Install MyBibliotheca

← Back to Walt Whitman

Cover of The Wound Dresser

The Commons · Book by Walt Whitman

The Wound Dresser

Publication date
2019-01-17
Publisher
Independently Published
Pages
195
Format
Paperback
ISBN
9781794263741
Language
en
Classics
Sign in to add this book

About the book

''The Wound-Dresser'' is one of Walt Whitman's most famous poems, published in 1865 in his collection Drum Taps. It gives a graphic yet unsentimental view of war and the inglamorous side of what happens to the men who go to fight it. It also uses his signature free verse, which was so out of fashion when Whitman wrote that many of his contemporaries ignored his work.The poem details Whitman's experiences during the Civil War as a volunteer in Washington's hospitals. At the age of 43, he traveled to Washington, DC, to find his brother. Once he found his brother healthy, he stayed on to help care for the wounded soldiers.