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Heather Morton

Heather Morton is a graduate student at the University of Virginia and a member of the Whitman Archive.

Author

Democracy, Self-Reviews and the 1855 Leaves of Grass

Spring 2005 | Essays

Most of this essay will be devoted to the prose surrounding Whitman’s poetry in the 1855 Leaves of Grass. But it is worth pausing for a moment over the volume’s first poetic sentence to see the negotiation between writer and reader at the center as well as the periphery of the work. 

I celebrate myself,
And what I assume you shall assume,
For every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you.