Walt Whitman 1819 1892 Biographical Born May 31

Walt Whitman 1819 -1892

Biographical Born May 31, 1819 in West Hill, Long Island Died March 26, 1892, in Camden, NJ Transcendentalism-Realism Transitionalist Believed in a symbiotic relationship between the poet and society Deist, religious skeptic Gay or bisexual; partner, Peter Doyle (Calamus; Live Oak and Moss)

Transcendental attitudes body-consciousness frank and open acceptance of physicality and nudity; sex and sexuality (including bisexuality and homosexuality); spiritual communion depends on physical contact or closeness.

Civil War Politics: Opposed slavery Civil War diminished Whitman’s faith in democratic sympathy. Served as a soldier’s missionary and volunteer nurse to wounded soldiers Was in love with Abraham Lincoln “Captain, My Captain!” Drew inspiration for his Civil War poems: Memories of President Lincoln (“When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom’d”) Drum-Taps (“The Wound-Dresser”) Song of the Open Road

O Captain! My Captain! our fearful trip is done; The ship has weather'd every rack, the prize we sought is won; The port is near, the bells I hear, the people all exulting, While follow eyes the steady keel, the vessel grim and daring: But O heart! O the bleeding drops of red, Where on the deck my Captain lies, Fallen cold and dead. O Captain! My Captain! rise up and hear the bells; Rise up—for you the flag is flung—for you the bugle trills; For you bouquets and ribbon'd wreaths—for you the shores a-crowding; For you they call, the swaying mass, their eager faces turning; Here captain! dear father! This arm beneath your head; It is some dream that on the deck, You've fallen cold and dead. 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; Exult, O shores, and ring, O bells! But I, with mournful tread, Walk the deck my captain lies, Fallen cold and dead. 1865

Poetical techniques: the catalog (lists) are a unit of expression; determining the line Concrete details and naming of experience and things (empiricism, phenomenology, epistemology) perception is favored over analysis: a panoramic vision of experience, instead of an introspective one Realism: an ideology of objective reality rather than the hyperbolic emotionalism of the Romantics; symbolic language and metaphors eschewed in favor of concrete detail, and image-driven description. anecdotes, a frequent narrative device gerunds and participles, instead of active verbs, to delay the end of the sentence

Leaves of Grass First edition, 1855 Between six and ten editions in all Developed from a small book of 12 poems to a collection of more than 400 poems Title was a joke: "Grass" is a term publishers given to works of minor value; "leaves" is another word for “pages. ”