The Erotic Whitman

Pollak, Vivian R.

ISBN 10: 0520221907 / ISBN 13: 9780520221901

Edité par University of California Press, Berkeley, 2000

A propos de cet article

A bright, attractive copy. Spine not creased. 230 x 155 mm. xxiv, 264 pp + 8 pages of b&w illustrations. Drawing on his early fiction, journalism, letters and notebooks, Vivian Pollak skillfully examines Whitman's 'faith in sex' and his imagination of masculinity in crisis. Includes endnotes and index.

N° de réf. du vendeur 74592

Détails bibliographiques

• Titre: The Erotic Whitman
• Éditeur: University of California Press, Berkeley
• Date de parution: 2000
• Langue: anglais
• ISBN à 10 chiffres: 0520221907
• ISBN à 13 chiffres: 9780520221901
• Reliure: Paperback
• État de l'article: Near Fine
• Type de livre: Book
• Catalogues du vendeur:
  • Poetry, fiction, literature, criticism

A propos de ce titre

Synopsis

In this provocative analysis of Whitman's exemplary quest for happiness, Vivian Pollak skillfully explores the intimate relationships that contributed to his portrayal of masculinity in crisis. She maintains that in representing himself as a characteristic nineteenth-century American and in proposing to heal national ills, Whitman was trying to temper his own inner conflicts as well.

The poet's expansive vision of natural eroticism and of unfettered comradeship between democratic equals was, however, only part of the story. As Whitman waged a conscious campaign to challenge misogynistic and homophobic literary codes, he promoted a raceless, classless ideal of sexual democracy that theoretically equalized all varieties of desire and resisted none. Pollak suggests that this goal remains imperfectly achieved in his writings, which liberates some forbidden voices and silences others.

Integrating biography and criticism, Pollak employs a loosely chronological organization to describe the poet's multifaceted "faith in sex." Drawing on his early fiction, journalism, poetry, and self-reviews, as well as letters and notebook entries, she shows how in spite of his personal ambivalence about sustained erotic intimacy, Whitman came to imagine himself as "the phallic choice of America."

À propos de l?auteur

Vivian R. Pollak is Professor of English at Washington University, St. Louis, and is the editor of New Essays on James's Daisy Miller and The Turn of the Screw (1992) and A Poet's Parents: The Courtship Letters of Emily Norcross and Edward Dickinson (1988), and author of Dickinson: The Anxiety of Gender (1984).