![]() Whitman understands the entire book as a journey and so he begins with his own beginnings of self-awareness and poetic inspiration as a boy on Long Island, New York. "Starting from Paumanok" is a kind of road map for the literary work ahead. He writes poems of a political, social, personal, and sexual nature, all ideas that he will elaborate on in later sections. The themes of "Inscriptions" are as varied as the themes of the entire book. The subject, then, is Whitman, the reader, and the nation. Whitman names the subject of the work - "One's-self." This is not only Whitman's self, though he certainly identifies himself as the hero of the epic, but it is also the reader's self as well as a more encompassing democratic self. ![]() The opening section, "Inscriptions," gives the reader an overview of the work and the purview of its author. He desired that the reader would see a self formed through the words and themes of the book. Instead, he was concerned with the journey of the poetry. Whitman was intentional in not organizing the book in any chronological way. ![]() Whitman revised and added to the book throughout his life, the final edition being published only months before his death in 1891. ![]() Leaves of Grass is a collection of poetry written over Walt Whitman's entire lifetime organized thematically into sections. ![]()
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