About this product

Product Identifiers

PublisherUniversity of Iowa Press

ISBN-100877459738

ISBN-139780877459736

eBay Product ID (ePID)50945939

Product Key Features

Number of Pages186 Pages

Publication NameWalt Whitman and the Class Struggle

LanguageEnglish

SubjectGeneral, Modern / 19th Century, Poetry, American / General, Subjects & Themes / General

Publication Year2006

TypeTextbook

AuthorAndrew Lawson

Subject AreaLiterary Criticism

SeriesIowa Whitman Ser.

FormatHardcover

Dimensions

Item Height0.6 in

Item Weight14.1 Oz

Item Length8.5 in

Item Width6.1 in

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Intended AudienceScholarly & Professional

LCCN2005-053817

Reviews"This powerfully terse and clear-eyed book develops an outstandingly useful new perspective on the relation between language and politics in the 1855 Leaves of Grass."---Jonathan Arac, author of The Emergence of American Literary Narrative, 1820-1860, "Lawson's learned, extended, and exciting rereading of Whitman's mixed diction in 'Song of Myself' refuses the casual assertion of simple 'democratic zest' in previous accounts; he shows that the unevenness of tone and the rich registers of diction reveal a complex political salience in the poem that earlier readers have missed or not known enough to see. Lawson brings alive the thick history in the Whitman voice."---Hans Bergmann, author of God in the Street: New York Writing from the Penny Press to Melville, "Andrew Lawson's mastery of primary and secondary sources produces an authoritative revisionist reading of Whitman's place in the social system of his day. We are introduced to a Whitman who is edgily confrontational rather than ebullient, and the poetry is refreshed by being read as zestfully combative. Walt Whitman and the Class Struggle is an arresting corrective contribution to current Whitman scholarship."---M. Wynn Thomas, author of The Lunar Light of Whitman's Poetry and Transatlantic Connections: Whitman U.S., Whitman U.K.

Dewey Edition22

IllustratedYes

Dewey Decimal811.3

SynopsisBy reconsidering Whitman not as the proletarian voice of American diversity but as a historically specific poet with roots in the antebellum lower middle class, Andrew Lawson in Walt Whitman and the Class Struggle defines the tensions and ambiguities about culture, class, and politics that underlie his poetry.Drawing on a wealth of primary sources from across the range of antebellum print culture, Lawson uses close readings of Leaves of Grass to reveal Whitman as an artisan and an autodidact ambivalently balanced between his sense of the injustice of class privilege and his desire for distinction. Consciously drawing upon the languages of both the elite culture above him and the vernacular culture below him, Whitman constructed a kind of middle linguistic register that attempted to filter these conflicting strata and defuse their tensions: "You shall not look through my eyes either, nor take things from me, / You shall listen to all sides and filter them from yourself." By exploring Whitman's internal struggle with the contradictions and tensions of his class identity, Lawson locates the source of his poetic innovation. By revealing a class-conscious and conflicted Whitman, he realigns our understanding of the poet's political identity and distinctive use of language and thus valuably alters our perspective on his poetry., By reconsidering Whitman not as the proletarian voice of American diversity but as a historically specific poet with roots in the antebellum lower middle class, Andrew Lawson in Walt Whitman and the Class Struggle defines the tensions and ambiguities about culture, class, and politics that underlie his poetry.Drawing on a wealth of primary sources from across the range of antebellum print culture, Lawson uses close readings of Leaves of Grass to reveal Whitman as an artisan and an autodidact ambivalently balanced between his sense of the injustice of class privilege and his desire for distinction. Consciously drawing upon the languages of both the elite culture above him and the vernacular culture below him, Whitman constructed a kind of middle linguistic register that attempted to filter these conflicting strata and defuse their tensions: You shall not look through my eyes either, nor take things from me, / You shall listen to all sides and filter them from yourself. By exploring Whitman's internal struggle with the contradictions and tensions of his class identity, Lawson locates the source of his poetic innovation. By revealing a class-conscious and conflicted Whitman, he realigns our understanding of the poet's political identity and distinctive use of language and thus valuably alters our perspective on his poetry."

LC Classification NumberPS3242.S58L39 2006

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Iowa Whitman Ser.: Walt Whitman and the Class Struggle by Andrew Lawson (2006, Hardcover)

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