Master and use copy. Digital master created according to Benchmark for Faithful Digital Reproductions of Monographs and Serials, Version 1. Digital Library Federation, December 2002
Includes bibliographical references (pages 277-287) and index
"Triumphal drums for the dead": "song of myself," 1855 -- "Great is death": leaves of grass poems, 1855 -- "The progress of souls": leaves of grass, 1856 -- "So long!": leaves of grass, 1860 -- "Come sweet death!": the drum-taps poems, 1865-1866 -- "Sweet, peaceful, welcome death": leaves of grass, 1867-1892
Through a close reading of Leaves of Grass, its constituent poems, particularly Song of Myself and Whitman's prose and letters, Aspiz charts how the poet's exuberant celebration of life is a consequence of his central concern: the ever presence of death and the prospect of an afterlife
