TY - CHAP
T1 - Whitman, Women, and Privacy
AU - Murison, Justine S.
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© Cambridge University Press 2020.
Copyright:
Copyright 2020 Elsevier B.V., All rights reserved.
PY - 2020/1
Y1 - 2020/1
N2 - This chapter examines the critical discussions of Walt Whitman by Richard Chase and Jane Bennett in order to show how critics have used the poet to address the disenchanting political, social, and cultural conditions of their own times, particularly Cold War normativity and drastic climate change respectively. Beyond offering critiques of their times, however, critics have discussed Whitman to suggest alternatives that foster positive attachments to social and environmental justice. Contending that critics always create a “Whitman” to suit their own investments, the chapter urges critics to be explicit about those investments in the poet. Doing so, the chapter argues, frees Whitman from the need to speak the critic’s investments, while allowing criticism to play a more positive role in the present.
AB - This chapter examines the critical discussions of Walt Whitman by Richard Chase and Jane Bennett in order to show how critics have used the poet to address the disenchanting political, social, and cultural conditions of their own times, particularly Cold War normativity and drastic climate change respectively. Beyond offering critiques of their times, however, critics have discussed Whitman to suggest alternatives that foster positive attachments to social and environmental justice. Contending that critics always create a “Whitman” to suit their own investments, the chapter urges critics to be explicit about those investments in the poet. Doing so, the chapter argues, frees Whitman from the need to speak the critic’s investments, while allowing criticism to play a more positive role in the present.
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U2 - 10.1017/9781108296830.003
DO - 10.1017/9781108296830.003
M3 - Chapter
SN - 9781108419062
SN - 9781108409438
T3 - Twenty-First-Century Critical Revisions
SP - 33
EP - 49
BT - The New Walt Whitman Studies
A2 - Cohen, Matt
PB - Cambridge University Press
ER -