本繫列旨在為學生引薦英美文學名家，內容親和，語言生動，對有意提高西方文學素養的讀者很有吸引力。
沃爾特·惠特曼是19世紀*具創新精神和*具影響力的美國詩人之一。此書以他的傳世之作《草葉集》為中心，為研究惠特曼提供了基礎。除了對惠特曼的主要作品作深入研究，書中還涉及惠特曼的生平、其所處時代的歷史和文化以及評論家對其作品的批評。這些使我們對惠特曼本人及其如何成為美國文學界核心人物有了全面的了解。

Preface
Chapter 1 Life
Youth and literary apprenticeship (1819-1850)
The emergence of the poet (1851-1860)
The war and its aftermath (1861-1873)
The period of reflection and decline(1873-1892)
Chapter 2 Historical and cultural contexts
Democracy
The body
The land
The culture
Chapter 3 Poetry before the Civil War
1855: "Song of Myself"
Other poems dating from the 1855 Leaves of Grass
1856: poems of sexuality and the body
1856: poems of the earth
1856: "Crossing Brooklyn Ferry"
1860: Sea-Drift poems
1860: gendered clusters -"Children of Adam" and "Calamus"
Chapter 4 Poetry after the Civil War
Elegiac poems
The emergence of the image
Minor poetic modes
Chapter 5 Prose works
The 1855 preface
Democratic Vistas
Specimen Days
Chapter 6 Critical reception
The first fifty years, 1855-1905
1905-1955
1955-2005
Notes
Further reading
Index