Walt Whitman America’s Poet The title “America’s Poet” is often applied to Whitman.

Birth and Early Career Born 31 May 1819 near Huntington, Long Island, New York Second child (of 8) born to Walter and Louisa Van Velsor Whitman. Works as printer’s apprentice (to 1835) and as a schoolteacher. Parents were Deists but with a Quaker background. Whtiman’s father had long been a follower of Thomas Paine Radical Quakerism of Elizas Hicks--anti-institutional, placing much emphasis on the inner light. Emanuel Swedenborg. Although the family moved to Brooklyn when Whitman was 4 and he lived there and in New York and Washington for much of his life, he often drew on Long Island and its seashore--calling the island Paumonok, the Native American name for the place--in poems such as “Out of the Cradle, Endlessly Rocking.”

The Brooklyn Eagle 1846-1848. Becomes chief editor of the Brooklyn Eagle, a post he holds from from March 5, 1846 to January 18, 1848. In May 1848, Whitman is fired because his politics conflict with those of the publisher. A “free soil” or “locofoco”Democrat, Whitman opposes the expansion of slavery into new territories. Locofoco Party In U.S. history,the locofocos were a radical wing of the Democratic Party, organized in New York City in 1835. Made up primarily of workingmen and reformers, the Locofocos were opposed to state banks, monopolies, paper money, tariffs, and generally any financial policies that seemed to themantidemocratic and conducive to special privilege. The Locofocos received their name (which was later derisively applied by political opponents to all Democrats) when party regulars in New York turned off the gas lights to oust the radicals from a Tammany Hall nominating meeting.The radicals responded by lighting candles with the new self-igniting friction matches known as locofocos, and proceeded to nominate their own slate.

New Orleans Lives in New Orleans for 4 months as editor of the Daily Crescent. Sees slavery and slave-markets at first hand Experiences with nature (“live oaks, with moss”) and with French language later appear in his poetry.

Whitman in 1854 His friend Dr. Maurice Bucke called this “the Christ likeness” in which the poet as seer begins to emerge. In Leaves of Grass, Whitman would write, “I am the man, I suffer’d, I was there.” In a section of Song of Myself All this I swallow and it tastes good . . . . I like it well, and it becomes mine, I am the man . . . . I suffered . . . . I was there. I am the hounded slave, I wince at the bite of dogs . . . He tells of the massacre at Goliad and of other battles.

Leaves of Grass, 1855 Twelve poems, including “Song of Myself” “I Sing the Body Electric” “The Sleepers” Only 795 copies printed Family tradition says that Whitman set some of the type for this edition. First edition wasn’t signed, although the author’s name became known from an early verse. Draws from Sara Payson Willis Parton’s Fanny Fern, Fern Leaves from Fanny’s Portfolio.

Whitman’s Themes Transcendent power of love, brotherhood, and comradeship Imaginative projection into others’ lives Optimistic faith in democracy and equality Belief in regenerative and illustrative powers of nature and its value as a teacher Equivalence of body and soul and the unabashed exaltation of the body and sexuality Whitman had many themes in his poetry; these are only a few. For example, in section 48 of “Song of Myself”: I have said that the sould is not more than the body And I have said that the body is not more than the soul, And nothing, not God, is greater to one than one’s self is, And whoever walks a furlong without sympathy walks to his own funeral drest in his shroud …. And I say to any man or woman, Let your soul stand cool and composed before a million universes.

Whitman’s Poetic Techniques Free verse: lack of metrical regularity and conventional rhyme Use of repeated images, symbols, phrases, and grammatical units Use of enumerations and catalogs Use of anaphora (initial repetition) in lines and “Epanaphora” (each line hangs by a loop from the line before it) The Whitman “envelope” Contrast and parallelism in paired lines Use of varying line lengths with varying numbers of syllables per line. Critic Gay Wilson Allen identified the Whitman "envelope": a short beginning line, long middle lines, and a short ending line. Where the mockingbird sounds his delicious gurgles, and cackles and screams and weeps, Where the hay-rick stands in the barnyard, and the dry-stalks are scattered, and the brood cow waits in the hovel, Where the bull advances to do his masculine work, and the stud to the mare, and the cock is treading the hen, Where the heifers browse, and the geese nip their food with short jerks; Where the sundown shadows lengthen over the limitless and lonesome prairie, Where the herds of buffalo make a crawling spread of the square miles far and near; Where the hummingbird shimmers . . . . where the neck of the longlived swan is curving and winding Where the laughing-gull scoots by the slappy shore and laughs her near-human laugh;

From “Song of Myself” Where the heifers browse, and the geese nip their food with short jerks; Where the sundown shadows lengthen over the limitless and lonesome prairie, Where the herds of buffalo make a crawling spread of the square miles far and near; Where the hummingbird shimmers . . . . where the neck of the longlived swan is curving and winding Where the laughing-gull scoots by the slappy shore and laughs her near-human laugh . . . Note the word use (alliteration--slappy shore), repetition of Where, long lines, parallel structures.

Whitman’s Use of Language Idiosyncratic spelling and punctuation. Words used for their sounds as much as their sense; foreign languages Use of language from several disciplines The sciences: anatomy, astronomy, botany (especially the flora and fauna of America) Businesses and professions, such as carpentry Military and war terms; nautical terms

Civil War After his brother is wounded at Fredericksburg (1862), Whitman goes to Washington to care for him and stays for nearly 3 years, visiting the wounded, writing letters, and keeping up their spirits. After his brother is wounded at Fredericksburg in 1862, Whitman goes to Washington to take care of him and stays on to visit the wounded in the Washington hospitals. One of the first sights that greets him is a pile of amputated legs and arms, for the .58 caliber Minie balls or bullets, fired at slow velocity, resulted in shattered bones and gaping wounds and infections. Whitman visits the wounded every day for several years, until his health breaks down. He writes letters, reads to the men, brings them goodies--tobacco, which he doesn’t use himself, fruit, brandy--and lifts their spirits. Whitman’s experiences in New York with helping hurt stage and wagon drivers was helpful. During this time, he met Peter Doyle, to whom he became close for a period of several years.

Whitman and Lincoln Whitman saw Lincoln often, but the two never met face to face. “When lilacs last in the dooryard bloom’d” “O Captain, My Captain” Whitman saw Lincoln often and regarded him as a great leader of the country. Lincoln’s assassination plunged the poet, like the rest of the nation, into a numbing grief, and Whitman’s elegies to Lincoln are among his best-known work. O Captain, My Captain, is uncharacteristically conventional in form. Whitman said later that he was sorry that he wrote it, since it was a popular favorite and not at all characteristic of his verse. “When lilacs last in the dooryard bloom’d” is one of his great poems. It uses images of sight--the evening star--of sound,--the mournful thrush--and of smell--the lilacs--to memorialize the Western leader and mourn his passing.

The Poet at Home Whitman would allow no one to pick up his papers, saying that whatever he wanted surfaced sooner or later. Whitman died on 26 March 1892 at about 6:30 p.m. and is buried in the tomb that he had designed. The cause of death was mostly old age: Whitman’s lungs had collapsed, although he had suffered health problems for several years since his stroke in 1873. This was the man, who, as he says in Song of Myself, I too am not a bit tamed, I too am untranslatable. I sound my barbaric yawp over the roofs of the world. The song of myself begins with “I,” but it ends with “you.”

Credits Sources are given in the notes section of the slides except as noted in the notes below. Pictures are courtesy of the Walt Whitman Hypertext Archive at the University of Virginia: http://jefferson.village.virginia.edu/whitman/ Information has been derived from these sources: Allen, Gay Wilson. A reader's guide to Walt Whitman. (1970) Kreig, Joanne P. A Whitman Chronology. U of Iowa P, 1998. Loving, Jerome. Walt Whitman: The Song of Himself. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1999. ---. Whitman in his own time : a biographical chronicle of his life, drawn from recollections, memoirs, and interviews by friends and associates (1991). Reynolds, David. Walt Whitman: A Cultural Biography. New York: Knopf, 1995. Price, Kenneth, ed. Walt Whitman : the contemporary reviews. Cambridge U P, 1996. Zweig, Paul. Walt Whitman: The Making of the Poet. Basic Books, 1984. This presentation was originally created to accompany a lecture and is used my American literature classes. It is used for non-commercial, educational purposes only.