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For example, whisper

  • Whitman Archive Title: For example, whisper
  • Whitman Archive ID: med.00726
  • Repository: Catalog of Unlocated Walt Whitman Manuscripts
  • Date: Before 1855
  • Genre: prose
  • Physical Description: number of leaves unknown, handwritten
  • View Images: currently unavailable
  • Content: Because this manuscript has not been located it is difficult to speculate on the circumstances or date of its composition, but based on the content it seems likely that it was written between 1850 and 1855, when Whitman was composing his first edition of Leaves of Grass . The manuscript note about the "superb wonder of a blade of grass" may relate to similar statements in the prose preface and the first poem in that edition, eventually titled "Song of Myself." In Notes and Fragments , Richard Maurice Bucke transcribes the manuscript with "Enter into the thoughts of" (nyp.00112) and describes it as "a very early note, the paper torn and almost falling to pieces." The date of the manuscript is almost certainly before 1855.
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