Whitman, Walt:

$85,000 · Offered by William Reese Company · No longer available

[AUTOGRAPH MANUSCRIPT DRAFT OF:] "O BROOD CONTINENTAL." In the years following the publication of the first edition of Leaves of Grass (1855), Walt Whitman continued to extoll the greatness and the virtues of the American Republic and the diversity of the people within its shores. At the same time, he was painfully aware of the potential stress to that greatness posed by the issue of slavery. And as the proponents and opponents moved farther and farther apart, and the once distant prospect of open conflict loomed ever larger, some of Whitman's most important work of the time reflected his deep concerns. The remarkable manuscript draft in hand is imbued with his foreboding and at the same time is highly representative of his adaptation of the apostrophic verse form to his own purposes, as evidenced in these opening lines:"O brood continental! "O you teeming cities! invincible, turbulent, proud!"O men of passion & the storm! O all you slumberers! "Arouse! Arouse! the dawn-bird's throat sounds shrill! "Arouse! As I walk'd the beach, I heard the mournful notes foreboding a tempest!...." The text in its present form remained unpublished during Whitman's lifetime. Eventually, it was included in Walt Whitman's Workshop. A Collection of Unpublished Manuscripts, edited by Clifton Joseph Furness (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1928), p.84. Furness located the manuscript in the collection of the Academy of Arts and Letters and postulated that the draft was "later incorporated in '

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