Minor Prophecy: Walt Whitman's New American ReligionIndiana University Press, 1989 - 240 pages Many of Walt Whitman's earliest readers hailed him as a religious prophet. For them, Leaves of Grass was more than literary art; it was sacred scripture. Recent scholarship has, however, dismissed those early enthusiasts as naive, if not crazy. David Kuebrich's new study of Whitman corrects that academic oversight by giving the early Whitmanites their due as the critics who most clearly perceived the nature and purpose of the poet's labors—to begin a new religion. Kuebrich's thorough, intelligent study, based squarely on textual evidence, offers a revisionist interpretation of America's great poet, returning religious vision and spirituality to the center of Whitman studies. |
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Page 51
... live free of sin . Perfectionism was the converse side of Garrison's commitments to non - resistance and abolitionism . An editorial entitled " Perfection " in The Lib- erator of October 15 , 1841 , took to task a presbytery in upstate ...
... live free of sin . Perfectionism was the converse side of Garrison's commitments to non - resistance and abolitionism . An editorial entitled " Perfection " in The Lib- erator of October 15 , 1841 , took to task a presbytery in upstate ...
Page 60
... live in obedience to the spiritual laws of their nature and thus participate in a divinely ordained order . Whitman conceived of his future reli- gious democracy as the " younger brother of another great and often - used word , Nature ...
... live in obedience to the spiritual laws of their nature and thus participate in a divinely ordained order . Whitman conceived of his future reli- gious democracy as the " younger brother of another great and often - used word , Nature ...
Page 88
... live and are read , it must be just as much South as North — just as much along the Pacific as Atlantic - in the valley of the Mississippi , in Canada , up in Maine , down in Texas , and on the shores of Puget Sound " ( PW , 727 ) ...
... live and are read , it must be just as much South as North — just as much along the Pacific as Atlantic - in the valley of the Mississippi , in Canada , up in Maine , down in Texas , and on the shores of Puget Sound " ( PW , 727 ) ...
Contents
Reconsidering Whitmans Intention | 1 |
A New Religion | 12 |
Interpreting Historys Meaning | 27 |
Copyright | |
8 other sections not shown
Common terms and phrases
afterlife American antebellum argued asserts belief body Brooklyn Daily Eagle Calamus Christian mysticism church Civil conceived consciousness cosmology Cradle creation critics culture democracy Democratic depicts describes discussion divine earlier earth edition Emerson Emory Holloway ence Essays evolutionary existence faith freedom Gay Wilson Allen God's homosexual human human sexuality Ibid ideas immanent immortality interpretation Kuebrich later Leaves of Grass Lilacs literature male manly love millennial millennialist millennium Miller modern moral nation natural fact night passage perfect perfectionism phrenology poem's poems poet poet's poetic political present Press proclaim progress prophet race Ralph Waldo Emerson readers realization reform religion religious cosmology religious democracy religious experience religious symbols religious vision sense sexual society Song soul soul's spiritual development stars suggests theme theory thought tion traditional transcendent understanding Union Univ universe Walt Whitman Whit Whitman believed Whitman's poetry women world view York