Leaves of Grass: (Annotated Edition)

Leaves of Grass is a collection of poetry written over Walt Whitman's entire lifetime organized thematically into sections. Whitman revised and added to the book throughout his life, the final edition being published only months before his death in 1891. Whitman was intentional in not organizing the book in any chronological way. Instead, he was concerned with the journey of the poetry. He desired that the reader would see a self formed through the words and themes of the book. The opening section, "Inscriptions," gives the reader an overview of the work and the purview of its author. 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 subject, then, is Whitman, the reader, and the nation. The themes of "Inscriptions" are as varied as the themes of the entire book. He writes poems of a political, social, personal, and sexual nature, all ideas that he will elaborate on in later sections.