In last week’s readings we got an overview of Emerson’s call for a new style of American poetry and the qualities that he felt an American poet would need to drive national identity forward. The Folsom and Price biography of Whitman that we read for this week raises an interesting question regarding the way in which Whitman may have responded to Emerson’s description of America’s next great bard. Specifically, they ask if Whitman was the “…poet Emerson imagined or was he the architect of a poetic persona that cleverly mimicked Emerson’s description?” (The American “I”) I’m new to Whitman, but he seems to have been keenly aware of his image and took steps to craft the way he was perceived. Looking at our reading last week and the biographical information we read this week, how does Whitman exemplify Emerson’s “Poet” or “American Scholar”?

Amanda Miller’s CS for February 2

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