All around American history, Different poets have been said to have "changed American society". However, a standout amongst the persuasive poets of the nineteenth century might have been Walt Whitman, writer of the celebrated book of poetry, "Leaves for Grass". Whitman made new limits in the poetry world by displaying every inch of his mind in his works. Whitman modernized the way Americans wrote poetry by covering controversial topics, continuing to write even though others were harshly criticizing his poems, and encouraged American people not to be ashamed of who they are and what they have to offer the world.
Born in Huntington on Long Island on May 31, 1819 to parents with involvement in Quaker thought. Walt Whitman was the second of nine
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surviving children and was given the soubriquet Walt very early on, mostly to distinguish him from his father. At the age of eleven, Whitman's father removed him from formal evening gown schooling. He jumped right into employment to help support his family, workings for two years as an office boy, son, then as an apprentice and printer's devil for the Long Island newspaper. It was there that he learned about the printing press and typesetting. It has been said that he may have even written some small filler material fabric for the paper. In spite of the fact that it is indistinct who Whitman's fundamental impacts were, it is said that Ralph Waldo Emerson had an extensive effect on Whitman's verse.
Emerson proclaimed the first version of "Leaves of Grass" as "... the most exceptional bit of mind and knowledge that America has yet contributed..." Poets were not so much appreciated in the 19th century, and Whitman was particularly put down for his sexuality and the measure of dubious material he included into his lyrics. Regardless of people groups' unforgiving judgments, nonetheless, his lyrics were still broadly well known. Directly after "Leaves of Grass" was distributed, it began a social mayhem. Whitman was let go from his employment due to his book's references to his androgyny. He was scowled upon for a considerable length of time, yet kept on composing and revamp his sonnets until he passed on. Whitman will dependably be viewed as one of the best writers in light of the fact that he was one of the first to put such disputable material into his written work for the viewing pleasure of anyone passing by. Writers now are sans given scope of what they need to compose, and generally groups of onlookers will tune …show more content…
in. Whitman lived amid the season of the American Civil War, which occurred from 1861 -1865.
The war was exceptionally individual to him; his sibling enrolled and was injured. Whitman worked for quite a while at an armed force healing facility and watched out for the harmed. While he was near to the war, he declined to specify it in his lyrics. He did compose a short grieving lyric, then again, entitled, "O Captain! My Captain!" after President Abraham Lincoln's death. This is a passage from the lyric's third stanza:
My Captain does not answer, his lips are pale and still;
My father does not feel my arm, he has no pulse nor will;
The ship is anchor'd safe and sound, its voyage closed and done;
From fearful trip, the victor ship, comes in with object
won. Whitman's first novel, titled "Franklin Evans; or the Inebriate" was discharged in 1842. It got to be financially prevalent, despite the fact that Whitman himself depicted it as a "decay". The principal version of "Leaves of Grass" was distributed on May 12, 1855. Individuals were stunned and in amazement at the twelve ballads' crude and interesting style, and Whitman made a vocation out of changing the book six times amid his life. He was terminated from his occupation at the Interior not long after "Leaves of Grass" was distributed. His manager had perused the ballads and was horrified at Whitman's obtuse utilization of "obscene and revolting" words, and was similarly appalled that Whitman was cross-sexual. Whitman and his companion, William D. O'Connell, compose "The Good Gray Poet" soon after, shielding Whitman against the brutal chief of the Interior. In spite of the fact that he might never be as popular as other American artists, Walt Whitman is without a doubt a standout amongst the most compelling. He modernized the way Americans composed verse by covering questionable subjects, keeping on composing despite the fact that other were scrutinizing his lyrics, and urging American individuals not to be embarrassed about who they are and what they bring to the table the world. He will dependably be one of the best artists that America has ever had for his mettle and ability; in spite of the individuals who pushed him down, he stood tall and continued advancing.
Both Whitman and Twain watched as America became consumed by war. Whitman actually spent time in Washington D.C with his brother who had been wounded during the struggle, and this showed him the true face of war and the pain that it brings. The turmoil of the war and all of the issues that caused it are what shaped the writing styles of both authors, yet both authors have different perspectives on America as a whole. For Whitman, America is a place of fellowship. He sympathizes with comradery and truly believes that all are created equally. In the beginning of Song of Myself Whitman says, “For every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you”. This is Whitman establishing the idea of comradery, which is what he believed to be the center of American culture. Twain’s views on America and those who inhabit it are rather twisted when compared to Whitman. Twain would go out of his way to criticize what he felt was wrong. For example, in The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn Twain criticized the embodiment of slavery (which was a massive social issue after the end of the war). He chose to set this story before the conflict in order to play around with his ideas about racism. He uses the character Jim (who is a runaway slave) as a platform for the discussion on racial controversy. Jim is constantly being hunted and ridiculed thought the book and for while Huck seems to agree with the racist ideals of the surrounding world, and only
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.
Thesis: People who read about Walter Whitman tend to say that he had a good life until his mother passed and his book Leaves of Grass is a book about his life and what he went through. Introduction: Walt Whitman was an American poet from West Hills, Long Island, New York. He wrote plenty of poems for the New York Times Journal newspaper, also known for the famous book Leaves of Grass, which had nine editions and is more than one book. The book Leaves of Grass was published in 1888 when he was finally done with all nine editions and he had passed after publishing the ninth edition.
In Walt Whitman’s poem Oh Captain! My Captain! He talks about the death of America’s commander and chief, Abraham Lincoln. Whitman published this poem in his book of poems about the civil war causing him to become one of a handful of people to be the only ones who did not participate in the war, but wrote about it. In fact, Whitman uses various metaphors to tell of the death of Abraham Lincoln to the common people of the Union.
Throughout the span of this semester, much of the literature discussed revolved around the so-called renaissance of American literature and its impact upon both the nation and its people. Of all the authors studied in this time period, Walt Whitman may well be known as the quintessential American author. Famous for breaking every rule known to poetry in the inimitable compilation, Song of Myself, Whitman provided a fresh and insightful commentary upon the dualistic nature of society, love, and life itself. Through defining these essential aspects of humanity, Whitman indeed composed one of the most accurate and enduring definitions of the individual self that literature, American or otherwise, has ever seen. Specifically, this was done through
Whitman was drawn to the nations capital roughly a year after the Civil War began, at the age of forty-three. The wounding of his brother, George Washington Whitman, who served in the Union Army, precipitated his contact with the carnage of the war. Reading the notice of his brother’s injury in the New York Herald, Whitman went immediately to Falmouth, Virginia, where he found his brotherly 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).
Very few people will contest that Walt Whitman may be one of the most important and influential writers in American literary history and conceivably the single most influential poet. However many have claimed that Whitman’s writing is so free form as evident in his 1855 Preface to Leaves of Grass and Song of Myself that it has no style. The poetic structures he employs are unconventional but reflect his very democratic ideals towards America. Although Whitman’s writing does not include a structure that can be easily outlined, masterfully his writing conforms itself to no style, other then its own universal and unrestricted technique. Even though Whitman’s work does not lend itself to the conventional form of poetry in the way his contemporaries such as Longfellow and Whittier do, it holds a deliberate structure, despite its sprawling style of free association.
Whether they have loved or loathed his poetry, each writer or critic who has encountered "Leaves of Grass" has had to come to some sort of reckoning with Walt Whitman. The Good Gray Poet, the grandfather of American poetry, has been deified by some and labeled a cultural and artistic barbarian by others. While Whitman freely admitted in his preface to the final publication of "Leaves of Grass" that the work was faulty and far from perfect, some critics see no redeeming qualities in Whitman's art. Henry James goes so far as to say, "Whitman's verse...is an offense to art." (James, p.16) James chastises Whitman for extolling and exploiting what James feels are truisms. To James, Whitman's poetry is completely self-aggrandizing; it lacks substance and coherence. Through an examination of a specific poem, "The Wound Dresser", the claims of James and other negative critics can be refuted.
Walt Whitman’s hard childhood influenced his work greatly, he was an uneducated man but he managed to become one of the most known poets. Whitman changed poetry through his work and is now often called the father of free verse. Especially through Leaves of Grass he expressed his feelings and sexuality to world and was proud of it. He had a different view at life, his hard childhood, and his sexuality that almost no one understood made him introduce a new universal theme to the world. Almost all critics agree that Walt Whitman was one of the most influential and innovative poet. Karl Shapiro says it best, “The movement of his verses is the sweeping movement of great currents of living people with general government and state”.
Walt Whitman was born May 31, 1819 on Long Island. As a child he loved to read Sir Walter Scott (Baym 2076). As an adult he took a major interest in the Democratic party, and "began a political career by speaking at Democratic rallies" (2077). However, he is not remembered for his political action; Americans remember Whitman for his amazing poetry. He was one of the first American poets to write his poetry "without rhyme, in rolling, rhapsodic, metrical, or semi-metrical prose-verse of very irregular lengths" (Rossetti), as one of his contemporary critics noted. This new style was not the only way Whitman broke from the way the traditional poets wrote. As Rossetti described, "He not unfrequently alludes to gross things and in gross words—the clearest, the bluntest, and nearly the least civilly repeatable words which can come uppermost to the lips." Whitman’s refusal to shy away from taboo subjects disgusted and offended many of the people of his day, but Whitman possessed "determination not to yield to censorship or to apologize for his earlier poems" (Baym 2079).
The homosexual themes displayed in Walt Whitman’s works, especially in his most famous collection of poems Leaves of Grass, raise the question of his own sexuality. Many of his poems depicted affection and sexuality in a simple, personal manner, causing nineteenth century Americans to view them as pornographic and obscene. Based on this poetry, Whitman is usually assumed to be homosexual, or at least bisexual. However, this assumption does not account for major influences of his writing such as the shift from transcendentalism to realism and the American Civil War. After considering these factors, it can be concluded that Whitman’s poems were not intended to set apart a few homosexual men, but to bring all men and women together. Walt Whitman’s poems of spiritual love and physical togetherness of both genders emphasized exalted friendships and are indicative of his omnisexuality, or lack of a complete sexual preference, rather than his alleged homosexuality.
He crossed the boundaries of the poetry literature and gave a poetry worth of our democracy that contributed to an immense variety of people, nationalities, races. Whitman’s self-published Leaves of Grass was inspired in part by his travels through the American frontier and by his admiration for Ralph Waldo Emerson (Poetry Foundation). He always believed in everyone being treated equally and bringing an end to slavery and racism. Through his poetry, Whitman tried to bring every people in America together by showing them what happiness, love, unison, and real knowledge looked. His poetry and its revolution changed the world of American literature
One of the most popular American poets is Walt Whitman. Whitman’s poetry has become a rallying cry for Americans, asking for individuality, self-approval, and even equality. While this poetry seems to be truly groundbreaking, which it objectively was, Whitman was influenced by the writings of others. While Whitman may not have believed in this connection to previous authors, critics have linked him to Emerson, Poe, and even Carlyle. However, many critics have ignored the connection between Walt Whitman and the English writer William Wordsworth.
His greatest work was ‘leaves of grass’, which is a collection of poems which he first self-published at the age of 37 in the year 1855. It was a free-verse that was loosely inspired by the Bible. It was at first criticized in his country for its ‘raw sexuality’ but was widely acclaimed elsewhere in Britain by prominent writers. It was an attempt by Whitman to get through to the ordinary American people by giving them their very own ‘epic’. He went on changing and adding material to this work until his death in the year 1892 in Camden, New Jersey. The poem ‘America’ is one of the late additions to the collection, written in 1888.
In Walt Whitman’s, “One Song, America, Before I Go”, the soldier who is speaking acknowledges the danger in the war he is to fight. The soldier is content with facing the dangers though, bearing the characteristics of a patriot, and believing that his sacrifice will ensure a better America for future generations. With the soldiers