jennyandwalt

In the critical review, Whitman the Political Poet, Betsy Erkkila writes how Whitman had suffered from a severe paralytic stroke that also led him to be hospitalized during the war time. There is also a claim that “his stroke was at least partly a result of the psychic demons that came to haunt him during and after the war years” (Betsy 279). He had also appeared to have suffered from some sort of “shell shock” as well (Betsy 279). Reading this, it comes to my attention that maybe something may have happened to Whitman during the war time. I am curious as to what might have occured to Whitman: why would he have shown shell-shock symptoms? Could this maybe have had a more powerful affect on his writings than we imagined? Sometimes I wonder if Whitman is really a reliable writer… But then again, I wonder, is any writer a reliable writer…

Erkkila, Betsy.  Whitman the Political Poet.  New York: Oxford University Press, 1989.