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Why need genius and the

About This Item

  • Title: Why need genius and the
  • Date: About 1855
  • Creator(s): Walt Whitman
  • Whitman Archive ID: med.00741
  • Source: The transcription presented here is derived from Walt Whitman, Notebooks and Unpublished Prose Manuscripts, ed. Edward F. Grier (New York: New York University Press, 1984), 1590. Grier based his text on Notes and Fragments, ed. Richard Maurice Bucke (London, Ontario: A. Talbot & Co., printers, 1899), 103. The location of this manuscript is unknown. For a description of the editorial rationale behind our treatment of the manuscripts, see our statement of editorial policy.
  • Editorial note: The content of this manuscript, which is known only from a transcription published by Richard Maurice Bucke in Notes and Fragments (1899), appeared in slightly revised form in the prose preface to the 1855 first edition of Leaves of Grass. The date of composition is therefore probably just before 1855.
  • Cite this page: Whitman, Walt. "Why need genius and the." The Walt Whitman Archive. Gen. ed. Matt Cohen, Ed Folsom, & Kenneth M. Price. Accessed 08 May 2025. <http://www.whitmanarchive.org>.
  • Source File: med.00741.xml (TEI)

Key

Textual Feature Appearance
Overwritten brown with strikethrough
Added inline purple with double underline
Uncertain gray with wavy underline
Supplied from another source turquoise with brackets
Metamark green with triple underline
Long deletion gray background with top and bottom border

Why need genius and the people of These States be demeaned to romances? Let facts and histories be properly told, there is no more need of romances.

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