Democratic vistas

In-12 de 84 pp.Brochure vert pale de l'éditeur, exemplaire non rogné et non coupé. Brochure de l'époque.

204 x 123 mm.

Whitman, Walt. Democratic vistas.Washington, D. C & New York : J. S. Redfield., 1871.

Rare édition originale de cet important ouvrage du poète Walt Whitman.

Rare first edition of this major work by Walt Whitman.

BAL, 21402 ; Meyerson, A4.1.a1.

In 1871, Walt Whitman published « Democratic vistas », a prose retrospect upon the country, and a castigation of post-war corruption and political and spiritual degradation in the land. It was and still is one of the great pieces of prose that America can call altogether its own.

“Democratic vistas” must be read in its entirety for the immense sweep of its spiritual appraisement of the people and politics and culture of the United States in the seventies. This was the flowering of Whitman’s unfaltering sincerity in his truly wonderful prose of “Democratic vistas”. Here after great belief in Lincoln, he saw his country come to the control of gamblers and careerists as the result of an unnecessary war” (Edgar Lee Masters).

““Democratic vistas” proclaims the moral and political efficacy of art more clearly than any of Whitman’s other writings. As Whitman sees it in “Democratic vistas”, art is a major force in shaping all aspects of people’s lives. Democratic vistas gazes into a future that seems distant and calls for new poets to realize and make full use of this political potency in reshaping the values, attitudes, ideas, social institutions, indeed the very physical existence of the American people” (Jimmy Killingsworth).

““Whitman’s “Democratic vistas” is stridently critical of mass industrial society in the period following the Civil War and extravagantly hopeful about that society’s future. The desperate tone of “Democratic vistas” expresses this tension. Through a clear three-part structure, the work articulates three interrelated theories of American civilization : a political theory, a theory of history and a literary theory.

“Democratic vistas”, a re-invention of America, invents a soul for the nation” (David Marr).

“Always the champion of the common man, Whitman is both the poet and the prophet of democracy. To the young nation, only just becoming aware of an individual literary identity distinct from its European origins, Whitman’s message came at the decisive moment” (PMM).

Semble manquer à la Bnf ainsi qu’à toutes les des Institutions publiques nationales.

Provenance : Bibliothèques George Goddard Knowles et Estelle Doheny, avec ex-libris.

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