selected Internet
sites for further exploration of the city in literature, or the
history of the city.
The poems and prose selections include early and
late poems, an essay, letters, and newspaper editorials. Paen's
such as "Mannahatta" and "Crossing Brooklyn Ferry" celebrate the
city, and in section 8 of "Song of Myself" Whitman catalogs all
that he hears when he listens to the "blab of the pave." Selections
from Whitman's editorials for the New York Aurora reveal
his early voice as a city reporter and flaneur. A letter to Peter
Doyle from 1868 suggests the intimate relationship Whitman had with
the city and its workers, as does the "City of Orgies" from "Calamus."
A passage from "Democratic Vistas" shows Whitman's attention to
the evils of the city, as does the late poem, "Broadway." In "City
of Ships" from "Drum-Taps," Whitman reports on the city preparing
for war.
The chronology of New York City and the photographs
offer brief glimpses of moments and events, providing, like the
catalogs in Whitman's poems, detailed, streel-level views of the
city and its history. The chronology of Whitman's life follows him
as he moves between Brooklyn, New York, and D.C. and reminds us
of Whitman's involvement with the politics, newspapers, arts, and
building trades in these cities.
The selections from theorists of the city, the
suggested assignments, annotated bibliography, and related Internet
resources offer terms, ideas, interpretations that have shaped conversation
thus far about the city and about Whitman.
This site celebrates cities and celebrates Whitman.
Like many others who write about the city, I too am a lover of cities.
And yet, I find in Whitman not only celebration but also a response
to the city that is sufficiently complex to illuminate my own varied
experience of cities.
