WALT WHITMAN

WALT WHITMAN

Walt Whitman (May 31, 1819 – March 26, 1892) was

an American poet and humanist born on Long Island,

New York. His most famous work is the collection

of poetry, Leaves of Grass.

Whitman was born in a white farmhouse near

present-day South Huntington, New York, on Long

Island, New York, in 1819, the second of nine

children. In 1823, the Whitman family moved to

Brooklyn. Whitman attended school for only six

years before starting work as a printer\'s

apprentice. He was almost entirely self-educated,

reading especially the works of Homer, Dante, and

Shakespeare.

After a two year apprenticeship, Whitman moved to

New York City and began work in various print

shops. In 1835, he returned to Long Island as a

country school teacher. Whitman also founded and

edited a newspaper, the Long-Islander, in his

hometown of Huntington in 1838 and 1839. Whitman

continued teaching in Long Island until 1841, when

he moved back to New York City to work as a

printer and journalist. 

 Between 1841 and 1859, Walt Whitman edited

one newspaper in New Orleans (the Crescent), two

in New York, and four newspapers in Long Island.

While in New Orleans, Whitman witnessed the slave

auctions that were a regular feature of the city

at that time. At this point, Whitman began writing

poetry, which took precedence over other

activities.

The 1840s saw the first fruits of Whitman's long

labor of words, with a number of short stories

published, The Child's

Champion," dating from 1842, is now recognized to

be the most important of these early works. It

established the theological foundation for

Whitman's lifelong theme of the profoundly

redemptive power of manly love.

The first edition of Leaves of Grass was

self-published at Whitman's expense in 1855, the

same year Whitman's father passed away. At this

point, the collection consisted of 12 long,

untitled poems. 

By the 1881 seventh edition, the collection of

poetry was quite large. By this time Whitman was

enjoying wider recognition and the edition sold a

large number of copies, allowing Whitman to

purchase a home in Camden, New Jersey.

Whitman died on March 26, 1892, and was buried in

Camden's Harleigh Cemetery, in a simple tomb of

his own design.

For many, Walt Whitman stand

as agiant of 19th century American poetry.

Whitman's poetry seems more quintessentially

American; the poet exposed common America and

spoke with a distinctly American voice, stemming

from a distinct American consciousness. The power

of Whitman's poetry seems to come from the

spontaneous sharing of high emotion he presented.

American poets in the 20th century (and now, the

21st) must come to terms with Whitman's voice,

insofar as it essentially defined democratic

America in poetic language. Whitman utilized

creative repetition to produce a hypnotic quality

that creates the force in his poetry, inspiring as

it informs. Thus, his poetry is best read aloud to

experience the full message. 

Furthermore, Whitman is one of the few American

writers whose influence reaches far beyond his

native homeland -- he is especially influential in

Latin America and the Hispanic World.

Whitman's poetry expressed the human energy of

the bustling cities of New York and Brooklyn in

the 19th century. His Crossing Brooklyn Ferry was

written before the building of the Brooklyn Bridge

in 1883.

Whitman's break with the past made his poetry a

model for the French symbolists (who in turn

influenced the surrealists) and "modern" poets

such as Pound, Eliot, and Auden. The flavor of

this power is exhibited in these lines from

Crossing Brooklyn Ferry in Leaves of Grass (1855),

his most famous work:

    I too lived, Brooklyn of ample hills was mine,

    I too walked the streets of Manhattan island,

and bathed in the waters around it 

    I too felt the curious abrupt questionings

stir within me, 

    In the day, among crowds of people, sometimes

they came upon me, 

    In my walks home late at night, or as I lay in

my bed, they came upon me, 

    I too had been struck from the float forever

held in solution, 

    I too had received identity by my body, 

    That I was, I knew was of my body - and what I

should be, I knew I should be of my body.