In this Book
- Walt Whitman's Selected Journalism
- Book
- 2015
- Published by: University of Iowa Press
- Series: Iowa Whitman Series
summary
Long before he was a celebrated poet, Walt Whitman was a working journalist. By the time he published the first edition of Leaves of Grass in 1855, Whitman had edited three newspapers and published thousands of reviews, editorials, and human-interest stories in newspapers in and around New York City. Yet for decades, much of his journalism has been difficult to access or even find. For the first time, Walt Whitman’s Selected Journalism thematically and chronologically organizes a compelling selection of Whitman’s journalism from the late 1830s to the Civil War. It includes writings from the poet’s first immersion into the burgeoning democratic culture of antebellum America to the war that transformed both the poet and the nation.
Walt Whitman’s Selected Journalism covers Whitman’s early years as a part-time editorialist and ambivalent schoolteacher between 1838 and 1841. After 1841, it follows his work as a dedicated full-time newspaperman and editor, most prominently at the New York Aurora and the Brooklyn Daily Eagle between 1842 and 1848. After 1848 and up to the Civil War, Whitman’s journalism shows his slow transformation from daily newspaper editor to poet. This volume gathers journalism from throughout these early years in his career, focusing on reporting, reviews, and editorials on politics and democratic culture, the arts, and the social debates of his day. It also includes some of Whitman’s best early reportage, in the form of the short, personal pieces he wrote that aimed to give his readers a sense of immediacy of experience as he guided them through various aspects of daily life in America’s largest metropolis.
Over time, journalism’s limitations pushed Whitman to seek another medium to capture and describe the world and the experience of America with words. In this light, today’s readers of Whitman are doubly indebted to his career in journalism. In presenting Whitman-the-journalist in his own words here, and with useful context and annotations by renowned scholars, Walt Whitman’s Selected Journalism illuminates for readers the future poet’s earliest attempts to speak on behalf of and to the entire American republic.
Walt Whitman’s Selected Journalism covers Whitman’s early years as a part-time editorialist and ambivalent schoolteacher between 1838 and 1841. After 1841, it follows his work as a dedicated full-time newspaperman and editor, most prominently at the New York Aurora and the Brooklyn Daily Eagle between 1842 and 1848. After 1848 and up to the Civil War, Whitman’s journalism shows his slow transformation from daily newspaper editor to poet. This volume gathers journalism from throughout these early years in his career, focusing on reporting, reviews, and editorials on politics and democratic culture, the arts, and the social debates of his day. It also includes some of Whitman’s best early reportage, in the form of the short, personal pieces he wrote that aimed to give his readers a sense of immediacy of experience as he guided them through various aspects of daily life in America’s largest metropolis.
Over time, journalism’s limitations pushed Whitman to seek another medium to capture and describe the world and the experience of America with words. In this light, today’s readers of Whitman are doubly indebted to his career in journalism. In presenting Whitman-the-journalist in his own words here, and with useful context and annotations by renowned scholars, Walt Whitman’s Selected Journalism illuminates for readers the future poet’s earliest attempts to speak on behalf of and to the entire American republic.
Table of Contents
Download Full Book
- Acknowledgments
- pp. ix-x
- I. Democracy and Politics
- Americanism
- pp. 3-4
- Organs of the Democracy
- pp. 5-7
- Democratic Young Men.
- pp. 15-16
- Shall we fight it out?
- pp. 17-19
- No Slavery in Oregon.
- pp. 20-21
- General Taylor.
- pp. 22-24
- The Queen of England.
- pp. 25-27
- The UNION Now and Forever!
- pp. 28-30
- Loss of the Wilmot Proviso.
- pp. 31-32
- Letter from Gen. Cass.
- pp. 39-40
- Henry C. Murphy
- pp. 41-47
- “The Dead Rabbit Democracy”
- pp. 48-50
- Prohibition of Colored Persons.
- pp. 51-53
- Untitled [August 26, 1858]
- pp. 58-59
- II. Moral Suasion
- Dickens and Democracy
- pp. 63-65
- A Dialogue By Walter Whitman
- pp. 66-72
- The Wrongs of Woman.
- pp. 73-74
- Slavers—and the Slave Trade.
- pp. 75-77
- Hurrah for Choking Human Lives!
- pp. 80-81
- Radicalism at the West.
- pp. 82-83
- Brooklyn Schools.
- pp. 84-85
- Brooklyn Morals.—Those Wax Figures.
- pp. 86-87
- “The worth of liberty.”
- pp. 92-93
- Little Hope Left!
- pp. 98-99
- The Cable Laid!
- pp. 100-101
- The Two Worlds United.
- pp. 102-104
- The Moral Effect of the Atlantic Cable
- pp. 105-106
- III. The Arts
- Mr. Emerson’s Lecture
- pp. 109-110
- Untitled [March 8, 1842]
- pp. 111-114
- Italian Opera in New Orleans
- pp. 115-117
- The Hutchinson Family
- p. 118
- American Music, New and True!
- pp. 119-120
- Heart-Music and Art-Music
- pp. 121-123
- Art-Singing and Heart-Singing
- pp. 124-127
- New Publications.
- pp. 129-130
- Polishing the “Common People.”
- pp. 131-132
- Music for the “natural ear.”
- pp. 133-135
- Government patronage of men of letters.
- pp. 136-138
- Dramatics; and the true secret of Acting.
- pp. 141-143
- Honor to Literature!
- pp. 147-148
- IV. Come Closer to Me
- Greenwood Cemetery
- pp. 165-168
- Life in New York
- pp. 187-188
- Life in a New York Market
- pp. 189-192
- An Hour in a Balcony
- pp. 193-195
- A Peep at the Israelites
- pp. 196-198
- Untitled [April 6, 1842]
- pp. 199-201
- Life and Love
- pp. 202-203
- An Hour at a Bath
- pp. 210-211
- A Visit to Greenwood Cemetery
- pp. 212-214
- Ourselves and the ‘Eagle.’
- pp. 215-216
- Gayety of Americans
- pp. 217-219
- PHILOSOPHY OF FERRIES.
- pp. 220-223
- Letters from a Travelling Bachelor [No. III]
- pp. 231-237
- From a Travelling Bachelor [Number IX]
- pp. 238-244
- From a Travelling Bachelor [Number X]
- pp. 245-250
- Letters from Paumanok [No. 2]
- pp. 251-254
- Long Island is a Great Place!
- pp. 255-257
- A Gossipy August Article.
- pp. 258-260
- Other Works in the Series
- pp. 283-284
Additional Information
ISBN
9781609383169
Related ISBN(s)
9781609383152
MARC Record
OCLC
907238286
Pages
320
Launched on MUSE
2015-04-16
Language
English
Open Access
No
Copyright
2015