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- uva.ead01_uva.00202
Confession and Warning
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Whitman Archive Title: Confession and Warning
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Whitman Archive ID: uva.00202
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Repository: Catalog of the Walt Whitman Literary Manuscripts at the Clifton Waller Barrett Library of American Literature, Albert and Shirley Small Special Collections Library, University of Virginia
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Folder: 50-51
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Date: 1857-1859
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Genre: poetry
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Physical Description: 3 leaves, 21.5 x 12 cm, handwritten
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Content:
After undergoing substantial deletions and revisions this poem became section 13
of the cluster "Leaves of
Grass" in 1860, with the manuscript leaves corresponding to
the published version as follows: leaf 1 to numbered verse paragraphs 1 (now
beginning "O bitter sprig! Confession sprig!") through 3 and 5; leaf 2 ("You
felons on trial in courts,") to 4 and most of 6; and leaf 3 ("And I say I am of
them—") to the rest of 6. In 1867 Whitman permanently retitled the poem "You Felons on Trial in Courts"
and further shortened it by removing the first three verse paragraphs. The poem's
final position, in 1881, was in the cluster "Autumn Rivulets."
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