American literature and culture are inconceivable without the towering presence of Walt Whitman. Expansive, ecstatic, original in ways that continue to startle and to elicit new discoveries, Whitman’s poetry is a testament to the surging energies of 19th-century America and a monument to the transforming power of literary genius. His incantatory rhythms, revolutionary sense of Eros, and generous, all-embracing vision invite renewed wonder at each reading. Although he has been a defining influence for many poets—Garcia Lorca, Fernando Pessoa, Robinson Jeffers, and Allen Ginsberg—his style is ultimately inimitable, and his achievement unsurpassed in American poetry.
“One always wants to start out fresh with Whitman,” writes Harold Bloom in his introduction, “and read him as though he never has been read before.” In a selection that ranges from early notebook fragments and the complete “Song of Myself” to the valedictory “Good-bye My Fancy!,” Bloom has chosen 47 works to represent “the principal writer that America—North, Central, or South—has brought to us.”
About the American Poets Project Elegantly designed in compact editions, printed on acid-free paper, and textually authoritative, the American Poets Project makes available the full range of the American poetic accomplishment, selected and introduced by today’s most discerning poets and critics.
“Who, could possibly make another selection [of Walt Whitman] seem fresh? Who is definitely Harold Bloom, dean of American literary critics, who considers Whitman ‘the principal writer that America—North, Central, or South—has brought to us.’ . . . Bloom connects Whitman’s project to the thesis of his The American Religion (1992) that the tendency of religion in America is to replace God with man, and with the fragments, Bloom presents explicit evidence of the attempt.” —Booklist
Walt Whitman (1819-1892) was born on Long Island and educated in Brooklyn, New York. He served as a printer's devil, journeyman compositor, itinerant schoolteacher, editor, and unofficial nurse to Northern and Southern soldiers, and is widely considered the greatest American poet of the ninetheenth century.
Harold Bloom is the author of over thirty books, including the New York Times bestsellers Shakespeare: The Invention of the Human; The Western Canon; and Jesus and Yahweh: The Names Divine, and has been the recipient of numerous honors, including a MacArthur Fellowship and the Gold Medal for Belles Lettres and Criticism from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. He is Sterling Professor of Humanities at Yale University and is a former Charles Eliot Norton Professor at Harvard University.
American literature and culture are inconceivable without the towering presence of Walt Whitman. Expansive, ecstatic, original in ways that continue to startle and to elicit new discoveries, Whitman’s poetry is a testament to the surging energies of 19th-century America and a monument to the transforming power of literary genius. His incantatory rhythms, revolutionary sense of Eros, and generous, all-embracing vision invite renewed wonder at each reading. Although he has been a defining influence for many poets—Garcia Lorca, Fernando Pessoa, Robinson Jeffers, and Allen Ginsberg—his style is ultimately inimitable, and his achievement unsurpassed in American poetry.
“One always wants to start out fresh with Whitman,” writes Harold Bloom in his introduction, “and read him as though he never has been read before.” In a selection that ranges from early notebook fragments and the complete “Song of Myself” to the valedictory “Good-bye My Fancy!,” Bloom has chosen 47 works to represent “the principal writer that America—North, Central, or South—has brought to us.”
About the American Poets Project Elegantly designed in compact editions, printed on acid-free paper, and textually authoritative, the American Poets Project makes available the full range of the American poetic accomplishment, selected and introduced by today’s most discerning poets and critics.
Praise
“Who, could possibly make another selection [of Walt Whitman] seem fresh? Who is definitely Harold Bloom, dean of American literary critics, who considers Whitman ‘the principal writer that America—North, Central, or South—has brought to us.’ . . . Bloom connects Whitman’s project to the thesis of his The American Religion (1992) that the tendency of religion in America is to replace God with man, and with the fragments, Bloom presents explicit evidence of the attempt.” —Booklist
Author
Walt Whitman (1819-1892) was born on Long Island and educated in Brooklyn, New York. He served as a printer's devil, journeyman compositor, itinerant schoolteacher, editor, and unofficial nurse to Northern and Southern soldiers, and is widely considered the greatest American poet of the ninetheenth century.
Harold Bloom is the author of over thirty books, including the New York Times bestsellers Shakespeare: The Invention of the Human; The Western Canon; and Jesus and Yahweh: The Names Divine, and has been the recipient of numerous honors, including a MacArthur Fellowship and the Gold Medal for Belles Lettres and Criticism from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. He is Sterling Professor of Humanities at Yale University and is a former Charles Eliot Norton Professor at Harvard University.
