Rebel Souls: Walt Whitman and America's First Bohemians - Rilegato

Martin, Justin

Rilegato

ISBN 10: 0306822261 ISBN 13: 9780306822261

Casa editrice: Da Capo Press, 2014

Riassunto

In the shadow of the Civil War, a circle of radicals in a rowdy saloon changed American society and helped set Walt Whitman on the path to poetic immortality. Rebel Souls is the first book ever written about the colourful group of artists- regulars at Pfaff's Saloon in Manhattan- rightly considered America's original Bohemians. Besides a young Whitman, the circle included actor Edwin Booth trailblazing stand-up comic Artemus Ward psychedelic drug pioneer and author Fitz Hugh Ludlow and brazen performer Adah Menken, famous for her Naked Lady routine. Central to their times, the artists managed to forge connections with Ralph Waldo Emerson, Mark Twain, and even Abraham Lincoln. This vibrant tale, packed with original research, offers the pleasures of a great group biography like The Banquet Years or The Metaphysical Club . Justin Martin shows how this first bohemian culture- imported from Paris to a dingy Broadway saloon- seeded and nurtured an American tradition of rebel art that thrives to this day.

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Recensione:

"Whitman now is a central figure in the American canon, but his Pfaff's pals are all but forgotten. In Rebel Souls, biographer Justin Martin brings them wonderfully to life in his enjoyable romp through the milieu. Whitman is the emotional core of the book - Martin's passages on Whitman's romantic travails and his experiences tending to wounded soldiers during the Civil War are unforgettably moving. But the other members of the Pfaff's coterie almost steal the show."―Boston Globe

"The book is a veritable who's who of the 19th-century's movers and shakers."―Cape Cod Times

"Martin's historical scope and elegiac prose, laced through with parlance of the period, is not only grandly entertaining to read, it rescues this bit of cultural history and gives Whitman a more human dimension past the iconic image."―New York Journal of Books

"Anyone who loves history, and particularly literary history, will want to read this book."
―Hudson Valley News

"Fascinating and eye-opening."―Waterbury Republican-American

"In this captivating study, Martin transports the reader to the 1850s inside smoky Pfaff's saloon-the meeting place of the US's first Bohemians...Thanks to meticulous research, Martin was able to re-create the Bohemian scene, and Whitman's place in it, in vivid detail. This book is a lively and entertaining read for students of American literature, history, and culture...Summing Up: Essential. All readers."―Choice

"[A] well-written account of the New York Bohemians who gravitated around Pfaff's Saloon on Broadway...A lively tale, informative and well-told."―Mark Twain Forum

"Does a great service in shining light on the younger man who still had a lot of hard-dues-paying years before he sauntered into legend and the ages...A valuable-and very readable-addition to the body of critical work about America's greatest poet."―Internet Review of Books

"Places are ever-changing, Manhattan real estate most especially. But, as Rebel Souls proves, biography can play a provocative role in preserving their mystique and also their impact."―New Books in Biography

"Martin takes us into the scintillating world of Pfaff's saloon in the 19th century...What happened in Pfaff's saloon in the 1850s is stuff of literary legend...The Greenwich Village saloon was finally paid the homage it deserves with the release of Rebel Souls."―New York Press

Descrizione del libro:

Brilliant portrait of a time and place that launched American Bohemia and liberated the genius of Walt Whitman

Su questa edizione

• Editore: Da Capo Press
• Data di pubblicazione: 2014
• ISBN 10: 0306822261
• ISBN 13: 9780306822261
• Rilegatura: Copertina rigida
• Numero di pagine: 368