WHITMAN

This is primarily for scholarly consumption. It is a brilliant piece of work, both in the morass of detail on the era -- and the man, with some stimulating writing. A critical study by a Professor at Smith in an attempt to determine the motivating force behind the first ""spokesman of modern man and the modern world"". Arvin sees him as a study in contradiction, living in a turbulent era of political and social change, constantly in the midst of the fray -- the first great Socialist, in the ultimate sense. In the Leaves he finds his awareness of human potentialities.