Content:
Prose fragment, showing moderate revision, of approximately 150 words. Phrases and ideas
from this manuscript were incorporated in the poem "Unnamed Lands," first
published in the 1860 edition of
Leaves of Grass
. The manuscript on the reverse, tex.00030, was probably written earlier, as it contributed to a poem first published in the 1855 edition of
Leaves of Grass
and eventually titled "The Sleepers."
Content:
These manuscript leaves, one of which is held at the University of Texas, contain fragments of an unpublished prose piece that appears to represent an early draft of "Unnamed Lands," a poem published first in the 1860 edition of
Leaves of Grass.
The material on the second leaf shares with that poem not only a close thematic similarity but also several of the same phrases. On the reverse of the manuscript leaves (see duk.00006, duk.00008, and tex.00002) are drafts of lines for the opening poem of the 1855 edition of
Leaves of Grass,
ultimately titled "Song of Myself," sections six and seven. The poem was first titled, "Poem of Walt Whitman, an American," in the 1856 edition, and Whitman shortened the title to "Walt Whitman" in 1860–1861. The final title, "Song of Myself," was not introduced until the 1881–1882 edition of
Leaves
.
Content:
Originally numbered 81 and revised by overwriting to 82, with the note "?/(Leaf
of)" above the number and title. Whitman numbered the leaves 1-5 in pencil in the
lower left corners. The leaves correspond to various numbered sections of the
1860 published version. In the 1872
Leaves of Grass
Whitman transferred the poem to a
"Leaves of Grass" group,
and in 1881 it was finally moved, after several revisions through the different
published versions, to the cluster "Autumn Rivulets."
