Walt Whitman

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Walt Whitman
The good gray poet
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Whitman as one of the roughs, frontispiece for
1855 Leaves of Grass.
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Born the son of a Long Island carpenter, Whitman
celebrated ordinary, working class people.
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• Poet of the common man
• Poet of individualism
• Poet of democracy and America
• Poet of free verse

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Like the Transcendentalists, Whitman believed in
the spiritual connection of all individuals.
That is the idea of Song of Myself.
That universal connection also comes through in
the image of grass in that poem.
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Leaves of Grass, 1855
The various editions of Leaves of Grass became
his lifes work.
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Whitmans poetry celebrated America for its
freedom and vitality.
Among his most famous poems are elegies for
Lincoln When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard
Bloomed and O Captain, My Captain!
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By writing free verse, poetry without rhyme and
meter, Whitman broke away from traditional styles
of poetry. He helped establish a new style of
American poetry, as called for and recognized by
Emerson.
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The good gray poet