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- duk.ead01_duk.00942
In the course of the
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Whitman Archive Title: In the course of the
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Whitman Archive ID: duk.00942
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Repository ID: MS q 1
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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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Date: Between 1850 and 1855
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Genre: poetry
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Physical Description: 2 leaves, handwritten
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Content:
Whitman probably drafted this manuscript in the early 1850s as he was composing the first (1855) edition of
Leaves of Grass
. Several of the lines of poetry in this manuscript are drafts of lines used in the opening poem of that edition, eventually titled "Song of Myself." The lines match the section of the poem that runs from "And now it seems to me the beautiful uncut hair of graves" through "I pass death with the dying, and birth with the new-washed babe . . . . and am not contained between my hat and boots" (1855, pp. 16-17). The reverse sides of the leaves, together with several other leaves, constitute a draft essay that perhaps contributed to the 1860–1861 poem
Unnamed Lands
(see duk.00003).
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