here
Broadway
1891:
Unseen Buds
Good-bye My Fancy!
PROSE WRITINGS
"The Child's Champion"
Prefaces and Afterwords from Leaves of Grass:
Preface to "Leaves of Grass", 1855
Letter to Ralph Waldo Emerson, from "Leaves of Grass", 1856
Preface to "As a Strong Bird on Pinions Free," 1872
Preface to the Centennial Edition of "Leaves of Grass", 1876
"A Backward Glance O'er Travel'd Roads," 1888
"Democratic Vistas"
From Specimen Days
"Slang in America"
Suggestions for Further Reading
Index of Titles and First Lines