Author of the biography of Whitman and several other books about the poet, general coeditor of The Collected Writings, and for 25 years the leading scholar of Leaves of Grass, Allen has now produced a critical guide for an intelligent reader's analysis and evaluation of current interpretations and approaches to Whitman's poetry. Its five sections are concerned with: a) the Whitman man-or-beast myth; 2) the 'long foreground' to the Leaves; 3) the nine...