Focusing on the parallels between the careers of Emerson and Whitman, Loving discusses Emerson's influence on Whitman. He discusses Emerson's apprenticeship as a writer by examining his career as a Unitarian minister, treats Whitman's work as a journalist as it relates to his becoming a poet and compares the spontaneous and self-reliant Emersonian persona of the works of the late 1830s to the poetic voice in the first three editions of Leaves of Grass (1855-60). The author traces what he sees as a similar pattern of decline in the two writers. He sees Emerson moderating the radical self-reliance of the late 1830s and Whitman unconsciously modulating his poetic voice so that he seems to become Emerson's disciple. Includes a stimulating discussion of Emerson's supposed "silence" after the publication of his letter in the 1856 Leaves along with fresh and useful insights into the complex relationship between the works of these two writers.
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