Walt Whitman's Letter for a Dying Soldier to His Wife Discovered

http://www.npr.org/2016/03/12/470214579/walt-whitmans-letter-for-a-dying-soldier-to-his-wife-discovered

by samclemens • 10 years ago

77 9 10 years ago

justifier• 10 years ago

whitman, i think, is the greatest writer

rather than this being because of his work directly, it's more because he understood and lived the idea that change is inevitable and necessary

he only wrote one book his entire life

publishing edits through the years

it is amazing to see how the poems both change and remain the same over time

when i read a whitman piece i always read it as i know he himself would have:

     how can i make this more beautiful and inclusive?

http://whitmanarchive.org/

eitally• 10 years ago

Thanks for calling out the Whitman Archive! I worked to digitize the manuscript & early first editions of Leaves of Grass while an undergraduate at UVA, and both had a great time and learned a ton about Whitman and old books.

To make a modern comparison, scholars believe Whitman authored Leaves of Grass in a very similar way to how Kanye West is treating The Life of Pablo. He released a rough draft to a limited audience over a short period of time, but continued editing, revising and adding to it for years afterward, as his perspective and understanding of the world around him evolved.

Whitman was an amazing writer. I wouldn't hesitate to call him America's Joyce.

Editorial on The Life of Pablo: http://www.nme.com/blogs/nme-blogs/could-kanye-s-tlop-update...

AI_Overlord• 10 years ago

For some reason it causes me a bit of difficulty to understand the headline on first pass. Something seems to be off with the gramar. Why not just say "Walt Whitman's letter to wife of dying soldier" Easier to understand in my opinion.

Polyphonie• 10 years ago

Re-read the headline:

Walt Whitman's Letter For A Dying Soldier To His Wife Discovered

Just make sure you separate the middle part- Letter For A Dying Soldier To His Wife- from the rest.

gpvos• 10 years ago

That is actually the part with the problem. One problem for me is that when initially scanning the sentence, "for" implies that the letter is intended to be sent to the soldier; "on behalf of" would be clearer. Another minor unclarity is that "his" can refer to either the soldier or Walt Whitman.

frozenport• 10 years ago

This is misdirected, we should take on the struggle against capitalism, rather than capitalization.

dang• 10 years ago

We detached this comment from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11302538 and marked it off-topic.

andrelaszlo• 10 years ago

I was confused by the + signs, I read them like "plus" (is this a common use of this sign?) until I read the scanned letter, which was surprisingly easy to read. The signs looked much more like & ("and") than + to me.

evincarofautumn• 10 years ago

Yes, “+” is often used in handwriting (typically with a loop) to mean “and”. In casual speech or when teaching mathematics to young students, “+” can be pronounced “and”, as in “one and one make two”.

Walt Whitman's Letter for a Dying Soldier to His Wife Discovered

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