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The fester of defeat sharper

About This Item

  • Title: The fester of defeat sharper
  • Date: Between 1850 and 1855
  • Creator(s): Walt Whitman
  • Whitman Archive ID: nyp.00023
  • Source: The Henry W. and Albert A. Berg Collection of English and American Literature, New York Public Library . Transcribed from digital images of the original. For a description of the editorial rationale behind our treatment of the manuscripts, see our statement of editorial policy.
  • Editorial note: Whitman probably drafted this manuscript in the early 1850s as he was composing the first (1855) edition of Leaves of Grass. The last few lines of the manuscript are drafts of lines used in the first poem of that edition, eventually titled "Song of Myself."
  • Related Item(s):
    • On the back of this leaf Whitman quotes Voltaire in a brief prose note on literary style. See nyp.00532.
    • See wwa.00150.
  • Cite this page: Whitman, Walt. "The fester of defeat sharper." The Walt Whitman Archive. Gen. ed. Matt Cohen, Ed Folsom, & Kenneth M. Price. Accessed 08 May 2025. <http://www.whitmanarchive.org>.
  • Source File: nyp.00023.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
  [begin leaf 1 recto] The fester of defeat sharper than the green  
  edged bayonet holes in his side; What choked the throat talk ^worn throat of the general brigadier, when 
  he surrendered gave up his army; brigade; These become mine and me, every one; And I become much more when I like.—   [begin leaf 1 verso]
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