About this Item

Title: hexameters

Creator: Walt Whitman

Date: Between 1850 and 1860

Whitman Archive ID: uva.00603

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 manuscripts, see our statement of editorial policy.

Editorial note: These notes about verse forms are similar to notes in "dithyrambic trochee," a manuscript currently housed at Rutgers University. Edward Grier posits that the Rutgers manuscript probably dates to around 1856, when Whitman was pursuing a self-education in poetry (Notebooks and Unpublished Prose Manuscripts [New York: New York University Press, 1984], 1:355–356). These manuscript notes may also date to that period, although the draft lines on the reverse of the leaf, which were probably written before 1855, may suggest a slightly earlier date.

Related item: Draft lines on the back of this manuscript leaf relate to the poem ultimately titled "Song of Myself." See uva.00263.