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Whitman Archive Title: The Dead Tenor
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Whitman Archive ID: tex.00016
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Repository: Catalog of the Walt Whitman Literary Manuscripts in the Walt Whitman Collection, Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center at the University of Texas at Austin
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Box: 2
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Folder: 1
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Series: Works, 1846-1913 and undated
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Repository Title: The Dead Tenor
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Date: 1884
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Genre: poetry
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Physical Description: 1 leaf, handwritten
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Content:
Signed draft of "The Dead
Tenor," approximately 14 lines, written on several scraps
pasted together. A newspaper clipping with the death notice of
Pasquale Brignoli is pasted in the bottom lefthand corner. The poem was first
published on 8 November 1884 in the
Critic
and reprinted in the "Sands at Seventy" annex of
Leaves of Grass
(1891–92). Whitman was
inspired to write the poem by the death of Pasquale (or Pasqualino)
Brignoli (1824–1884), a tenor who made his New York debut in 1854 and
remained a popular favorite for twenty years. According to Horace
Traubel, Whitman appears to have known Brignoli. On the verso can be found various writings, including an earlier draft of The Dead Tenor, part of a letter to Whitman from Charles F. Blanch, and an unidentified prose jotting by Whitman.
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