Historical Events in The Life of Walt Whitman
Walt Whitman experienced life, struggles and poetry which helped to shape him into the renowned author he was. In 1841, Walt had a growing interest in journalism and started a newspaper called “The Long-Islander”. Like his dad, Whitman jumped from different jobs.
Whitman’s career in newspaper began in 1846 when he was offered a position as an editor at the Brooklyn Daily Eagle. In only 4 years Whitman would have been employed by 7 different newspapers because of his domineering opinion. 2 years later, Whitman was offered a position as editor of The Crescent, in Louisiana. In New Orleans, Whitman saw firsthand how cruel slavery and slave trade was.
In the fall of 1848, Whitman returned to Brooklyn, New York as an aspiring poet. With the awful image of slavery still lingering, he turned to writing which helped him cope with what he saw. Between 1848 and 1855, Whitman worked on a book of poems called “Leaves of Grass” (“Walt Whitman”). In the spring of 1855, Whitman self-published the 12 poems named “Leaves of Grass” and this would open a new door to poetry that spoke to the reader directly. In the beginning, he could only afford to have 795 copies made. During the process of writing “Leaves of Grass”, Walter Whitman Sr. died (Folsum & Price).
His work was recognized by Richard Waldo Emerson who was quoted: “most extraordinary piece of wit and wisdom”. Whitman then released a 2nd edition with 33 poems. Emerson then reached out to his peers, Henry David Thoreau and Bronson Alcott asking them to meet with Whitman and critique his writing. A Boston publisher issued a 3rd edition but the process was severed by the early Civil War. In the time being, Whitman moved to D.C. when his brother G...
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...oul and body met. Whitman details about how the two spoke to each other and inviting to “loafe with me on the grass”. Whitman liked to refer to his poems as songs because he felt that it gave his work an audible quality for the readers to enjoy.
A catalog is a type of literary device used in epic poetry as a rhetoric naming or inventory. The use of a catalog is seen quite often throughout “Song of Myself”. The use of catalog is done so to show the variety of professions and people that Whitman meets on his journeys. His purpose is to show how he becomes a part of the people.
Whitman prided himself on his individuality and collectivity as well. His use of collective could also be a form of a catalog. This work is both individual self and democratic self. Which means he’s speaking for himself but also for the people who are voiceless or don’t express themselves.
Walt Whitman was born in 1819 to a family with seven siblings. He started work at a printing service when he was just a boy in order to help out his family financially. During his tenure in the printing industry, Whitman began to read and write. He fell in love with the art of writing and would eventually go into editing as a career. Whitman created a new style of poetry called free verse, and at the time American culture would reject this
Walt Whitman’s early life and childhood had an impact on his works of poetry later in his life. Walt Whitman was born on May 31, 1819, in West Hills, New York. His parents were Walter and Louisa Van Velsor Whitman. At the age of four, Whitman and his family moved to Brooklyn, living in a series of different houses due to bad investments by his parents. Whitman later viewed his childhood as sad and unhappy, because his family frequently moved and they were in a poor financial situation. Throughout most of his childhood, Whitman and his family were in constant financial duress. At the age of eleven, Whitman finished his formal education and started to look for a job. Whitman finished school at such a young age, so he could get a job
A literary catalog is considered a long list of events. One of the works that it is demonstrated in is “Song of Myself” by Walt Whitman. Whitman writes over 52 sections within his poem, which clearly he mastered the technique. He informs the reader that it is time to celebrate himself which then he transmits different episodes of his experiences. The main concern is that his poem is universal in America and can encourage self-reliance.
Reading the notice of his brother’s injury in the New York Herald, Whitman went immediately to Falmouth, Virginia, where he found his brother only slightly wounded. Perpetually short-handed, Army officials asked the poet to help transport injured soldiers to field hospitals in Washington. Whitman agreed, and began a mission of mercy that would occupy him from 1862 until the war’s end in 1865 (Murray). Drum Taps is the personal historical record of Whitman’s wartime occupation. Drum-Taps’ early poems were written prior to Whitman’s contact with wounded soldiers, and betray a starkly different attitude toward the war than one finds later in the sequence.
Whitman’s approach to poetry is a reflection of his thought. These thoughts are free and wild, and his typical run-on sentences and his endless litanies of people and places represent the thoughts trying to be conveyed. The overall effect of these run-on sentences provides the reader with a feeling of greatness and of freedom. All of the feelings that are evoked from Whitman’s style can be classified as quintessentially American democratic feelings. The belief that Whitman had no style would imply that Americans as a society have no style, a statement that not only Whitman but Emerson and Thoreau as well fought against through their writings. Whitman and Emerson fighting for the same cause is not coincidental, Whitman has often been viewed as the “child” of Emerson, his work being greatly influenced by Emerson. Whitman’s technique of looking at everything as a whole and always opposed to breaking up the whole can be linked to his belief of unity within our country and the reason why he took the Civil War extremely hard and personal.
Walt Whitman's "Song of Myself" is a vision of the American spirit, a vision of Whitman himself. It is his cry for democracy, giving each of us a voice through his poetry. Each of us has a voice and desires, and this is Whitman's representation of our voices, the voice of America. America, the great melting pot, was founded for freedom and democracy, and this poem is his way of re-instilling these lost American ideals. In this passage from "Song of Myself" Whitman speaks through his fellow man and speaks for his fellow man when his voice is not socially acceptable to be heard.
Walt Whitman was born to Louisa and Walter Whitman in Long Island, New York, May 31, 1819. He was the second son from a household of nine. He was named after his father who was a farmer and Carpenter. He was born just after the end of the American Revolution. When he was four, his family and he moved to Brooklyn where he went to school until the age of eleven. He left to help support the family and got a full-time job. Whitman looked back on his childhood as generally restless and unhappy, given his families difficult economic status.
Whitman establishes a direct connection between the lyrical and the reader to get to each one of us. The power that the poem has and having Whitman writing it, rests on the ability of the author to separate himself amongst thousands, almost as a wonderful schizophrenia which allows you to view the world from certain points of view and understand it better than anyone.
Walt Whitman will forever live in the minds of individuals as one of America’s greatest poets. People in America and all over the world continue to read and treasure his poetry. He was an original thinker, contributing new modern styles to poetry. He was unafraid of controversy and uninhibited by what others may think of him. He created his own path in poetry, as he describes himself in an anonymous review of his poetry: "But there exists no book or fragment of a book which can have given the hint to them" (Whitman). His poetry was not inspired or affected by those who wrote before him; according to him, his poetry came entirely from "beautiful blood and a beautiful brain" (Whitman). His emphasis on originality, paradoxically, displays how Emerson, a fellow nonconformist, influenced him by stressing the importance of originality and the ability to think without being aided by other people’s words of wisdom. However, while Emerson influenced Whitman, Whitman also affected Emerson’s thoughts, as the two were friends who respected each other’s minds. Another member of this group of nonconformist friends is Thoreau, a fellow transcendentalist (Baym 2078).
“But what merit is to repeat the old tricks, and hum the old tune? If man has the ability to make us feel the fitness, the necessity, the beauty of common things, he is a poet of the highest type.” This quote by George Santayana cited in the Whitman Archive perfectly defines the American poet Walt Whitman. One could say this 19th century craftsman, Walt Whitman, was the perfect poet for this young nation. He constructed a poetry with a less formal structure, utilized language of the common man, celebrated individualism, acknowledged cultural differences, was not bound by the past, was energized by the American move westward and its flourishing democracy, and was moved by the struggles and journeys of its ordinary citizens. His poetry was not
*Whitman, Walt. Song of Myself. The Heath Anthology of American Literature. 3rd ed. Ed, Paul Lauter. Boston,NewYork: Houghton Mifflin, 1998.
The poem has set a certain theme and tone but no definite rhyme. In this poem, the poet explores into a thought of the self, the all-encompassing "I," sexuality, democracy, the human body, and what it means to live in the modern world. He addresses that the human body is sacred and every individual human is divine. Hence, Whitman was known for writing poems about individualism, democracy, nature, and war.
Walt Whitman is considered the foremost poet of American democracy of his time. Not only did he fully embrace it, but he believed that American democracy was more than a political system, but a way of life (Casale 48). Many of his personal experiences influenced his deep democratic point of view (48). As a volunteer at an army hospital during the American Civil War, he saw many die and became increasingly grateful for the opportunities provided by the American government (Mirsky). Later, as he was residing in New York City, Whitman witnessed America face urbanization. He loved the diversity of the cities and believed it was possible because of democracy (Brand). This adoration of democracy is apparent in many of Whitman’s works, such as “Drum-Taps”
Walt Whitman is arguably America’s most influential poet in history. Born Walter Whitman in May 31st, 1819 to Walter Whitman and Louisa van Velsor, he was immediately nicknamed ‘Walt’ to distinguish him from his father. He came to life in West Hills on the famous Long Island, the second of nine children that grew up in Brooklyn. He came to be fondly known as ‘the Bard of Democracy’, mainly because that was a main message in his work. He is also celebrated as ‘the father of the free verse’. He was a liberal thinker and was vehemently against slavery, although later on he was against the abolitionists because, according to him, they were anti-democracy. He managed to marry transcendentalism with realism in his works. His occupation was a printer school teacher and editor.
Although Whitman uses a great deal of structural ways to stress his ideas, he also uses many other ways of delivering his ideas. First of all, Whitman portrays himself as a public spokesman of the masses. The tone of the poem is a very loud, informative tone that grabs ones attention. The emphasis placed on the word “all” adds to the characterization of Whitman as a powerful speaker. Furthermore, Whitman takes part in his own poem. Participating in his own poem, Whitman moreover illustrates the connection between everything in life. Lastly, Whitman, most of all, celebrates universal brotherhood and democracy.