In his astonishing frankness and sweep, Walt Whitman is the quintessential visionary American poet. His life spanned the beginnings of modern urbanization, the rupture of the Civil War and almost into the 20th century. In keeping with this larger-than-life figure, Roper (Fatal Mountaineer
) skillfully weaves several books into one. Framed as an insightful literary critique, especially of Whitman's coded writings, as well as a biographical chronicle of his remarkable and dysfunctional family, the book is also a historical examination of Civil War battlefield traumas and tragedies, principally as the poet experienced them. At the center of the book, Roper focuses on Whitman's emotional relations with the young wounded soldiers he nursed, showing in effect that these homoerotic bonds can be seen as the semipaternal manifestation of his relationships with his much younger brothers, George Washington Whitman—with whom he was closest, and who had a distinguished war record—and Thomas Jefferson Whitman. The “brothers” of the subtitle refer not only to George and Jeff, but to the poet's many comrades. 35 b&w illus. (Nov.)
