[It will seem strange] | Whitman Archive

Whitman Archive Title: [It will seem strange]
Whitman Archive ID: loc.05244
Repository: Catalog of the Walt Whitman Literary Manuscripts in The Thomas Biggs Harned Collection of the Library of Congress
Box: 1
Folder: Robert Burns as Poet and Person
Series: Notes and Memoranda
Date: 1882-1886
Genre: prose
Physical Description: 1 leaf, handwritten
View Images: 1 | 2
Content: This prose scrap alludes to both Rabelais and Robert Burns. Here, Whitman describes Burns' principle qualities as "animal appetites, lusts, and bibulousness." In his essay, "Robert Burns as Poet and Person," Whitman notes that Burns' poetry includes "lyrics of illicit loves and carousing intoxication." This essay, with the preliminary title of "Robert Burns" first appeared in The Critic (16 December 1882), but this particular phrase does not appear in the essay "Robert Burns as Poet and Person" until its publication in The North American Review 143 (November 1886), 429. This essay was later reprinted in Democratic Vistas and Other Papers (1888) and in November Boughs (1888). The essay was also retained, still within November Boughs , in Complete Prose Works (1892).