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Walt WhitmanA modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
“Are you the new person drawn toward me?” was initially published in the 1860 Leaves of Grass edition. This was right before the start of the Civil War in April of 1861, when the nation’s tension was building toward its breaking point. Abraham Lincoln’s election in 1860 “caused seven southern states to secede and form the Confederate States of America; four more states soon joined them” (“Civil War.” History.com, 12 May 2022). The election of Lincoln served as the ignited fuse for the war between the Union and the Confederacy. The tension felt by the nation at this historical moment translates into Whitman’s poem. The sense of duplicity and inauthenticity replicates the mistrust citizens from both the North and the South could have felt toward one another with their different political views. When the speaker warns the stranger that they are “surely far different from what you suppose” (Line 2), it could represent the different factions of thought dividing the United States. The American Civil War pitted brother against brother, so someone who was originally deemed “trusty and faithful” (Line 6) or “smooth and tolerant” (Line 7) could turn out to not be such a “real heroic man” (Line 8).
By Walt Whitman
A Glimpse
Walt Whitman
America
Walt Whitman
A Noiseless Patient Spider
Walt Whitman
As I Walk These Broad Majestic Days
Walt Whitman
Crossing Brooklyn Ferry
Walt Whitman
For You O Democracy
Walt Whitman
Hours Continuing Long
Walt Whitman
I Hear America Singing
Walt Whitman
I Sing the Body Electric
Walt Whitman
I Sit and Look Out
Walt Whitman
Leaves of Grass
Walt Whitman
O Captain! My Captain!
Walt Whitman
Song of Myself
Walt Whitman
Vigil Strange I Kept on the Field One Night
Walt Whitman
When I Heard the Learn'd Astronomer
Walt Whitman
When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom'd
Walt Whitman