: Walt Whitman
: The Wound Dresser
: Dead Dodo Poetry
: 9781508023821
: 1
: CHF 0.70
:
: Lyrik
: English
: 208
: DRM
: PC/MAC/eReader/Tablet
: ePUB
< pan style='font-size:12pt;'>Dodo Collections brings you another classic from Walt Whitman, 'The Wound Dresser'.



Walt Whitman's 'The Wound-Dresser' is a sixty-five-line free-verse poem in four sections describing the suffering in the Civil War hospitals and the poet's suffering, faithfulness to duty, and developing compassion as he tended to soldiers' physical wounds and gave comfort. Published at war's end, the poem opens with an old veteran speaking, imaginatively suggesting some youths gathered about who have asked him to tell of his most powerful memories. The children request stories of battle glory, but the poet quickly dismisses these as ephemeral. He then narrates a journey through a military hospital such as Whitman experienced in Washington, D.C., during the second half of the war.



Walte 'Walt' Whitman (May 31, 1819 - March 26, 1892) was an American poet, essayist and journalist. A humanist, he was a part of the transition between transcendentalism and realism, incorporating both views in his works. Whitman is among the most influential poets in the American canon, often called the father of free verse. His work was very controversial in its time, particularly his poetry collection Leaves of Grass, which was described as obscene for its overt sexuality.



Born in Huntington on Long Island, Whitman worked as a journalist, a teacher, a government clerk, and-in addition to publishing his poetry-was a volunteer nurse during the American Civil War. Early in his career, he also produced a temperance novel, Franklin Evans (1842). Whitman's major work, Leaves of Grass, was first published in 1855 with his own money. The work was an attempt at reaching out to the common person with an American epic. He continued expanding and revising it until his death in 1892. After a stroke towards the end of his life, he moved to Camden, New Jersey, where his health further declined. When he died at age 72, his funeral became a public spectacle.



Whitm n's sexuality is often discussed alongside his poetry. Though biographers continue to debate his sexuality, he is usually described as either homosexual or bisexual in his feelings and attractions. However, there is disagreement among biographers as to whether Whitman had actual sexual experiences with men.



Whitm n was concerned with politics throughout his life. He supported the Wilmot Proviso and opposed the extension of slavery generally. His poetry presented an egalitarian view of the races, though his attitude in life reflected many of the racial prejudices common to nineteenth-century America and his opposition to slavery was not necessarily based on belief in the equality of races per se. At one point he called for the abolition of slavery, but later he saw the abolitionist movement as a threat to democracy.

THE GREAT ARMY OF THE WOUNDED


………………

The military hospitals, convalescent camps, etc., in Washington and its

neighborhood, sometimes contain over fifty thousand sick and wounded men.

Every form of wound (the mere sight of some of them having been known to

make a tolerably hardy visitor faint away), every kind of malady, like a

long procession, with typhoid fever and diarrhoea at the head as

leaders, are here in steady motion. The soldier’s hospital! how many

sleepless nights, how many women’s tears, how many long and waking hours

and days of suspense, from every one of the Middle, Eastern, and Western

States, have concentrated here! Our own New York, in the form of hundreds

and thousands of her young men, may consider herself here—Pennsylvania,

Ohio, Indiana, and all the West and Northwest the same—and all the New

England States the same.

Upon a few of these hospitals I have been almost daily calling as a

missionary, on my own account, for the sustenance and consolation of some

of the most needy cases of sick and dying men, for the last two months.

One has much to learn to do good in these places. Great tact is required.

These are not like other hospitals. By far the greatest proportion (I

should say five sixths) of the patients are American young men,

intelligent, of independent spirit, tender feelings, used to a hardy and

healthy life; largely the farmers are represented by their sons—largely

the mechanics and workingmen of the cities. Then they are soldiers. All

these points must be borne in mind.

People through our Northern cities have little or no idea of the great and

prominent feature which these military hospitals and convalescent camps

make in and around Washington. There are not merely two or three or a

dozen, but some fifty of them, of different degrees of capacity. Some have

a thousand and more patients. The newspapers here find it necessary to

print every day a directory of the hospitals—a long list, something like

what a directory of the churches would be in New York, Philadelphia, or

Boston.

The Government (which really tries, I think, to do the best and quickest

it can for these sad necessities) is gradually settling down to adopt the

plan of placing the hospitals in clusters of one-story wooden barracks,

with their accompanying tents and sheds for cooking and all needed

purposes. Taking all things into consideration, no doubt these are best

adapted to the purpose; better than using churches and large public

buildings like the Patent office. These sheds now adopted are long,

one-story edifices, sometimes ranged along in a row, with their heads to

the street, and numbered either alphabetically, Wards A or B, C, D, and so

on; or Wards 1, 2, 3, etc. The middle one will