A Historical Guide to Walt Whitman (Historical Guides to American Authors) [Paperback]

David S. Reynolds (Editor)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 13, 2000 | Series: Historical Guides to American Authors

Few authors are so well suited to historical study as Whitman, who is widely considered America's greatest poet. This Guide combines contemporary cultural studies and historical scholarship to illuminate Whitman's diverse contexts. The essays explore dimensions of Whitman's dynamic relationship to working-class politics, race and slavery, sexual mores, the visual arts, and the idea of democracy. The poet who emerges from this volume is no "solitary singer," distanced from his culture, but what he himself called "the age transfigured," fully enmeshed in his times and addressing issues that are still vital today.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"Carries Whitman discourse beyond the commonplace and into the extraordinary. A peculiar virtue of the Guide is that by focusing Whitman through a historical lens, we actually can view panoramically a number of significant contemporary issues such a race, gay ethos, class, and politics." -Catherine Kunce, Rocky Mountain Review

Review

“A rich fund of source materials and historical contexts…The copious information Reynolds offers in the “Brief Biography” piles one interesting historical fact upon another in a compact narrative of the poet’s life. The chronology, photographs, and bibliographical essays by David Reynolds are useful to even the most experienced scholars.” --Mark Bauerlin, "Walt Whitman Quarterly Review"

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Product Details

• Paperback: 288 pages
• Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA (January 13, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0195120825
• ISBN-13: 978-0195120820
• Product Dimensions: 8.2 x 5.5 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 13.9 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,294,656 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

David S. Reynolds, a Distinguished Professor at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York, is the author or editor of 15 books, including "Mightier than the Sword: Uncle Tom's Cabin and the Battle for America," "Walt Whitman's America," "John Brown, Abolitionist," "Waking Giant: America in the Age of Jackson," "George Lippard," "Faith in Fiction," and "Beneath the American Renaissance." He is the winner of the Bancroft Prize, the Christian Gauss Award, the Ambassador Book Award, the Gustavus Myers Outstanding Book Award, and finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award. He has been interviewed some 80 times on radio and TV, on shows including NPR's "Fresh Air," "Weekend Edition," and "The Diane Rehm Show," ABC's "The John Batchelor Show," and C-SPAN's "After Words," Brian Lamb's "Book Notes," and "Book TV." He is a regular contributor to "The New York Times Book Review" and is included in "Who's Who in America," "Who's Who in American Education," and "Who's Who in the World." David Reynolds was born in Providence, Rhode Island. For much of his childhood he lived in West Barrington, Rhode Island in a home attached to the Nayatt Point Lighthouse (built in 1828). His father, Paul Reynolds, sold life insurance and later became an artist. His mother, Adelaide Koch Reynolds, was an artist, art teacher, and sometime illustrator who designed newspapers ads and Hallmark greeting cards. David Reynolds attended the Providence Country Day School, where he later taught for a year after his graduation from college. He received the B.A. magna cum laude from Amherst College and the Ph.D. from the University of California, Berkeley. He has taught American literature and American Studies at Northwestern University, Barnard College, New York University, Rutgers University, Baruch College, and the Sorbonne-Paris III. Since 2006, he has been at the CUNY Graduate Center. Besides writing and teaching, he enjoys songwriting and tennis as hobbies.