Book description
The works of Walt Whitman have been described as masculine, feminine,
postcolonial, homoerotic, urban, organic, unique, and democratic, yet
arguments about the extent to which Whitman could or should be
considered a political poet have yet to be fully confronted. Some
scholars disregard Whitman's understanding of democracy, insisting on
separating his personal works from his political works. A Political
Companion to Walt Whitman is the first full-length exploration of
Whitman's works through the lens of political theory. Editor John E.
Seery and a collection of prominent theorists and philosophers uncover
the political awareness of Whitman's poetry and prose, analyzing his
faith in the potential of individuals, his call for a revolution in
literature and political culture, and his belief in the possibility of
combining heroic individualism with democratic justice. A Political
Companion to Walt Whitman reaches beyond literature into political
theory, revealing the ideology behind Whitman's call for the emergence
of American poets of democracy. John E. Seery is a professor of
politics at Pomona College. He is the author of America Goes to College:
Political Theory for the Liberal Arts; Political Theory for Mortals:
Shades of Justice, Images of Death; Political Returns: Irony in Politics
and Theory from Plato to the Antinuclear Movement; and coeditor of The
Politics of Irony: Essays in Self-Betrayal.
