Walt Whitman I hear America singing I celebrate

Walt Whitman I hear America singing…

“I celebrate myself…” § Walt Whitman was born May 31, 1819 on South Huntington, Long Island, New York. § He was almost entirely self-education, especially admiring the work of Dante, Shakespeare, and Homer. § His mother described him as “very good, but very strange. ” § His brother described him as being “stubborner [sic] than a load of bricks. ”

Career § § § Apprenticed to a printer. Taught school at 17. Editor of The Brooklyn Eagle, a respected newspaper, but was fired for his outspoken opposition to slavery. § Civil War nurse.

Whitman’s Poetry Whitman declared his poetry would have: § Long lines that capture the rhythms of natural speech. § Free verse. § Vocabulary drawn from everyday speech. § A base in reality, not morality.

Leaves of Grass § The first version of his masterpiece, Leaves of Grass, appeared in 1855. § Emerson praised Whitman’s poetry as “the most extraordinary piece of wit and wisdom that America has yet to contribute. ” § Whitman used these words, written by Emerson in a letter to Whitman, in a later introduction to Leaves of Grass. Emerson was not amused. § John Greenleaf Whittier threw his copy of the book into the fireplace. § Another critic dismissed it as “just a barbaric yawp. ” § Longfellow, Holmes, and Lowell were equally unimpressed. § Even Thoreau was appalled by Whitman’s poetry, and he was certainly no conformist!

What’s his deal? § Why were so many writers shocked by Whitman? § His lack of regular rhyme and meter (free verse) and nontraditional poetic style and subject matter shocked more traditional writers. § He also wrote poetry with unabashedly sexual imagery and themes, some of them homoerotic. Examples include the Calamus poems and “I Sing the Body Electric. ”

O Captain! My Captain! § Whitman wrote poetry in praise of Abraham Lincoln § “When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom’d” (an elegy written after Lincoln’s assassination). § “O Captain! My Captain!” memorializes Lincoln’s passing as the death of a great man and the death of the era he dominated. It was used to great effect in Dead Poets’ Society.

Whitman’s Influence § Along with Emily Dickinson, Walt Whitman stands as one of two giants of American poetry in the nineteenth century. § Whitman’s poetry would influence such Harlem Renaissance writers as Langston Hughes and James Weldon Johnson. § Whitman influenced Beat poets such as Allen Ginsburg. § Chilean writer Pablo Neruda claimed to have been influenced by Whitman. § Whitman’s poetry was a model for French symbolists, such as Stéphane Mallarmé, Paul Verlaine, and Arthur Rimbaud. § Modernist poets such as Ezra Pound, T. S. Eliot, and W. H. Auden were also influenced by Whitman.

“Out of the Cradle, endlessly rocking…” § Whitman died on March 26, 1892, one year after the final edition of Leaves of Grass was published. § His autopsy revealed his cause of death as emphysema.

The Least You Need to Know § Whitman created new poetic forms and subjects to fashion a distinctly American type of poetic expression. § He rejected conventional themes, traditional literary references, allusions, and rhyme—all the accepted forms of poetry in the 19 th century. § He uses long lines to capture the rhythms of natural speech, free verse, and vocabulary drawn from everyday speech.