Whitman and the Romance of MedicineUniversity of California Press, 1. sept 2023 - 205 pages In this compelling, accessible examination of one of America's greatest cultural and literary figures, Robert Leigh Davis details the literary and social significance of Walt Whitman's career as a nurse during the American Civil War. Davis shows how the concept of "convalescence" in nineteenth-century medicine and philosophy—along with Whitman's personal war experiences—provide a crucial point of convergence for Whitman's work as a gay and democratic writer. In his analysis of Whitman's writings during this period—Drum-Taps, Democratic Vistas, Memoranda During the War, along with journalistic works and correspondence—Davis argues against the standard interpretation that Whitman's earliest work was his best. He finds instead that Whitman's hospital writings are his most persuasive account of the democratic experience. Deeply moved by the courage and dignity of common soldiers, Whitman came to identify the Civil War hospitals with the very essence of American democratic life, and his writing during this period includes some of his most urgent reflections on suffering, sympathy, violence, and love. Davis concludes this study with an essay on the contemporary medical writer Richard Selzer, who develops the implications of Whitman's ideas into a new theory of medical narrative. |
Contents
| 23 | |
On Both Sides of the Line The Liminality of Civil War Nursing | 43 |
Sympathy and the Crisis of Union | 72 |
Telling It Slant Medical Representation in Memoranda During the War | 95 |
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Common terms and phrases
Alcott Allen Grossman American argues army Aspiz body politic calls Civil War hospitals Civil War nursing Civil War writings claims closure Collected Prose Complete Poetry convalescent crisis crossing cultural dead death democracy Democratic Vistas disease Drum-Taps Edmonds embodied Emerson Erkkila erotic Essays experience Foucault gay love Gay Science Hawthorne homosexual Hospital Sketches House Divided Ibid Joel Porte Justin Kaplan Kaplan New York Killingsworth Leaves of Grass liminal Lincoln Literary Classics Louisa May Alcott lover male Memoranda narrative Nathanson Nietzsche Nightingale Nurse and Spy patient poem poet poet's poetic Poetry and Collected quoted reader representation Richard Selzer romance of medicine scene sense sexual skepticism social soldier Specimen Days suspense suture suture theory sympathy Therapeutic Perspective Thomas tion tradition tympanum Union Union army unwritten vision voice Walt Whitman Walter Kaufmann Whit Whitman wrote Whitman's Civil Whitman's hospital Whitman's Poetry Whitman's romance wound-dresser Wound-Dresser's Diary wounded York University Press