19th century medicine
A01=Robert Leigh Davis
american civil war
Author_Robert Leigh Davis
autobiography
biographical account
Category=DSBF
challenging texts
compelling biography
contemporary medicine
convalescence
correspondence
cultural icon
eq_bestseller
eq_biography-true-stories
eq_isMigrated=1
eq_isMigrated=2
eq_nobargain
eq_non-fiction
famous american authors
gay writers
innovative study
journalistic works
lgbt author
lit crit
literary figure
literary studies
male nurse
medical narrative
memoir
oscar wilde
point of convergence
socially significant authors
Product details
- ISBN 9780520207608
- Weight: 544g
- Dimensions: 152 x 229mm
- Publication Date: 28 Aug 1997
- Publisher: University of California Press
- Publication City/Country: US
- Product Form: Hardback
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In this compelling, accessible examination of one of America's greatest cultural and literary figures, Robert Leigh, Davis details the literary and social significance of Walt Whitman's career as a nurse during the American Civil War. Davis shows how the concept of 'convalescence' in nineteenth-century medicine and philosophy - along with Whitman's personal war experiences - provide a crucial point of convergence for Whitman's work as a gay and democratic writer. In his analysis of Whitman's writings during this period - Drum-Taps, Democratic Vistas, Memoranda During the War, along with journalistic works and correspondence - Davis argues against the standard interpretation that Whitman's earliest work was his best. He finds instead that Whitman's hospital writings are his most persuasive account of the democratic experience. Deeply moved by the courage and dignity of common soldiers, Whitman came to identify the Civil War hospitals with the very essence of American democratic life, and his writing during this period includes some of his most urgent reflections on suffering, sympathy, violence, and love.
Davis concludes this study with an essay on the contemporary medical writer Richard Selzer, who develops the implications of Whitman's ideas into a new theory of medical narrative.
