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Walt Whitman and the Culture of American Celebrity
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Editorial Reviews
From Publishers Weekly
Smart without being dense, clever without being smarmy, this cultural history is an engaging, at times eye-opening read. Blake, an English professor at the College of New Jersey, views Walt Whitman and his work in relation to the rise of celebrity culture in the nineteenth century-the time of Harriet Beecher Stowe, Fanny Fern, and PT Barnum-paying particular attention to the emerging ideas of publicity, promotion, and society's changing conceptions of fame. But this isn't the story of Whitman's personal experience of fame; as Blake points out, that would make for a slim volume. Rather, he writes, "Whitman's relation to American celebrity is a story about how the poet's thinking responded to the culture he observed developing around him." While the book is emphatically not a work of literary criticism, it nonetheless offers new and enjoyable ways of reading Whitman's work, particularly when viewed through the prism of advertising and self-promotion. For example, according to Blake, the most significant antebellum advertisements came from the patent medicine trade, and "'Song of Myself' directly invokes the language of patent medicine advertising in describing the poet's astonishing impact." To the many critics and students who idolize Whitman, this may seem nothing short of blasphemous, but Blake insists this shouldn't be the case: "Whitman's immersion in publicity does not rival or compromise the aspects of his work that readers have praised since the nineteenth century." Indeed, this enlightening study elevates all involved, especially the dubious legacy of that perennial beast, the American idol.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
Review
"This rich and engaging book locates Walt Whitman in an expanse of popular culture that stretches from patent medicines to presidential politics, revealing the poet''s complicated, often inconsistent views on poetry, commerce, and celebrity."-Wes Davis, Yale University (Wes Davis )
"To date the most sustained look at Whitman in the context of celebrity and self-promotion. Blake's scholarship and writing are both exemplary." -Wes Davis, Yale University (Wes Davis )
"This is an elegantly written and original book that has much to teach us about Whitman''s life and work and the culture of celebrity in which he lived and wrote."-Betsy Erkkila, author of Whitman the Political Poet (Betsy Erkkila )
"Using rich archival material, David Blake shows us a Whitman ''celebrating'' American democracy and dreaming of the mass applause that alone proves a poet''s worth."-Wai Chee Dimock, Yale University (Wai Chee Dimock )
"Anyone interested in America''s celebrity culture will want to read Blake''s revelatory study of how Whitman tried to build a democratic poetry on the basis of personality, publicity, and public intimacy-and how, for a few decades in the last half of the nineteenth century, it was possible to imagine celebrity itself redeeming a nation."-Ed Folsom, author of Walt Whitman''s Native Representations (Ed Folsom )
See all Editorial Reviews
Smart without being dense, clever without being smarmy, this cultural history is an engaging, at times eye-opening read. Blake, an English professor at the College of New Jersey, views Walt Whitman and his work in relation to the rise of celebrity culture in the nineteenth century-the time of Harriet Beecher Stowe, Fanny Fern, and PT Barnum-paying particular attention to the emerging ideas of publicity, promotion, and society's changing conceptions of fame. But this isn't the story of Whitman's personal experience of fame; as Blake points out, that would make for a slim volume. Rather, he writes, "Whitman's relation to American celebrity is a story about how the poet's thinking responded to the culture he observed developing around him." While the book is emphatically not a work of literary criticism, it nonetheless offers new and enjoyable ways of reading Whitman's work, particularly when viewed through the prism of advertising and self-promotion. For example, according to Blake, the most significant antebellum advertisements came from the patent medicine trade, and "'Song of Myself' directly invokes the language of patent medicine advertising in describing the poet's astonishing impact." To the many critics and students who idolize Whitman, this may seem nothing short of blasphemous, but Blake insists this shouldn't be the case: "Whitman's immersion in publicity does not rival or compromise the aspects of his work that readers have praised since the nineteenth century." Indeed, this enlightening study elevates all involved, especially the dubious legacy of that perennial beast, the American idol.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
Review
"This rich and engaging book locates Walt Whitman in an expanse of popular culture that stretches from patent medicines to presidential politics, revealing the poet''s complicated, often inconsistent views on poetry, commerce, and celebrity."-Wes Davis, Yale University (Wes Davis )
"To date the most sustained look at Whitman in the context of celebrity and self-promotion. Blake's scholarship and writing are both exemplary." -Wes Davis, Yale University (Wes Davis )
"This is an elegantly written and original book that has much to teach us about Whitman''s life and work and the culture of celebrity in which he lived and wrote."-Betsy Erkkila, author of Whitman the Political Poet (Betsy Erkkila )
"Using rich archival material, David Blake shows us a Whitman ''celebrating'' American democracy and dreaming of the mass applause that alone proves a poet''s worth."-Wai Chee Dimock, Yale University (Wai Chee Dimock )
"Anyone interested in America''s celebrity culture will want to read Blake''s revelatory study of how Whitman tried to build a democratic poetry on the basis of personality, publicity, and public intimacy-and how, for a few decades in the last half of the nineteenth century, it was possible to imagine celebrity itself redeeming a nation."-Ed Folsom, author of Walt Whitman''s Native Representations (Ed Folsom )
See all Editorial Reviews
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