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Man, before the rage of

About This Item

  • Title: Man, before the rage of
  • Date: Before 1855
  • Creator(s): Walt Whitman
  • Whitman Archive ID: uva.00287
  • Source: Papers of Walt Whitman (MSS 3829), Clifton Waller Barrett Library of American Literature, Albert H. Small Special Collections Library, University of Virginia. 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: Although they are written in free verse, both the conventional nature of these lines and the handwriting suggest an early date of inscription. This draft may be a continuation of "There is no word in," suggesting it may relate to the poem eventually titled "Song of Myself." The lines, especially the first and third, also bear some resemblance to a passage of the preface to the 1855 Leaves of Grass and to lines in what eventually became section 6 of "I Sing the Body Electric."
  • Notes written on manuscript: On leaf 1 recto, in unknown hand: "34"
  • Cite this page: Whitman, Walt. "Man, before the rage of." The Walt Whitman Archive. Gen. ed. Matt Cohen, Ed Folsom, & Kenneth M. Price. Accessed 08 May 2025. <http://www.whitmanarchive.org>.
  • Source File: uva.00287.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] 34 2 Man, before the rage of whose passions 
  the storms of Heaven are but a breath; Before whose caprices the lightning is 
  slow and less fatal: Man, microcosm of all Creation's wildness, 
  terror, beauty and power, And whose folly and wickedness are in 
  nothing else existent.— [cut away]   [begin leaf 1 verso]
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