Worshipping Walt

Worshipping Walt PDF Author: Michael Robertson
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 1400834031
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 368

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Book Description
Despite his protests, Anne Gilchrist, distinguished woman of letters, moved her entire household from London to Philadelphia in an effort to marry him. John Addington Symonds, historian and theorist of sexual inversion, sent him avid fan mail for twenty years. And volunteer assistant Horace Traubel kept a record of their daily conversations, producing a nine-volume compilation. Who could inspire so much devotion? Worshipping Walt is the first book on the Whitman disciples--the fascinating, eclectic group of nineteenth-century men and women who regarded Walt Whitman not simply as a poet but as a religious prophet. Long before Whitman was established in the canon of American poetry, feminists, socialists, spiritual seekers, and supporters of same-sex passion saw him as an enlightened figure who fulfilled their religious, political, and erotic yearnings. To his disciples Whitman was variously an ideal husband, radical lover, socialist icon, or bohemian saint. In this transatlantic group biography, Michael Robertson explores the highly charged connections between Whitman and his followers, including Canadian psychiatrist R. M. Bucke, American nature writer John Burroughs, British activist Edward Carpenter, and the notorious Oscar Wilde. Despite their particular needs, they all viewed Whitman as the author of a new poetic scripture and prophet of a modern liberal spirituality. Worshipping Walt presents a colorful portrait of an era of intense religious, political, and sexual passions, shedding new light on why Whitman's work continues to appeal to so many.

Worshipping Walt

Worshipping Walt PDF Author: Michael Robertson
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 1400834031
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 368

Get Book Here

Book Description
Despite his protests, Anne Gilchrist, distinguished woman of letters, moved her entire household from London to Philadelphia in an effort to marry him. John Addington Symonds, historian and theorist of sexual inversion, sent him avid fan mail for twenty years. And volunteer assistant Horace Traubel kept a record of their daily conversations, producing a nine-volume compilation. Who could inspire so much devotion? Worshipping Walt is the first book on the Whitman disciples--the fascinating, eclectic group of nineteenth-century men and women who regarded Walt Whitman not simply as a poet but as a religious prophet. Long before Whitman was established in the canon of American poetry, feminists, socialists, spiritual seekers, and supporters of same-sex passion saw him as an enlightened figure who fulfilled their religious, political, and erotic yearnings. To his disciples Whitman was variously an ideal husband, radical lover, socialist icon, or bohemian saint. In this transatlantic group biography, Michael Robertson explores the highly charged connections between Whitman and his followers, including Canadian psychiatrist R. M. Bucke, American nature writer John Burroughs, British activist Edward Carpenter, and the notorious Oscar Wilde. Despite their particular needs, they all viewed Whitman as the author of a new poetic scripture and prophet of a modern liberal spirituality. Worshipping Walt presents a colorful portrait of an era of intense religious, political, and sexual passions, shedding new light on why Whitman's work continues to appeal to so many.

Worshipping Walt

Worshipping Walt PDF Author: Michael Robertson
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 0691146314
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 368

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Book Description
Profiles some of Whitman's most ardent followers, individuals who revered his work and saw the poet as an enlightened prophet, describing each person's relationship with Whitman and how the poet's influence inspired each person's career.

Godly Heretics

Godly Heretics PDF Author: Marc DiPaolo
Publisher: McFarland
ISBN: 1476602409
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 275

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Book Description
When computers freeze, they are "rebooted" and soon working properly again. Similarly, legendary thinkers throughout history have argued that Christianity should start fresh by recapturing the humanitarian spirit of Jesus' original message. These include such disparate individuals as Thomas Jefferson, Oscar Wilde, Charles Dickens, Walt Whitman, Friedrich Nietzsche, Leo Tolstoy, George Bernard Shaw, and the religious leaders of the Occupy Wall Street movement. Surprisingly enough, even classic television shows and films meant to be entertaining--Lost, Battlestar Galactica, It's a Wonderful Life, Groundhog Day, Decalogue, and A Charlie Brown Christmas--are attempts to apply the basic principles of Christianity to modern times. This book offers new essays by scholars of literature, film, history, theology and philosophy examining how various thinkers and storytellers over time have conceived of a reinvented Christianity. In confronting this controversial idea, this book examines how unorthodox interpretations of the Bible can be some of the most valid, how visions of Jesus as a revolutionary may be the most historically sound, and how compassionate Christians such as Origen have wrestled with the eternal questions of the existence of evil, the gift of free will and the promise of universal salvation.

In Walt We Trust

In Walt We Trust PDF Author: John Marsh
Publisher: NYU Press
ISBN: 1583674756
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 249

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Book Description
"Life in the United States today is shot through with uncertainty: about our jobs, our mortgaged houses, our retirement accounts, our health, our marriages, and the future that awaits our children. For many, our lives, public and private, have come to feel like the discomfort and unease you experience the day or two before you get really sick. Our life is a scratchy throat. John Marsh offers an unlikely remedy for this widespread malaise: the poetry of Walt Whitman. Mired in personal and political depression, Marsh turned to Whitman--and it saved his life. In Walt We Trust: How a Queer Socialist Poet Can Save what he believed by showing how they emerged from Whitman's life and times, and by recreating the places and incidents (crossing Brooklyn ferry, visiting wounded soldiers in hospitals) that inspired Whitman to write the poems. Whitman, Marsh argues, can show us how to die, how to accept and even celebrate our (relatively speaking) imminent death. Just as important, though, he can show us how to live: how to have better sex, what to do about money, and, best of all, how to survive our fetid democracy without coming away stinking ourselves. The result is a mix of biography, literary criticism, manifesto, and a kind of self-help you're unlikely to encounter anywhere else"--

Walt Whitman

Walt Whitman PDF Author: John E. Schwiebert
Publisher: McFarland
ISBN: 1476646090
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 267

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Book Description
Walt Whitman created, in various editions of Leaves of Grass, what is arguably the most influential book of poems anywhere in the past 200 years. Whitman absorbed the world, transmuting it into poems that address a spectrum of topics--from democracy and religion to sexuality, gender, class, and identity. He exuberantly incarnated his epoch at the same time as he invoked "you"-- readers and "poets to come"--to join in a "poetry of the future." The first A to Z Whitman reference to incorporate 21st century scholarship, this work is ideal for readers who want a concise introduction to the major poems and prose and to the people, places, and topics central to his life. Each of the book's 142 entries is followed by cross-references to related entries and suggestions for further reading. Also included are a brief biography, a chronology of Whitman's life and major works, and a bibliography of some 300 primary and secondary sources on this most timeless and contemporary of poets.

Walt Whitman's Mystical Ethics of Comradeship

Walt Whitman's Mystical Ethics of Comradeship PDF Author: Juan A. Hererro Brasas
Publisher: State University of New York Press
ISBN: 1438430124
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 219

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Book Description
Recovers Walt Whitman as a self-conscious religious figure with an ethic based in male comradeship, one at odds with the temper of his times.

Lessons in Mythology

Lessons in Mythology PDF Author: Edmund P. Cueva
Publisher: Cambridge Scholars Publishing
ISBN: 1527551474
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 198

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Book Description
This volume offers eight approaches to myth, its uses and purposes, from viewing personal narrative as a form of healing myth to observing the atrocities committed daily arising from the most destructive form of myth. The authors of the eight chapters here note that myths have existed from the beginning of the human race in a myriad of forms and serving a myriad of functions. Indeed, the shared observation of these scholars is that humans have always been storytellers and always will be because myths are a part of the lives of every single person; they are the story of us.

Whitman, Melville, Crane, and the Labors of American Poetry

Whitman, Melville, Crane, and the Labors of American Poetry PDF Author: Peter Riley
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0192573292
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 212

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Book Description
In Whitman, Melville, Crane, and the Labors of American Poetry, Peter Riley confronts our enduring and problematic investment in poetic vocation—a myth, he argues, that continues to inform how all our multifarious labors are understood, valued, and exploited. The book seeks to challenge a dominant cultural logic that frames contingent, non-vocational labor as a necessary sacrifice that frustrates the righteous progress towards realizing that seemingly purest of callings: Poet. Incorporating the often overlooked or excluded workaday ephemera of three canonical US Romantic poets—Walt Whitman, Herman Melville, and Hart Crane—this volume offers new archival insights that call for a re-examination of celebrated literary careers and disputes their status as renowned or tragic icons of creative vocation. The poetry of Whitman the real estate dealer, Melville the customs inspector, and Crane the copywriter, Riley contends, does not constitute the formal inscription of an antagonistic or discreet poetic labor struggling against quotidian work towards the fulfilment of exceptional individual callings. Instead, the distracted forms of their poetry are always already intermingled with a variety of apparently lesser labors. Ousting poetic production from its default sanctuary of privileged exemption or transcendent repose, the volume refigures the work of the poet as a living sensuous activity that transgresses labor's various divisions and hierarchies. It consequently recasts the poet as a figure who actually unfastens the 'right of passage' vocational logic that does so much to secure and reproduce the current neoliberal paradigm.

Comparing Religions

Comparing Religions PDF Author: Jeffrey J. Kripal
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
ISBN: 1119654025
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 532

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Book Description
Teaches students the art and practice of comparison in the globalizing world, fully updated to reflect recent scholarship and major developments in the field Comparing Religions: The Study of Us that Changes Us is a wholly original, absorbing, and provocative reimagining of the comparative study of religion in the 21st century. The first textbook of its kind to foreground the extraordinary or “paranormal” aspects of religious experience, this innovative volume reviews the fundamental tenets of the world’s religions, discusses the benefits and problems of comparative inquiry, explores how the practice can impact a person's worldview and values, and much more. Asserting that religions have always engaged in comparing one another, the authors provide insights into the history, trends, debates, and questions of explicit comparativism in the modern world. Easily accessible chapters examine the challenges of studying religion using a comparative approach rather than focusing on religious identity, inspiring students to think seriously about religious pluralism as they engage in comparative practice. Throughout the text, a wealth of diverse case studies and vivid illustrations are complemented by chapter outlines, summaries, toolkits, discussion questions, and other learning features. Substantially updated with new and revised material, the second edition of Comparing Religions: Draws from both comparative work and critical theory to present a well-balanced introduction to contemporary practice Explains classic comparative themes, provides a historical outline of comparative practices, and offers key strategies for understanding, analyzing, and re-reading religion Draws on a wide range of religious traditions to illustrate the complexity and efficacy of comparative practice Embraces the transcendent nature of the religious experience in all its forms, including in popular culture, film, and television Contains a classroom-proven, three-part structure with easy-to-digest, thematically organized chapters Features a companion website with information on individual religious traditions, additional images, a glossary, discussion questions, and links to supplementary material Comparing Religions: The Study of Us that Changes Us, Second Edition, is the perfect textbook for undergraduate students and faculty in comparative religion, the study of religion, and world religions, as well as a valuable resource for general readers interested in understanding this rewarding area.

New York-Paris

New York-Paris PDF Author: Laure Katsaros
Publisher: University of Michigan Press
ISBN: 0472028707
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 242

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Book Description
As New York and Paris began to modernize, new modes of entertainment, such as panoramas, dioramas, and photography, seemed poised to take the place of the more complex forms of literary expression. Dioramas and photography were invented in Paris but soon spread to America, forming part of an increasingly universal idiom of the spectacle. This brave new world of technologically advanced but crudely mimetic spectacles haunts both Whitman's vision of New York and Baudelaire's view of Paris. In New York-Paris, Katsaros explores the images of the mid-nineteenth-century city in the poetry of both Whitman and Baudelaire and seeks to demonstrate that, by projecting an image of the other's city onto his own, each poet tried to resist the apparently irresistible forward momentum of modernity rather than create a paradigmatically happy mixture of "high" and "low" culture.