Walt Whitmans America: A Cultural Biography

Winner of the Bancroft Prize and the Ambassador Book Award andFinalist for the National for the Book Critics Circle AwardIn his poetry Walt Whitman set out to encompass all of America and in so doing heal its deepening divisions. This magisterial biography demonstrates the epic scale of his achievement, as well as the dreams and anxieties that impelled it, for it places the poet securely within the political and cultural context of his age.Combing through the full range of Whitmans writing, David Reynolds shows how Whitman gathered inspiration from every stratum of nineteenthcentury American life: the convulsions of slavery and depression; the raffish dandyism of the Bowery bhoys; the exuberant rhetoric of actors, orators, and divines. We see how Whitman reconciled his own sexuality with contemporary social mores and how his energetic courtship of the public presaged the vogues of advertising and celebrity. Brilliantly researched, captivatingly told, Walt Whitmans America is a triumphant work of scholarship that breathes new life into the biographical genre.