WHITMAN, WALT

born May 31, 1819, West Hills, Long Island, N.Y., U.S. died March 26, 1892, Camden, N.J. in full Walter Whitman American poet, journalist, and essayist whose verse collection Leaves of Grass is a landmark in the history of American literature. Additional reading Studies that are primarily biographical include Gay Wilson Allen, The Solitary Singer (1955, reprinted 1985); Maurice Mendelson, Life and Work of Walt Whitman: A Soviet View (1976); Justin Kaplan, Walt Whitman, a Life (1980); and Paul Zweig, Walt Whitman: The Making of the Poet (1984). Roger Asselineau, The Evolution of Walt Whitman, 2 vol. (196062), comprises a volume of biography and one of criticism. Works of criticism include several books by Gay Wilson Allen, including Walt Whitman Abroad (1955, reprinted 1977), a collection of critical essays from countries other than the United States; Walt Whitman as Man, Poet, and Legend (1961, reprinted 1976, also reprinted as Aspects of Walt Whitman, 1977); Walt Whitman, rev. ed. (1969), a short account of the milieu that influenced the writing of Leaves of Grass and that work's critical reception in the poet's lifetime; and The New Walt Whitman Handbook (1975, reissued 1986). Other works of criticism include Harold Blodgett, Walt Whitman in England (1934, reprinted 1973), outlining the growth of Whitman's reputation in that country; Milton Hindus (compiler), Walt Whitman: The Critical Heritage (1971), a collection of English-language criticism chronicling the growth of his reputation from 1855 to 1914; E. Fred Carlisle, The Uncertain Self: Whitman's Drama of Identity (1973); Floyd Stovall, The Foreground of Leaves of Grass (1974); Stephen A. Black, Whitman's Journeys into Chaos: A Psychoanalytic Study of the Poetic Process (1975); James Woodress (ed.), Critical Essays on Walt Whitman (1983); Betsy Erkkila, Whitman the Political Poet (1989), analyzing his poems in relation to the political environment of his time; M. Jimmie Killingsworth, Whitman's Poetry of the Body: Sexuality, Politics, and the Text (1989); James E. Miller, Jr., Walt Whitman, updated ed. (1990), an introductory biocritical work; and Ezra Greenspan, Walt Whitman and the American Reader (1990), on the deliberate relationship between the author and his readers.