The first thing I noticed about The editions was in the 1860 edition is much longer than the 1855 edition. He added a lot more work to the later edition. Song of Myself is just titled, "Walt Whitman"
the use of "-ed" is replaced later by " 'd ". On Page 35 of the bluebook he marks certain words with this notation, he changes the word "entered" to "enter'd" and "leaned" to lean'd".
I read about the differences, that Marki Ivan had illuminated on and it just seems like Whitman would go back and tweak it here and there.I didn't notice any other huge differences other than the length. I noticed the 1860 edition is over 400 pages, while the 1855 is only a bit over 95.
The length alone speaks to me in a way that says Whitman was becoming more confident in his work and more risky, allowing everything to flow out.
In his bluebook markings i was surprised to see all the little things he went back and changed. Things I thought sounded good, but you are your harshest critic after all. He probably went over it a hundred times trying to make it better, but I don't think there was a need to change words like "leaned" to "lean'd"
I understand his need to write more, but if it were me, I would let the masterpiece simply be.
Okay.
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