Bryan K. Garman - A Race of Singers: Whitman's Working Class Hero from Guthrie to Springsteen

When Walt Whitman published <i>Leaves of Grass</i> in 1855, he dreamed of inspiring a race of singers" who would celebrate the working class and realize the promise of American democracy. By examining how singers such as Woody Guthrie, Bob Dylan, and Bruce Springsteen both embraced and reconfigured Whitman's vision, Bryan Garman shows that Whitman succeeded. In doing so, Garman celebrates the triumphs yet also exposes the limitations of Whitman's legacy. <p> While Whitman's verse propounded notions of sexual freedom and renounced the competitiveness of capitalism, it also safeguarded the interests of the white workingman, often at the expense of women and people of color. Garman describes how each of Whitman's successors adopted the mantle of the working-class hero while adapting the role to his own generation's concerns: Guthrie condemned racism in the 1930s, Dylan addressed race and war in the 1960s, and Springsteen explored sexism, racism, and homophobia in the 1980s and 1990s. <p> But as Garman points

Key Information
Authors		Bryan K. Garman
Nonfiction Category		History • Music
Book Editions
		PaperbackIllustrated338September 01, 2000Univ of North Carolina Pr9.5"(h) x 6"(w) x 1"(d), 1.05 lbs.9780807848661