For Walt Whitman, living and working in Washington, D.C., after the Civil War, Reconstruction meant not only navigating these tumultuous years alongside his fellow citizens but also coming to terms with his own memories of the war. Just as the work of national reconstruction would continue long past its official end in 1877, Whitman鈥檚 own reconstruction would continue throughout the remainder of his life as he worked to revise his poetic project鈥攁nd his public image鈥攖o incorporate the disasters that had befallen the Union. In this innovative and insightful analysis of the considerable poetic and personal reimagining that is the hallmark of these postwar years, Martin Buinicki reveals the ways that Whitman reconstructed and read the war.
The Reconstruction years would see Whitman transformed from newspaper editor and staff journalist to celebrity contributor and nationally recognized public lecturer, a transformation driven as much by material developments in the nation as by his own professional and poetic ambitions while he expanded and cemented his place in the American literary landscape. Buinicki places Whitman鈥檚 postwar periodical publications and business interests in context, closely examining his 鈥淏y the Roadside鈥 cluster as well as Memoranda During the War and Specimen Days as part of his larger project of personal and artistic reintegration. He traces Whitman鈥檚 shifting views of Ulysses S. Grant as yet another way to understand the poet鈥檚 postwar life and profession and reveals the emergence of Whitman the public historian at the end of Reconstruction.
Whitman鈥檚 personal reconstruction was political, poetic, and public, and his prose writings, like his poetry, formed a major part of the postwar figure that he presented to the nation. Looking at the poet鈥檚 efforts to absorb the war into his own reconstruction narrative, Martin Buinicki provides striking new insights into the evolution of Whitman鈥檚 views and writings.
鈥淎 ruminative, thoughtful, and comprehensive analysis of Whitman鈥檚 reconstruction project. Martin Buinicki has forged new insights, in a blessedly jargon-free manner, about the intersections between Whitman鈥檚 relation to cultural narratives, his personal traumatic memories of those events, and his publishing relations with the editions and texts in the rapidly expanding publication venues after the Civil War. This book does more than any other book I know to explicate Whitman鈥檚 role as an increasingly national commentator/poet in the Reconstruction period. It will likely cause a new transfusion of Reconstruction studies to spring up fresh in Whitman studies and beyond, as we think our way through the thicket of national memory and its costs and benefits to contemporary America.鈥濃擫uke Mancuso, author, The Strange Sad War Revolving: Walt Whitman, Reconstruction, and the Emergence of Black Citizenship, 1865鈥1876
鈥淢artin Buinicki shines new and penetrating light on Whitman鈥檚 reconstruction of his memories of the war as well as their reflection in the postwar editions of Leaves of Grass, which the poet saw as an almost endless series of 鈥榚xtras!鈥 to his earlier vision.鈥濃擩erome Loving, author, Walt Whitman: The Song of Himself
鈥淢artin Buinicki鈥檚 revelatory account of Whitman鈥檚 postwar writing shows how Whitman reconstructed history to ground his career in a tragic but triumphant Civil War, even as national Reconstruction unraveled. Buinicki illuminates Whitman鈥檚 cunning as he announces and defies his claim that the 鈥榬eal war鈥 would never get into the books.鈥濃擪enneth M. Price, author, To Walt Whitman, America
