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Whitman Archive Title: Orators
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Whitman Archive ID: uva.00193
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Repository: Catalog of the Walt Whitman Literary Manuscripts at the Clifton Waller Barrett Library of American Literature, Albert and Shirley Small Special Collections Library, University of Virginia
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Folder: 50-51
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Date: 1857-1859
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Genre: poetry
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Physical Description: 5 leaves, 22 x 13.5 cm, handwritten
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Content:
The poem was originally numbered 67, and the partly erased pencil note "Needs to
be/ re-written/ or excluded" appears in the upper-right corner of the first leaf.
Whitman also numbered the leaves in pencil in their lower-left corners. The leaves
correspond to verses in section 12 of "Chants Democratic" in the 1860
Leaves of Grass
. After excising
and altering numerous verses of the poem and numbering different verse paragraphs
for the "Chants Democratic"
version, Whitman next made the poem the second numbered section of the last "Leaves of Grass" cluster in the
1867 edition. From 1872 to 1876 it bore the title "To Oratists." Then, in 1881, Whitman deleted several
lines, joining this poem with a previously unconnected poem known as "Voices" to form "Vocalism" in the cluster "Autumn Rivulets," a position and
identity the now-composite poem retained from that point on.
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