Walt Whitman America’s Poet

Birth and Childhood Walt Whitman was born May 31, 1819 on South Huntington, Long Island, New York. He was almost entirely self- education, 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.”

Early 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 was 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.”

Influences: Literature and Music Italian opera: “Were it not for the opera, I could never have written Leaves of Grass.” Shakespeare, especially Richard III. Whitman saw Junius Brutus Booth (father of John Wilkes Booth) perform. The Bible Thomas Carlyle’s Sartor Resartus

Emerson Emerson helped Whitman to “find himself”: “I was simmering, simmering; Emerson brought me to a boil.”

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

Reviews: Praise Ralph Waldo Emerson, letter to Whitman, 21 July 1855: “I find [Leaves of Grass] the most extraordinary piece of wit & wisdom that America has yet contributed.... I greet you at the beginning of a great career, which yet must have had a long foreground somewhere, for such a start.”

Reviews: Praise I am not unaware that the charge of coarseness and sensuality has been affixed to them. My moral constitution may be hopelessly tainted or - too sound to be tainted, as the critic wills, but I confess that I extract no poison from these Leaves - to me they have brought only healing. --Fanny Fern, critic and popular essayist

Reviews and Protests “Foul work" filled with"libidinousness" (The Christian Examiner) There are too many persons, who imagine they demonstrate their superiority to their fellows, by disregarding all the politenesses and decencies of life, and, therefore,justify themselves in indulging the vilest imaginings and shamefullest license. (Rufus Griswold, The Criterion)

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.

One Wounded Soldier’s View “Every Sunday there were half a dozen old roosters who would come into my ward and preach and pray and sing to us, while we were swearing to ourselves all the time, and wishing the blamed old fools would go away. Walt Whitman’s funny stories, and his pipes and tobaccos, were worth more than all the preachers and tracts in Christendom.”

“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.