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I will not have a single person slighted or left away, The keptwoman and sponger and thief are hereby invited . . . . the heavy-lipped slave is invited . . . . the veneralee is invited, There shall be no difference between them and the rest. (Whitman 44) ~*~*~*~*~ After looking through a couple of variations of “kept woman” […] […] scrofula Did you fear some scrofula out of the unflagging pregnancy? p.48 “Song of Myself”. “Scrofula” (AKA King’s Evil) historically referred to a type of tuberculosis that affects the lymph glands of the neck. Today there is disagreement among medical professionals about its relationship to tuberculosis. The word is adapted from the latin scrofa meaning “female swine”, […] […] Walt says, “Only three guns were in use, One was directed by the captain himself against the enemy’s mainmast, Two well-served with grape and canister silenced his Musketry and cleared his decks.” (68) Walt makes many mentions of firearms and weaponry of his time in the mid-1800s. Arcane terms like “firelock” and “carbine” […] […] My tread scares the wood-drake and wood-duck on my distant and daylong ramble, They rise together, they slowly circle around. ….I believe in those winged purposes, And acknowledge the red yellow and white playing within me, And consider the green and violet and the tufted crown intentional; –Walt Whitman, Leaves of Grass (1855) p. 38 In the history of literature, birds […] […] I sound triumphal drums for the dead….I fling through my embouchures the loudest and gayest music to them (368). In this line, Whitman uses a word I am unfamiliar with—embouchures. By using context clues, I figured out that it must have something to do with music because almost every word in the line refers to music in some […] […] “Odin, the Wanderer” (1886) by Georg von Rosen. “With Odin, and the hideous-faced Mexitli, and all idols and images, Honestly taking from them all for what they are worth, and not a cent more, Admitting they were alive and did the work of their day…” (Whitman, 74) Odin, who strangely looks a bit like Whitman himself, is […] […] My ties and ballasts leave me . . . . I travel . . . . I sail . . . . my elbows rest in the sea-gaps, I skirt the sierras . . . . my palms cover continents, I am afoot with my vision. By the city’s quadrangular houses . . . . in […] […] “The camera and plate are prepared, the lady must sit for her daguerreotype, …” (41) ~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~ daguerreotype, n 1. One of the earliest photographic processes, first published by Daguerre of Paris in 1839, in which the impression was taken upon a silver plate sensitized by iodine, and then developed by exposure to the vapour of mercury. b. The […] […] The word that I chose to research: august. The few lines that surround this word are found on page 46 and they are as follows: “I know I am august, I do not trouble my spirit to vindicate itself or be understood, I see that the elementary laws never apologize, I reckon I behave no prouder than the level […] […] “The jour printer with gray head and gaunt jaws works at his case, He turns his quid of tobacco, his eyes get blurred with the manuscript;” (39) In this context, jour is used as “a colloquial abbreviation of journeyman” (Wordnik). A journeyman can be described as “one who has fully served an apprenticeship in a […] […] |