Read the Introduction to Walt Whitman by RWB Lewis on the REPRINT from Major Writers of America. Answer each of the questions below.

1. In your own words, what does Lewis say Whitman did in the last 25 years of his life, beginning around 1867?

2. What has "recent scholarship" begun to do?

3. According to the second ¶ , how did Whitman achieve this concealment? What did he do to his book? Why?

4. What happened to Whitman's poetry and identity or voice as a poet as the years went on?

5. What does Lewis say in the fourth ¶ one must do to "disentangle" Whitman and separate the poet from the posture, the real from the unpersuasive?

6. In which editions of Leaves of Grass is the "real Whitman" to be found?

7. What does Lewis say Whitman's "best poems" are about?

8. What is the relationship between Whitman's biography and his poetry? Is one important to the other?

9. Briefly describe Whitman's background.

Was it conducive to becoming a poet?

10. Where did Whitman move to in 1841?

Where did he visit in 1848?

11. What were Whitman's political views?

12. What is the relationship between all of Whitman's various jobs, occupations, roles, etc., and his identity as a poet?

13. What is "Song of Myself"?

14. What was Whitman the first American poet to break free from?

15. How does the tone or mood of the 1860 edition of Leaves of Grass differ from that of the 1855 and '56 editions? Why is this so, according to most Whitman biographers? (pp. 576-577)

16. What was the "grand Romantic strategy"? How did Whitman employ it in the 1860 edition?

17. What poem is probably the best representative of Whitman's conception of reality in 1860? (p. 578, top)

18. What event greatly influenced the 1867 edition? (Part IV)

19. What was Whitman's involvement in the Civil War and how did this involvement begin?

20. How did Whitman support himself during his time in Washington, DC?

What problems did he encounter there? (p. 580, left)

21. Where did he live until his death?

22. What was The Good Gray Poet ? Who wrote it and why?

What did it actually end up doing to the "genuine Whitman for almost a century"?

23. What happened to Whitman's poetry from 1867 on?

24. Which war poems (in general) are the most striking? (p. 581, left)

25. What did Whitman say about his work in the 1871-1872 Preface to Leaves of Grass ? (Part V)

26. What did the end of Whitman's life consist of?

27. What elements characterized the 1881-1882 edition of Leaves of Grass ? (p. 582, right)