Walt Whitman

1
Walt Whitman

• 1819-1892

2
The Democratic Poet?

• Whitman attempted to write poetry that was all
  inclusivei.e. democracy.
• Wanted poems to BE democracy.

3
The Life

• Grew up on a farm.
• Had a number of jobs including a clerk and a
  teacher.
• Never went to college.
• Became a journalist and editor.

4
The Life

• Was also a carpenter to supplement his low
  writers income.
• All the while, he wrote poetry.

5
The Poet

• Published Leaves of Grass in 1855 at his own
  expense.
• Now the pivotal work of his career, went
  unnoticed at the time.

6
The Poet

• Emerson praised the work as an extraordinary
  piece of wit and wisdom that America has yet
  contributed.

7
The Poet

• Leaves of Grass was published again, 36 years
  after the original, the 9th edition of the book,
  slowly gaining notoriety.

8
The Poems

• Poems have little structure.
• Use free verse style.
• Invented the breath linelines with no pauses
  that seemingly need to be read in one breath.

9
The Poems

• Invented the cataloguevery long lists of
  examples (sometimes similes and metaphors)
• The effect is an expanded meaning.

10
The Poems

• Largely used parallel structurethe repetition of
  words, phrases, clauses, and sentences.
• Master of imagery.
• Also used alliteration, assonance, and
  onomatopoeia.

11
The Poems

• The first person I in Whitmans Song of
  Myself is to be understood as a universal
  spirit, creating the all-inclusive democracy.