Whitman

This is the first study to undertake a detailed analysis of Whitman's entire work in relation to the political struggles of the 19th century. Erkkila explores the ways in which the politics of race, class, gender, capital, technology, Western expansion, and war enter into the poetic design of "Leaves of Grass"; the relation between Whitman's (homo)sexual body and the body politic of his poems; and the ways in which the Civil War and its aftermath affected Whitman's artistic ordering and reordering of his work.