[Fa]bles, traditions, and | Whitman Archive

Whitman Archive Title: [Fa]bles, traditions, and
Whitman Archive ID: duk.00261
Repository ID: MS q 6
Repository: Catalog of the Walt Whitman Literary Manuscripts in the Trent Collection of Whitmaniana, Duke University, Durham, North Carolina
Date: Between 1850 and 1855
Genre: poetry, prose
Physical Description: 1 leaf, handwritten
View Images: 1 | 2
Content: The ideas and language in this manuscript relate to the first poem in 1855 edition of Leaves of Grass , eventually titled "Song of Myself." This connection is reinforced by the supplied first line, added to a transcription of the manuscript that appears in Notes and Fragments , ed. Richard Maurice Bucke (London, Ontario: A. Talbot & Co., printers, 1899): "foot to fee lawyers for his brother and sit by him while he was tried for forgery" (47). This line, which matches a line in the 1855 version of "Song of Myself," is not currently written on the manuscript. In language, ideas, and structure, the last few lines of this manuscript also resemble lines 39–43 in the untitled fourteenth poem of the "Debris" cluster of the 1860–1861 edition of Leaves of Grass . The manuscript is also similar to other early manuscripts that relate to these poems and to the second poem in the 1855 edition of Leaves , eventually titled "A Song for Occupations" (see loc.00013 ["Priests"], uva.00251 ["Do I not prove myself"], and duk.00051 ["I know as well as"]). The reverse (duk.00800) contains unrelated prose writing, including a line similar to one found in "Song of Myself."