Walt Whitman (Masterplots II: Juvenile and Young Adult Biography Series)
At a glance:
- Author: Babette Deutsch
- First Published: 1941
- Time of Work: 1819–1892
- Setting: Long Island, New York City, Washington, D.C., and Camden, New Jersey
- Principal Characters: Walt Whitman, William Douglas O’Connor, Peter Doyle, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Andrew Jackson Whitman
- Genres: Nonfiction, Biography
- Subjects: Family or family life, Journalism or journalists, Traveling or travelers, Authors or writers, Education or educators, Poetry or poets, Writing, American Dream, Civil War, Public speaking, Biography
- Locales: New York, NY, Long Island, NY, Washington, Camden, NJ
Form and Content
Walt Whitman: Builder for America narrates Whitman’s life chronologically, beginning with him as a small child and ending with his death at the age of seventy-four. The expression of events in chapter 1 typifies Babette Deutsch’s method of writing. An anecdote taken directly from Whitman’s poem “Song of Myself,” about a sea captain who refuses to surrender to an attacking British ship and eventually captures it, is put into the mouth of young Whitman’s great-grandfather, a retired sailor. This approach, used throughout the biography, enables...
[The entire page is 1340 words long]
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