Whitman and Poe’s Literary Networks

Abstract This chapter turns to social network analysis to illuminate the relationship between Walt Whitman and Edgar Allan Poe. Before the Civil War, Whitman gathered with a bohemian literary community who transplanted la vie bohème of Paris to Manhattan and grandfathered Poe into American bohemianism. This group made Whitman the focus of bohemian New York before conflicts over Poe’s legacy led to a backlash against Whitman by some influential tastemakers. Whitman’s complex relationship with Poe has been obscured in part because it does not culminate with a clear demonstration of how Poe influenced Whitman as a writer. Social network analysis, however, reveals a meaningful relationship between the two that does not depend solely on aesthetic influence to become legible. Models from network analysis suggest that literary history is better defined as the interconnected webs of individuals and institutions that publish, promote, and even prohibit authors from accessing a readership.