Breaking Bounds

These new essays on Whitman by such scholars as Eve Sedgwick, Michael Moon, and Jonathan Arac reject the persistent tendency in Whitman studies to isolate his sexuality from his politics, and his poetry from both. The issue of his sexuality is instead brought into contact with a wide range of issues, from nationalism to race and gender, pointing to the interdisciplinary future of American literary and cultural study, and the growing influence of gay and lesbian studies.