Whitman a Study: The Writings of John Burroughs Part Ten

by John Burroughs

Whitman a The Writings of John Burroughs V10 is a book written by John Burroughs that focuses on the life and works of American poet Walt Whitman. The book is the tenth volume in a series of Burroughs' writings and provides a comprehensive analysis of Whitman's poetry and philosophy. Burroughs delves into the themes and motifs of Whitman's poetry, including his celebration of nature, democracy, and individualism. He also provides insights into Whitman's personal life and the historical context in which he lived and wrote. The book is a valuable resource for anyone interested in the life and works of Walt Whitman and the literary and cultural landscape of 19th-century America.1904. Volume Ten of Twenty-Three, Riverby Edition. John Burroughs emerged from an obscure boyhood in the Catskill Mountains to write more than thirty books, create the genre of the nature essay, and become the preeminent nature writer of his day. Through his essays in books and popular magazines, John Burroughs taught countless Americans to appreciate nature. Biographical and Personal; His ruling Ideas and Aims; His Self-Reliance; His Relation to Art and Literature; His Relation to Life and Morals; His Relation to Culture; His Relation to His Country and Times; His Relation to Science; His Relation to Religion. See other titles by this author available from Kessinger Publishing.This scarce antiquarian book is a facsimile reprint of the old original and may contain some imperfections such as library marks and notations. Because we believe this work is culturally important, we have made it available as part of our commitment for protecting, preserving, and promoting the world's literature in affordable, high quality, modern editions, that are true to their original work.

316 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1896

About the author

In 1837, naturalist John Burroughs was born on a farm in the Catskills. After teaching, and clerking in government, Burroughs returned to the Catskills, and devoted his life to writing and gardening. He knew Thomas Edison, Henry Ford, Theodore Roosevelt, John Muir and Walt Whitman, writing the first biography of Whitman. Most of his 22 books are collected essays on nature and philosophy. In In The Light of Day (1900) he wrote about his views on religion: "If we take science as our sole guide, if we accept and hold fast that alone which is verifiable, the old theology must go." "When I look up at the starry heavens at night and reflect upon what is it that I really see there, I am constrained to say, 'There is no God' . . . " In his journal dated Feb. 18, 1910, he wrote: "Joy in the universe, and keen curiosity about it all—that has been my religion." He died on his 83rd birthday. The John Burroughs Sanctuary can be found near West Park, N.Y., and his rustic cabin, Slabsides, has been preserved. D. 1921.

According to biographers at the American Memory project at the Library of Congress, John Burroughs was the most important practitioner after Henry David Thoreau of that especially American literary genre, the nature essay. By the turn of the 20th century he had become a virtual cultural institution[peacock term] in his own right: the Grand Old Man of Nature at a time when the American romance with the idea of nature, and the American conservation movement, had come fully into their own. His extraordinary popularity and popular visibility were sustained by a prolific stream of essay collections, beginning with Wake-Robin in 1871.

In the words of his biographer Edward Renehan, Burroughs' special identity was less that of a scientific naturalist than that of "a literary naturalist with a duty to record his own unique perceptions of the natural world." The result was a body of work whose perfect resonance with the tone of its cultural moment perhaps explains both its enormous popularity at that time, and its relative obscurity since.

Since his death in 1921, John Burroughs has been commemorated by the John Burroughs Association. The association maintains the John Burroughs Sanctuary in Esopus, New York, a 170 acre plot of land surrounding Slabsides, and awards a medal each year to "the author of a distinguished book of natural history".

Twelve U.S. schools have been named after Burroughs, including public elementary schools in Washington, DC and Minneapolis, Minnesota, public middle schools in Milwaukee, Wisconsin and Los Angeles, California, a public high school in Burbank, California, and a private secondary school, John Burroughs School, in St. Louis, Missouri. Burroughs Mountain in Mount Rainier National Park is named in his honor.There was a medal named after John Burroughs and the John Burroughs Association publicly recognizes well-written and illustrated natural history publications. Each year the Burroughs medal is awarded to the author of a distinguished book of natural history, with the presentation made during the Association's annual meeting on the first Monday of April.

More: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Bur...

http://research.amnh.org/burroughs/

Reviews

[Valerie · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is the book that never ends. Yes, it goes on and on my friends. A garrulous love letter to Walt Whitman. Burroughs threatens to drown the reader sentences of ungodly lengths and pages of the repetitious rapture of a die-hard fan girl. Had I been the editor, I might have said, "Burroughs, this is lovely, but keep it between you and Walt, will you?" Or, better yet, I'd have brutally slashed this down to a readable length. All that being said, Burroughs managed to sneak in enough beautiful gems and original thought to keep me slogging. As a fellow lover of Whitman, I get where Burroughs is coming from; Whitman is a genius who deserves volumes and volumes of this sort of praise. I just can't in good conscience recommend this book to any reader who prefers to keep their sanity intact. Three stars, because I simply can't lump Burroughs with authors of a two-star caliber when he has such a gift for poetic language.

[Jay · Rating 3 out of 5]

I thought this might be a book that dragged but it did not! Burrough and Whitman were close friends for much of their adult live and Burrough was convinces that Leave of Grass was a seminal piece of literature and goes to great lengths to explain why.