Essays

Civil War Nursing Narratives: Whitman's Memoranda During the War and Eroticism

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Abstract

Demonstrates how Whitman's Memoranda "shares with the nursing narratives that preceded his work some important aspects of style and tone," and offers a "cultural assessment" of Whitman's book "within the context of those previous memoirs, utilizing themes of democracy, the typical American, motherhood, and . . . the eroticism that forms between nurse and patient"; the extended comparisons are focused on Louisa May Alcott's Hospital Sketches, Georgeanna Woolsesy's Three Weeks at Gettysburg, and Sarah Emma Edmonds's Nurse and Spy in the Union Army.

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How to Cite: Wardrop, D. (2005) “Civil War Nursing Narratives: Whitman's Memoranda During the War and Eroticism”, Walt Whitman Quarterly Review. 23(1/2). doi: https://doi.org/10.13008/2153-3695.1782