I celebrate myself, and sing myself, And what I assume you shall assume, For every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you. Prepared by Talpa Valeriya Evtikhova Tatyana, 7-th form, Tolbinskaya school

Born in Long Island to a carpenter on May 31, 1819, Walter Whitman was the second of nine children. His family wasn’t reach. Whitman began learning the printer’s trade at the age of twelve and read a lot. He admired the works of Homer, Dante and Shakespeare. In 1836 Whitman began teaching and in 1841 he turned towards journalism.

Among Whitman’s most famous works, is his poetry collection “Leaves of Grass”, which was also his first significant work as a poet. Whitman's collection of poems, Leaves of Grass, stands among the masterpieces of world literature and stands as a revolutionary development in poetry. Whitman is named the "Poet of Democracy" and "America's Shakespeare."

Whitman's expressive art was complex and multifaceted. Walt was a believer in democracy. He believed that American ideals might serve as an example to the world. Whitman was a man who loved life, knew how to have a good time, loved children and good company.

Whitman’s rhythms are also heavily influenced by the music he heard in the opera in New York City. These influences are combined with nature's influence in the form of the rise and fall of the sea that he loved so much. To him, nature is divine and an emblem of God. He loves the earth, the flora and fauna of the earth, the moon and stars, the sea, and all other elements of nature.

At the beginning of Civil War, working as a freelance journalist, Whitman visited and carried for wounded people, worked voluntarily in New York hospitals. After the Civil War, Whitman worked for government agencies. He watched the United States try to heal itself and increase democracy. Whitman believed democracy is meant to honor the rights of every person and the equality of all people.

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; The shoemaker singing as he sits on his bench, the hatter singing as he stands; The woodcutter'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; The day what belongs to the day—at night, the party of young fellows, robust, friendly, Singing, with open mouths, their strong melodious songs.

In Washington, Whitman led a financially tight and uncomfortable life. Living on a clerk’s salary, Whitman spent any extra on buying nursing supplies for patients he cared for at the hospitals in addition to sending some money to his widowed mother and an invalid brother. The new publication in 1882 provided Whitman with enough money to buy a home in Camden.

Walt Whitman was buried in a self- designed and self-built tomb in Hadleigh Cemetery after his death on March 26, 1892.

In the year 2009 the monument to the famous American poet Walt Whitman has been set up in the campus of the Lomonosov Moscow State University, near the First Humanities Building.