The Spouter-Inn

10b. Bonus: Peter Coviello on Leaves of Grass.


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But things that don’t have sex acts in them, like his care for the soldiers

in the bedroom, are not, for that, non-erotic—are not, for that, scrubbed
clean of anything like sex. And that, for him, is super important. [It’s] why
he wouldn’t be happy with the taxonomical divisions that come out, that say, a
straight person is not the person who desires all women, but desires no
men—that’s a straight man. The cleaving of desire into these taxonomically
clarified little poles goes against much of what he thought desire was.

Another bonus episode! This time we’re joined by Peter

Coviello, professor of
English at the University of Illinois at Chicago. Peter studies nineteenth-century American literature, the history of sexuality, and queer studies—so it
will be no surprise that he has thought a lot about Walt Whitman. His most
recent academic book is Tomorrow’s Parties: Sex and the Untimely in
Nineteenth-Century America, which was a finalist for
the Lambda Award in LGBT Studies. We talk with Peter about nineteenth-century
taxonomies of sexuality, Whitman’s caring for wounded soldiers in the Civil
War, his understanding of nationalism and the American project, how he does
and does not fit into his era, and the singular delights of his poetry.

Show Notes.

Peter Coviello on Twitter.

Peter’s book, Tomorrow’s Parties: Sex and the Untimely in Nineteenth-Century

America.

Peter was also a guest on an episode of This Is Your

Mixtape.

Memoranda During the War, which Peter edited. (Or

at the Walt Whitman
Archive.)

Whitman’s letter to the parents of Erastus

Haskell.

Vigil Strange.

John Addington

Symonds.

A Woman Waits for Me.

From Pent-up Aching Rivers.

“This hour I tell things in confidence...” from Song of

Myself part 19.

Whoever You Are Holding Me Now in

Hand.

The Eighteenth Presidency.

The Sleepers.

“My fire-lock lean’d in the corner...” from Song of

Myself part 10.

Democratic

Vistas.

As Adam, Early in the Morning.

Peter’s upcoming book will be about Mormonism and

secularism.

You can support The Spouter-Inn on Patreon.

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The Spouter-InnBy Suzanne Conklin Akbari and Chris Piuma

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