Leaves of Grass: The First Edition 1855 & Death Bed 1892

Leaves of Grass is Walt Whitman's audacious, evolving poetic testament to the body, the soul, democracy, labor, sexuality, death, and the vast plural life of America. Written largely in expansive free verse, its long-breathed cadences reject conventional meter in favor of biblical resonance, oratorical sweep, and intimate address. Emerging in the mid-nineteenth century, the collection stands at the threshold of American literary modernity, transforming Romantic selfhood into a collective, national, and cosmic "I." Whitman, born in 1819 on Long Island and shaped by journalism, printing, urban life, and the politics of Jacksonian democracy, fashioned himself as both poet and representative citizen. His experience among workers, ferry passengers, soldiers, and city crowds deepened his conviction that poetry should embrace ordinary people and common speech. The Civil War, which he witnessed through hospital service, further intensified the book's meditations on suffering, union, and mortality. This is essential reading for anyone seeking the origins of a distinctively American poetic voice. Leaves of Grass rewards readers willing to meet its largeness, contradictions, sensuality, and prophetic confidence, offering not merely poems but a radical vision of human dignity and democratic possibility.

Pagina's: 724, Paperback, Sharp Ink