Karen Karbiener

In this course, Walt Whitman and the Birth of Modern American Poetry, we'll explore how Walt Whitman broke with the tyranny of European literary forms to establish a broad, new voice for American poetry. By throwing aside the stolid conventions and clichEd meters of old Europe, Walt Whitman produced a vital, compelling form of verse, one expressive of the nature of his new world and its undiscovered countries, both physical and spiritual, intimate...

When a creature assembled from the bodies of dead convicts and the brain of a brilliant scientist realizes he is rejected by society, he goes on a rampage seeking revenge on the doctor who gave him life but refuses to give him a companion to share it. Horrified by the monster he has created, Frankenstein is consumed by the need to hunt down and destroy his creation.

Whitman employs the cadence of simple, even idiomatic speech to "sing" national identity. Throughout his prolific career, Whitman continually revised and expanded Leaves of Grass, which went through nine editions. This volume include the first edition, the final, authorized "Death-Bed" edition, and selections of the best poems from preceding editions and other sources. Annotation. Whitman employs the cadence of simple, even idiomatic speech to "sing"...