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- duk.ead01_duk.00097
Of a summer evening a
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Whitman Archive Title: Of a summer evening a
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Whitman Archive ID: duk.00097
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Repository: Catalog of the Walt Whitman Literary Manuscripts in the Trent Collection of Whitmaniana, Duke University, Durham, North Carolina
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Repository Title: Of a summer evening a boy fell asleep
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Date: Before 1850
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Genre: prose
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Physical Description: 5 leaves, handwritten
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Content:
Some of the language in this short piece of fiction also appears in the draft
poem "I am that half-grown angry boy" (duk.00027). It is not possible to know with certainty
whether Whitman wrote the prose or the poetic lines first. However, Whitman's
usual practice of composition suggests that the prose preceded the verse. The
prose is maudlin, sentimental, and conventional. The verse, though undeveloped,
shows more evidence of experimentation, again suggesting a later stage in the
composition process. Based on the handwriting, Edward Grier dates this manuscript to the late 1840s (
Notebooks and Unpublished Prose Manuscripts
[New York: New York University Press, 1984], 1:46).
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