A Political Companion to Walt Whitman

Political Companions to Great American Authors

by John E. Seery (Editor)

The works of Walt Whitman have been described as masculine, feminine, postcolonial, homoerotic, urban, organic, unique, and democratic, yet arguments about the extent to which Whitman could or should be considered a political poet have yet to be fully confronted. Some scholars disregard Whitman's understanding of democracy, insisting on separating his personal works from his political works.

A Political Companion to Walt Whitman is the first full-length exploration of Whitman's works through the lens of political theory. Editor John E. Seery and a collection of prominent theorists and philosophers uncover the political awareness of Whitman's poetry and prose, analyzing his faith in the potential of individuals, his call for a revolution in literature and political culture, and his belief in the possibility of combining heroic individualism with democratic justice. A Political Companion to Walt Whitman reaches beyond literature into political theory, revealing the ideology behind Whitman's call for the emergence of American poets of democracy.

368 pages, Paperback

First published September 29, 2010

Reviews

[Dusty · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'll admit it: I'm a student of literature (not political science) and so when I ran across this volume at the University of Texas library I nearly cast it aside un-perused. Fortunately, I didn't make that mistake. It's true that The Political Companion to Walt Whitman, like nearly every collection that calls itself a "companion," contains such a kaleidoscopic array of approaches to its subject that the rarest devotee would care to read it in its entirety. (And though I heart Whitman I'm not nearly ready to classify myself a devotee.) But it's also true that I did find several of the book's contents of remarkable value in a recent research project, and Marshall Berman's and Jason Frank's contributions to the section on Whitman's urban body politics certainly helped orient my vision for the dissertation I'd like to write on New World flâneurie. All in all a helpful new collection -- and one that shouldn't be bypassed just because it doesn't title itself "literary."