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Article: Whitman's Triumph. (Books: rereading).
- Article from:
- American Scholar
- Article date:
- January 1, 2002
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2002 Phi Beta Kappa Society. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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On the Monday after the World Trade Center attack, I taught "Song of Myself" to my first-year-studies class in poetry (half literary survey, half workshop) at Sarah Lawrence. The class was the first group of freshmen I'd been put in charge of, and, nervous about facing people so young and expectant and free of dissimulation, I had planned the syllabus, in August, while vacationing in Vermont, with a minute and excessive rigidity: Whitman and Dickinson first, then a long leap back to Donne and Herbert, followed by a massive progression through Milton, Smart, Blake, Wordsworth's and Shelley's prose manifestos, Hardy and Hopkins, and then, in late November and early ...