Abstract

Examines "the implications of Whitman's experience of the Civil War as a familial tragedy, remembering Whitman as a member of a white, New York working-class family that was experiencing continuous trauma throughout the war years," leading to Whitman's "striking transformation of the poetry of war into a poetry of primary relationships, attachment and loss," but also leaving "the relation of African Americans to the Civil War almost entirely unspoken, unrepresentable," because blacks did "not belong to the national 'family' Whitman imagined and addressed."

How to Cite:

Hutchinson, G., (2003) “Race and the Family Romance: Whitman's Civil War”, Walt Whitman Quarterly Review 20(3/4), 134-150. doi: https://doi.org/10.13008/2153-3695.1709

Rights: Copyright © 2003 George Hutchinson