Walt Whitman by David S. ReynoldsISBN: 9780195170092
Publication Date: 2005-01-07
In this brief but bountiful volume, David S. Reynolds offers a wealth of insight into the life and work of Whitman, examining the author through the lens of nineteenth-century America. Reynolds shows how Whitman responded to contemporary theater, music, painting, photography, science, religion, and sex. Reynolds also examines the influence of theater, describing how Whitman's favorite actor, the tragedian Junius Brutus Booth, developed a powerfully emotive stage style that influenced Leaves of Grass.