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The power by which the

  • Whitman Archive Title: The power by which the
  • Whitman Archive ID: nyp.00029
  • Repository: Catalog of the Walt Whitman Literary Manuscripts in The Henry W. and Albert A. Berg Collection of English and American Literature, The New York Public Library
  • Date: Before or early in 1855
  • Genre: prose
  • Physical Description: 1 leaf, handwritten
  • View Images: 1 | 2
  • Content: The imagery of this manuscript is echoed in several other manuscripts, as well as in a line of the opening poem of the first (1855) edition of Leaves of Grass —the poem eventually titled "Song of Myself" (see "you know how" [loc.00142], "I know a rich capitalist" [nyp.00129], and "the crowds naked in the" [nyp.00733]). These relationships suggest that this manuscript dates to early in 1855 or before. Edward Grier has observed that "the writing suggests a date in the 1850s" (see Notebooks and Unpublished Prose Manuscripts [New York: New York University Press, 1984], 1:136).
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