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[Harper's Weekly for the current week]

About This Item

  • Title: [Harper's Weekly for the current week]
  • Date: 11 February 1858
  • Creator(s): Walt Whitman
  • Whitman Archive ID: per.00960
  • Source: Brooklyn Daily Times, 11 February 1858: 2. Our transcription is based on a digital image of a microfilm scan of the original issue. Microfilm of original issue held at Pennsylvania State University Libraries. For a description of the editorial rationale behind our treatment of the journalism, see our statement of editorial policy.
  • Editorial note: This piece is unsigned, as was the case for most of Whitman's journalism. However, this editorial is part of a series of texts that deal with a coherent theme that has been identified by the Whitman Archive journalism team as likely authored by Whitman. This decision is based on a combination of historical and (auto)biographical accounts, similarity to contemporary Whitman writings, a history of scholarly attribution, extant clippings retained by Whitman, computational stylometric analysis, and, in some cases, manuscript evidence in Whitman’s hand.
  • Contributors to digital file: Kaylen Michaelis Francesca Boston Jason Stacy Stephanie Blalock Karie Cobb
  • Cite this page: Whitman, Walt. "[Harper's Weekly for the current week]." The Walt Whitman Archive. Gen. ed. Matt Cohen, Ed Folsom, & Kenneth M. Price. Accessed 16 July 2024. <http://www.whitmanarchive.org>.
  • Source File: per.00960.xml (TEI)
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☞Harper’s Weekly1 for the current week, contains a cut in a serious vein, labelled “Honor to the Brave,” and evidently intended to embody America’s sympathy with England on the loss of the gallant Havelock. America is represented as gazing with uncovered head and mournful visage at the shadowy forms of the brave companions of the lamented dead, bearing his remains to the grave. Had the principal figure represented, as it should have done, the poetical and idealized embodiment of the Republic—that of a beautiful female figure, the conception would have done the artist credit, but as it is we have a lank, swallow-tailed, short-pantalooned stage Yankee to perform that office for us, and this incongruous association of ideas throws a ludicrous air over the whole performance. Let the artist try again.

Notes:

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