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 American
poet, journalist and essayist, best known for LEAVES OF GRASS (1855),
(which was occasionally banned), and the poems 'I Sing the Body
Electric' and 'Song of Myself.' Whitman incorporated natural speech
rhythms into poetry to a previously unknown extent. In his poems,
the line is the rhythmical unit, meter is disregarded, but the overall
effect has a melodic character.
"Swiftly arose and spread around me the peace and joy and
knowledge that pass all the art and argument
of the earth;
And I know that the hand of God is the elder hand of my own,
And I know that the spirit of God is the eldest brother of my
own,
And that all men ever born are also my brothers... and the
women my sisters and lovers."
(from 'Song of Myself')
Whitman was born in Long Island, New York, the son of a Quaker
carpenter. Whitman's mother was descended from Dutch farmers. In
Whitman's childhood there were slaves employed upon the farm. Whitman
was filled with a love of nature at an early age. He read classics
in his youth and was inspired by such writers as Goethe, Hegel,
Carlyle and Emerson. However, Whitman left school early to become
a printer's apprentice, and worked as a teacher and journeyman printer
in 1835. He held a great variety of jobs while writing and editing
for several periodicals including, The Brooklyn Eagle from
1846 to 1848 and The Brooklyn Times from 1857 to 1858. In
between he spent three months on a New Orleans paper, working for
his father, and earning his living from undistinguished hackwork.
In New York Whitman witnessed the rapid growth of the city and
wanted to write a new kind of poetry that could express the hopes
of people who had arrived from all over the world to make a better
life. The first edition of Leaves of Grass appeared in July
1855 at Whitman's own expense - he had set the type for it himself.
The third edition was published during Whitman's Bohemian years
in 1860. It was greeted with warm appreciation by, among others
Ralph Waldo Emerson, but did not find popular success. When Whitman
wrote the first edition, he knew little or nothing about Indian
philosophy, but later critics have recognized Indian themes expressed
in the poems - words from the Sanskrit are used correctly in some
of the poems written after 1858. Leaves of Grass also includes
a group of poems entitled 'Calamus', which has been taken as a reflection
of the poet's homosexuality, although according to Whitman they
in fact celebrate the 'beautiful and sane affection of man for man'.
 During
the Civil War Whitman worked as a clerk in Washington. When his
brother was wounded at Fredericksburg, Whitman went to care for
him and also for other Union and Confederate soldiers. The Civil
War had its effect on Whitman, which is shown in his prose MEMORANDA
DURING THE WAR (1875) and in the poems published under the title
of DRUM-TAPS in 1865. In SEQUEL TO DRUM.TAPS (1865-66) contains
the great elegy to President Abraham Lincoln, 'When Lilacs Last
in the Dooryard Bloom'd'. Another famous poem published about the
death of Lincoln is 'O Captain! My Captain!'
"Exult O shores, and ring O bells!
But I with mournful tread,
Walk the deck my Captain lies,
Fallen cold and dead."
(from 'O Captain, My Captain')
On the basis of his services Whitman was given a clerkship in the
Department of the Interior. He transferred to the attorney general's
office, when his chief labelled Leaves of Grass as an indecent
book. "I wear my hat as I please indoors or out. I find no sweeter
fat than sticks to my own bones. I am the man, I suffered, I was
there. Do I contradict myself? Very well then I contradict myself.
Passage to India. I sound my barbaric yawp over the roofs of the
world. A woman waits for me. When I give I give myself. The long
brown path before me leading wherever I choose. The never-ending
audacity of elected persons. Pioneers! O Pioneers!" In England
Whitman's work was better received - among his admirers were Alfred
Tennyson and Dante Gabriel Rossetti. An attack of paralysis in 1873
forced Whitman to give up his work. At the age of sixty-four, he
settled in a little house on Mickle Street in Camden, New Jersey,
where spent almost the rest of his life. He was taken care of by
a widow he had befriended. His reputation as a poet, which was shadowed
by his outspokenness on sexual matters, began to increase after
recognition in England by Swinburne, Mrs Gilchrist, and E. Carpenter.
A newly augmented edition of Leaves of Grass was published
in 1881. The following year Whitman published SPECIMEN DAYS AND
COLLECT, and in 1888 appeared a collection of his newspaper pieces,
NOVEMBER BOUGHS. His final volume was the 'Deathbed' edition of
Leaves of Grass, which he prepared in 1891-92. It concludes
with the prose piece 'A Backward Glance O'er Travel'd Roads', in
which he attempts to explain his life and work. Whitman died on
March 26, 1892, in Camden.
Whitman's wavelike verse and his fresh use of language helped to
liberate American poetry. He wanted to be a national bard, his prophetic
note echoes the Bible, but his erotic candour separates him from
conventionally romantic poets.
 LEAVES
OF GRASS: First presented as a group of 12 poems, followed
by five revised and three reissued editions during the author's
lifetime. Whitman maintained that a poet's style should be simple
and natural, without orthodox meter or rhyme. The poems were written
to be spoken, but have great variety in rhythm and tonal volume.
The central theme arises from Whitman's pantheistic view of life,
from symbolic identification of regeneration in nature. - Whitman's
use of free verse had a deep influence on poetry. He was a great
inspiring example for the beat-generation (Ginsberg, Kerouac etc.)
.In the introduction of the work Whitman wrote: "The art of
art, the glory of expression and the sunshine of the light of
letters is simplicity. Nothing is better than simplicity... nothing
can make up for excess or for the lack of definiteness. To carry
on the heave of impulse and pierce intellectual depths and give
all subjects their articulations are powers neither common nor
very uncommon. But the speak in literature with the perfect rectitude
and insouciance of the movements of animals and the unimpeachable
ness of the sentiment of threes in the woods and grass by the
roadside in the flawless triumph of art."
For further reading: Reader's Guide by G.W. Allen (1970);
Critical Essays on Walt Whitman, ed. by J. Woodress (1983); Language
and Style by C.C.Hollis (1983); Walt Whitman by James E. Miller
Jr., Helen Regenstein (1990); From Noon to Starry Night: A Life
of Walt Whitman by Philip Callow (1992); Masculine Landscapes
by Byrne R.S. Fone (1992); The Growth of Leaves of Grass by M.
Jimmie Killingsworth (1993); Walt Whitman; The Centennial Essays,
ed. by Ed Folsom (1994); The Cambridge Companion to Walt Whitman,
ed. by Ezra Greenspan (1995); Walt Whitman by Catherine Reef (1995);
Walt Whitman & the World, ed. by Gay Wilson Allen, Ed Folsom (1995);
Walt Whitman: A Gay Life by Gary Schmidgall (1997); Walt Whitman:
An Encyclopaedia, ed. by J.R. Lemaster, Donald D. Kummings (1998);
Walt Whitman: A Comprehensive Research and Study Guide, ed. by
Harold Bloom (1999); A Historical Guide to Walt Whitman, ed. by
David S. Reynolds (1999); Walt Whitman, ed. by Jim Perlman (1999);
Walt Whitman by Jerome Loving (1999) - other studies among others
by J. Kaplan (1980); H. Aspiz (1980); W.H. Eitner (1981); P. Zweig
(1984); D. Cavitch (1985); M.W. Thomas (1987) - Museums:
Walt Whitman's birthplace, 246 Old Whitman Road, Huntington Station,
Suffolk - Note: Edgar Lee Masters, who wrote Spoon River
Anthology, published a biography of Walt Whitmanin in 1937.
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