1. WALT WHITMAN 1819 - 1892

2. 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.

3. 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.

4. Most famous for Leaves of Grass. The first edition of Leaves of Grass was privately printed in 1855 – most famous: "Song of Myself." Literary style : Experimental - An epic-poem in free verse style, unrhymed, celebrates nature and humanity. Very unconventional. During the Civil War (1861-1865), Whitman moved to Washington, D.C., where he served as hospital attendant.

5. Published Drum Taps and Sequel to Drum Taps (1865- 66). The Sequel contains his famous elegies for Abraham Lincoln, - "O Captain! My Captain!" In 1873 he was paralyzed after a stroke and moved to Camden, New Jersey.

6. 328 Mickle Street, Camden In 1884, Whitman purchased a house at 328 Mickle Street, Camden, New Jersey, for $1750.00 It was the first house he has ever owned. Died: 26 March 1892.

7. 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

8. 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.”

9. 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

10. Reviews: Criticism In 1882, Boston district attorney Oliver Stevens, urged by the New England Society for the Suppression of Vice, wrote to Whitman's publisher, James R. Osgood: "We are of the opinion that this book is such a book as brings within it the provisions of the Public Statutes respecting obscene literature and suggest the propriety of withdrawing the same from circulation and suppressing the editions thereof."

11. Manuscript of “Song of Myself”. Here are Whitman's scribbled notes for the arrangement, size, and decoration of the 1855 Leaves of Grass.

12. Sources http://www.wsu.edu/~campbelld/powerpoint/whitmanpres. ppt#301,35,Credits http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leaves_of_Grass http://bailiwick.lib.uiowa.edu/whitman/