 |  The American Tradition in Literature, Volume 2, 10/e George Perkins,
Eastern Michigan University
Barbara Perkins,
University of Toledo-Toledo
Key ConceptsWalt Whitman created what was to become one of the most distinctive of all American poetic forms, "free verse," a pattern of lines and stanzas without a fixed metrical pattern or ending rhyme scheme. Such an open form complemented his ecstatic vision of American democracy and expansion, concepts that he spiritualized in "Song of Myself," the lead work in his seminal book of poetry, Leaves of Grass. |
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2003 McGraw-Hill Higher Education