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413 Walt Whitman - "Song of Myself"

The History of Literature

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The Not Easy to Be Gay Era

This was not an easy time to be gay. Or maybe there was a kind of relationship or friendship between the young teacher and the older pupils. Maybe all that had kind of fed into this. We don't know exactly, but maybe it did happen. I like to think that whitman found the freedom in new orleans to be more liberating for him and to help him feel better about himself and who he was. He would not be the first or the last person to have done so. But this is mainly justmy hope. It's not really in the biographical evidence. You can draw it from the poems, which is not necessarily history, but does tell us something about what he

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