Manly Health and Training: With Off-Hand Hints Toward Their Conditions - New American Edition - Softcover

Whitman, Walt; Rofheart, Evan

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1533046603 ISBN 13: 9781533046604

Publisher: CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform, 2016

Synopsis

Walt Whitman, an icon of the original American Transcendentalists, wrote Manly Health and Training a decidedly non-transcendentalist manifesto in 1858. As was his style he wrote it using one of his common pen names, Mose Velsor. It was originally published in serial form by the newspaper The New York Atlas, over several months.By the politically correct standards of today, it is unlikely that it would have seen the light of day. In many respects, Manly Health is a very American individualistic guide to life. Whitman touches on many things, food, alcohol, sex, boxing, bathing, footwear and just about anything else he felt warranted inclusion.In an interview in the New York Times, Ed Folsom, a professor of English at the University of Iowa and Whitman scholar, speaking about Manly Health said, “One of Whitman’s core beliefs was that the body was the basis of democracy.” He continues, Manly Health “…is a hymn to the male body, as well as a guide to taking care of what he saw as the most vital unit of democratic living.”Manly Health is an important window into mid-1800s North-Eastern America. Enlightenment Press is pleased to be making this valuable addition to the body of Walt Whitman’s work available.

About this title

About the Author

Walt Whitman was an American poet and writer born in New York in 1819. Despite his family s financial troubles, Whitman attended school and, after graduating at age eleven, worked in a lawyer s office before becoming a printer s apprentice. Before he had even turned sixteen Whitman began anonymously publishing his poetry at the Long Island Star, where he worked. After leaving the Star, Whitman moved through several jobs including teaching, publishing and typesetting. Eventually, though, Whitman determined to make his living writing poetry, and paid for the first publication of Leaves of Grass himself when he was thirty-seven. At the time of its publication, Leaves of Grass was met with controversy and was criticized for its overtly sexual themes, however, but it has since come to be one of the most important works in early American literature and a product of the transcendentalist movement. Whitman died in 1892 at the age of seventy-two.

Review

"History is strewn with delightful little gifts like this one, but they so rarely make their way to the surface; let us be glad we live in a time where we now know Walt Whitman once recommended vigorous nude dry-brushing sessions, followed by a strut down the street to give the locals an eyeful of one's now-glowing skin, chockablock with vitality and other spiritual virtues made physically manifest. Let us all give ourselves a quick rub-down and offer thanks."

--Mallory Ortberg, author of Texts from Jane Eyre, and founder of The Toast

Edition details

• Publisher: CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform
• Publication date: 2016
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1533046603
• ISBN 13: 9781533046604
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 130