Minor Prophecy: Walt Whitman's New American Religion (Religion in North America)

Minor Prophecy: Walt Whitman's New American Religion (Religion in North America) by Kuebrich, David. hardcover edition. ISBN: 9780253331915.

Many of Walt Whitmans earliest readers hailed him as a religious prophet. For them, Leaves of Grass was more than literary art; it was sacred scripture. Recent scholarship has, however, dismissed those early enthusiasts as naive, if not crazy. David Kuebrichs new study of Whitman corrects that academic oversight by giving the early Whitmanites their due as the critics who most clearly perceived the nature and purpose of the poets labors―to begin a new religion. Kuebrichs thorough, intelligent study, based squarely on textual evidence, offers a revisionist interpretation of Americas great poet, returning religious vision and spirituality to the center of Whitman studies.