M.c. Gardner

Whitman's Code: a New Bible, Vol 2 M.c. Gardner

Volume 2 of the two-part exploration by M. C. Gardner, Whitman's Code: A New Bible. This collection is an inventive 21st-century re-assessment of a 19th-century living masterpiece. Its genesis is a note first reported by Whitman's friend R. M. Bucke. The note reads: "The Great Construction of the New Bible. Not to be diverted from the principal - the main life work - the three hundred and sixty-five - it ought to be ready in 1859." In energetic and playful prose endowed with the spirit of discovery, Gardner presents an exploration predicated on the poet's preoccupation with time - "I accept time absolutely" - following an uncanny numerological code that leads us to new insights about the much-explored nineteenth-century poet. The two resulting volumes are two Testaments in a new vision of the universe of Whitman's creation and the larger one it both exalted and mirrored.