[WHITMAN WALT] The National Era (contributions to)

Sale 2319 - Lot 297

Unsold

Estimate: $ 800 - $ 1,200

[WHITMAN, WALT]. The National Era (contributions to). 3 issues, comprising: Vol. IV.-Nos. 44, 46 and 47, dated, respectively, Thursday, October 31; Thursday, November 14; and Thursday, November 21, 1850. Large folio, each 4 pages, tattered on inner fold edges, occasional spotting, old signature across upper margin of first page of each with some bleed through. Whitman's contributions attributed to "Paumanok" in each issue. New York, 1850

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"Whitman contributed three letters to the National Era in the fall of 1850 under the heading of 'Letters From New York' and...under the sign of 'Paumanok.' This letter [Oct. 31] and the other two soon turned to the subject of art...He also spoke of attending a recent exhibit at the American Art Union in Manhattan, where he found that most of the paintings lacked proper emotion ('all spack [sic] and span, and shining, in their handsome frames')...Whitman's second letter was another rehearsal of the poet of 'the open road.' On November 14 he took the reader by the arm and escorted him up Broadway, beginning at the Battery." The final letter offers a meditation on music as art: "Music, in the legitimate sense of that term, exists independently of rhyme" (Loving, pp. 168-171).