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Walt Whitman and the Culture of American Celebrity
By: David Haven BlakeImprint: Yale University Press
Format: Adobe Encrypted (DRM)
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Making use of notebooks, photographs, and archival sources, David Haven Blake provides a groundbreaking history of the rise of celebrity culture in the United States. He sees "Leaves of Grass "alongside the birth of commercial advertising and the nation's growing obsession with the lives of the famous and the renowned. As authors, lecturers, politicians, entertainers, and clergymen vied for popularity, Whitman developed a form of poetry that routinely promoted and, indeed, celebrated itself. "Walt Whitman and the Culture of American Celebrity" proposes a fundamentally new way of thinking about a seminal American poet and a major national icon.
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| Title of eBook: Walt Whitman and the Culture of American Celebrity | |
| Release Date: 11-01-2006 | |
| Publisher: Yale University Press |
This eBook download is available in the following formats:
| Parent title | Walt Whitman and the Culture of... |
|---|---|
| Encrypted (DRM) | Yes |
| SKU | 9780300134810 |
| File size | 1006 |
| Security | n/a |
| Printing | Not allowed |
| Copying | Not allowed |
| Read aloud | No Sys requirements Download reader |
| Devices | Samsung Tablet, Apple Ipad & Iphone, Barnes & Noble Nook, Kobo eReader, Aluratek Libre, Iliad, Nokia, Blackberry, Hanlin |
| Note | Excellent navigation features are available via Adobe such as bookmarks and a quick access table of contents. Text search is easily accessible. An Adobe DRM-protected file is different than a pdf file in that it uses Adobe DRM (Digital Rights Management) technology, which authors and publishers use to protect their content from illegal online distribution and to set certain privileges such as restrictions on copying and printing. |
Walt Whitman and the Culture of American Celebrity
Chapter One
Celebrity
ANTEBELLUM OVATIONS
CELEBRITY CAME LATE TO WALT WHITMAN. An old man, half paralyzed by strokes, he could hardly appreciate the attention he attracted during the height of America's Gilded Age. From around the world people wrote the poet asking for his autograph, and on at least one occasion, he used a pile of such requests to light the kindling in his fireplace (WWC, 4:351-52). Admirers frequently traveled to Camden, hoping to meet the author of Leaves of Grass. When Oscar Wilde arrived in 1882, the poet was living with his brother and sister-in-law in a respectable working-class neighborhood. The two drank homemade elderberry wine and took tremendous satisfaction in each other's company. In March 1884, Whitman moved to the two-story shanty where he would reside until his death. Located at 328 Mickle Street, the house had six small rooms and no furnace. By arrangement, the previous owners lived with the poet, but when they moved ten months later, they left him alone and with no furniture. Eventually Mary Davis, a sea captain's widow, agreed to move into the home as Whitman's housekeeper, bringing with her a dog, a cat, a few birds, and the much-needed furniture.
Surrounded by the sounds of factory whistles, train yards, and peddlers hawking in the street, admirers such as Bram Stoker and Thomas Eakins visited with the famous man. They climbed the narrow staircase to a plainly decorated room where the poet sat in a rocking chair amid piles of old newspapers, photographs, notebooks, and manuscripts. A lifetime's worth of correspondence was seemingly scattered about the room, though Whitman seemed able
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