Walt Whitman I hear America singing…

Question? What will your verse be?

“I celebrate myself…” Walt Whitman was born May 31, 1819 on South Huntington, Long Island, New York. He was almost entirely self- educated, especially admiring the work of Dante, Shakespeare, and Homer. His mother described him as “very good, but very strange.” His brother described him as being “stubborner [sic] than a load of bricks.”

Career Apprenticed to a printer. Taught school at 17. Editor of The Brooklyn Eagle, a respected newspaper, but was fired for his outspoken opposition to slavery. Civil War nurse.

Whitman’s Poetry Whitman declared his poetry would have: Long lines that capture the rhythms of natural speech. Free verse. Vocabulary drawn from everyday speech. A base in reality, not morality.

Leaves of Grass The first version of his masterpiece, Leaves of Grass, appeared in Emerson praised Whitman’s poetry as “the most extraordinary piece of wit and wisdom that America has yet to contribute.” Whitman used these words, written by Emerson in a letter to Whitman, in a later introduction to Leaves of Grass. Emerson was not amused. John Greenleaf Whittier threw his copy of the book into the fireplace. Another critic dismissed it as “just a barbaric yawp.” Longfellow, Holmes, and Lowell were equally unimpressed. Even Thoreau was appalled by Whitman’s poetry, and he was certainly no conformist!

What’s his deal? Why were so many writers shocked by Whitman? His lack of regular rhyme and meter (free verse) and nontraditional poetic style and subject matter shocked more traditional writers. He also wrote poetry with unabashedly sexual imagery and themes, some of them homoerotic. Examples include the Calamus poems and “I Sing the Body Electric.”

O Captain! My Captain! Whitman wrote poetry in praise of Abraham Lincoln “When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom’d” (an elegy written after Lincoln’s assassination). “O Captain! My Captain!” memorializes Lincoln’s passing as the death of a great man and the death of the era he dominated. It was used to great effect in Dead Poets’ Society.

Whitman’s Influence Along with Emily Dickinson, Walt Whitman stands as one of two giants of American poetry in the nineteenth century. Whitman’s poetry would influence such Harlem Renaissance writers as Langston Hughes and James Weldon Johnson. Whitman influenced Beat poets such as Allen Ginsburg. Chilean writer Pablo Neruda claimed to have been influenced by Whitman. Whitman’s poetry was a model for French symbolists, such as Stéphane Mallarmé, Paul Verlaine, and Arthur Rimbaud. Modernist poets such as Ezra Pound, T.S. Eliot, and W.H. Auden were also influenced by Whitman.

“Out of the Cradle, endlessly rocking…” Whitman died on March 26, 1892, one year after the final edition of Leaves of Grass was published. His autopsy revealed his cause of death as emphysema.

The Least You Need to Know Whitman created new poetic forms and subjects to fashion a distinctly American type of poetic expression. He rejected conventional themes, traditional literary references, allusions, and rhyme—all the accepted forms of poetry in the 19 th century. He uses long lines to capture the rhythms of natural speech, free verse, and vocabulary drawn from everyday speech.

O Captain! My Captain!

O Captain! My Captain! -WaltWhitman O CAPTAIN! my Captain! our fearful trip is done; The ship has weather'd every rack, the prize we sought is won; The port is near, the bells I hear, the people all exulting, While follow eyes the steady keel, the vessel grim and daring: But O heart! heart! heart! O the bleeding drops of red, Where on the deck my Captain lies, Fallen cold and dead. O Captain! my Captain! rise up and hear the bells; Rise up--for you the flag is flung--for you the bugle trills; For you bouquets and ribbon'd wreaths- -for you the shores a-crowding; For you they call, the swaying mass, their eager faces turning; It is some dream that on the deck, You've fallen cold and dead. My Captain does not answer, his lips are pale and still; My father does not feel my arm, he has no pulse nor will; The ship is anchor'd safe and sound, its voyage closed and done; From fearful trip, the victor ship, comes in with object won; Exult, O shores, and ring, O bells! But I, with mournful tread, Walk the deck my Captain lies, Fallen cold and dead. Here Captain! dear father! This arm beneath your head;

Think About It… Explain how you think the speaker of this poem feels to have lost his Captain. Why does he feel this way? How do you know? What is the “fearful trip”? “The prize we sought is won” is in reference to ________________? What is the ship referenced in “The ship is anchor’d safe and sound,” “The ship has weather’d every rack,” and “From the fearful trip the victor ship comes in with object won?”

Song of Myself I CELEBRATE myself, and sing myself, And what I assume you shall assume, For every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you. I loafe and invite my soul, I lean and loafe at my ease observing a spear of summer grass… I too am not a bit tamed, I too am untranslatable, I sound my barbaric yawp over the roofs of the world….

O Me! O Life! O ME! O life! of the questions of these recurring, Of the endless trains of the faithless, of cities fill'd with the foolish, Of myself forever reproaching myself, (for who more foolish than I, and who more faithless?) Of eyes that vainly crave the light, of the objects mean, of the struggle ever renew'd, Of the poor results of all, of the plodding and sordid crowds I see around me, Of the empty and useless years of the rest, with the rest me intertwined, The question, O me! so sad, recurring-What good amid these, O me, O life? Answer. That you are here-that life exists and identity, That the powerful play goes on, and you may contribute a verse.

Think About It… Explain how you think the speaker of this poem feels about life itself. What is the struggle being described in this poem? Do you view this poem as a Carpe Diem work? Why or why not? How would you describe the Answer?

I Hear America Singing

I hear America singing, the varied carols I hear, Those of mechanics, each one singing his as it should be blithe and strong, The carpenter singing his as he measures his plank or beam, The mason singing his as he makes ready for work, or leaves off work, The boatman singing what belongs to him in his boat, the deck-hand singing on the steamboat deck,

I Hear America Singing The shoemaker singing as he sits on his bench, the hatter singing as he stands, The wood-cutter’s song, the ploughboy’s on his way in the morning, or at noon intermission or at sundown, The delicious singing of the mother, or of the young wife at work, or of the girl sewing or washing, Each singing what belongs to him or her and to none else,

I Hear America Singing The day what belongs to the day—at night the party of young fellows, robust, friendly, Singing with open mouths their strong melodious songs. -Walt Whitman

Think about it… What do the laboring people have in common with the music? Why are the songs they sing so joyous? How are the laborers unique, and in what way are their songs shared ? Are they deserving of respect?