Walt Whitman

1
Walt Whitman

• The first American poet.

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Who is Walt Whitman?

• Born May 31st, 1819 in West Hills, Long Island
• The second of nine children (he has three
  brothers named after American leaders George
  Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Andrew Jackson)
• Family has financial difficulty which results in
  moving around New York quite a bit
• Begins work after finishing formal schooling at
  age eleven
• Whitman is a printers apprentice and
  occasionally writes filler material for the paper

3
Who is Walt Whitman?

• After some early work writing articles, editing
  and publishing newspapers, and writing editorials
  Whitman decides to move into poetry.
• He is determined to produce an American Epic and
  comes up with Leaves of Grass
• Following the publication of his epic in 1855 he
  is declared Americas first poet

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Leaves of Grass

• 1855
• 1856
• 1860
• 1867
• 1872
• 1876
• 1881
• 1892

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But why is Whitman the first American poet?

• Whitman is considered the first American poet
  because he breaks from the traditional style and
  form of poetry readers were accustomed to.
• Despite the Revolution and the general ill
  feelings toward Great Britain, the most widely
  read literature at the time was still British
  titles and authors.

6
Who loves Walt Whitman?

• Ralph Waldo Emerson, in a letter to Whitman
  after the first publication of Leaves of Grass,
  had this to say
• I find Leaves of Grass the most extraordinary
  piece of with wisdom that America has yet
  contributedI greet you at the beginning of a
  great career, which yet must have had a long
  foreground somewhere, for such a start.

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Everybodys Got An Opinion

• "...but I confess that I extract no poison from
  these Leaves - to me they have brought only
  healing." -Fanny Fern, critic and popular
  essayist
• "Foul work" filled with "libidinousness." The
  Christian Examiner "There are too many persons,
  who imagine they demonstrate their superiority to
  their fellows, by disregarding all the
  politenesses and decencies of life, and,
  therefore, justify themselves in indulging the
  vilest imaginings and shamefullest license."
  -Rufus Griswold, The Criterion

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The Father of Free Verse

• Marking a huge break from tradition and the
  accepted form of poetry, Whitman uses the Free
  Verse (no formal rhyme scheme, meter, or musical
  pattern) form of poetry throughout Leaves of
  Grass
• Whitmans poetry was obviously different from the
  work of his contemporaries in1855
• The next two slides compare a poem by Robert
  Browning and Whitman

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Childe Roland to the Dark Tower Came by Robert
Browning, 1855

• VI.
• While some discuss if near the other graves
• Be room enough for this, and when a day
• Suits best for carrying the corpse away,
• With care about the banners, scarves and staves
• And still the man hears all, and only craves
• He may not shame such tender love and stay.

10
Ones-Self I Sing by Walt Whitman, 1855

• Ones-self I sing, a simple separate person,
• Yet utter the word Democratic, the word En-Masse.
• Of physiology from top to toe I sing,
• Not physiognomy alone nor brain alone is worthy
  for the Muse,
• I say the Form complete is worthier far,
• The Female equally with the Male I sing.
• Of life immense in passion, pulse, and power,
• Cheerful, for freest action formd under the laws
  divine,
• The Modern Man I sing.

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Common Themes

• Transcendent power of love, brotherhood, and
  comradeship
• Imaginative projection into others lives
• Optimistic faith in democracy and equality
• Belief in regenerative and illustrative powers of
  nature, its value as a teacher
• (Who does this sound like?)

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Democratic Poetry

• The equal representation of all peoples in
  literature, men, women, white, black
• Whitmans poetry is addressed to and is about
  everybody
• He celebrates the diversity of America

13
Whitmans Poetic Techniques

• Free verse lack of metrical regularity and
  conventional rhyme
• Use of repeated images, symbols, phrases, and
  grammatical units
• Use of enumerations and catalogs
• Contrast and parallelism in paired lines

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Later Life

• Whitmans later life is devoted equally to his
  poetry and public service
• He publishes Leaves of Grass with added sections
  including Drum Taps (which deals with his Civil
  War nursing experiences) and later editions
  include his famous odes to President Lincoln (O
  Captain My Captain, When Lilacs Last in the
  Doorway Bloomd)
• In his later years Whitman works for several
  government offices (he is denied one government
  job because he is the author of the
  "objectionable poetry collection" Leaves of
  Grass) and spends time as a hospital nurse caring
  for Civil War soldiers

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Later Life

• He spends a lot of time taking care of his family
  members (he commits a brother, buries another)
• After suffering a paralytic stroke he retires
  and spends his remaining years in Camden, New
  Jersey living with his brother George. The final
  edition of Leaves of Grass is referred to as the
  deathbed edition.
• Whitman is buried in a mausoleum shaped like a
  house that he designed himself. He would often
  visit it during its construction.

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• "The great poet of America so far."
• -Andrew Carnegie

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• Free Verse Poetry - a form of poetry which
  refrains from which refrains from meter patterns,
  rhyme, or any other musical pattern
• Example I Hear America Singing (pg 352 of your
  book)

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• Found Poetry poetry created by taking words,
  phrases, and sometimes whole passages from other
  sources and reframing them as poetry by making
  changes in spacing and/or lines, or by altering
  the text by additions and/or deletions
• ExampleGuns Ammo

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• Concrete Poetry poetry in which the
  typographical arrangement of words is as
  important in conveying the intended effect as the
  conventional elements of the poem
• Example

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• Limerick a five line poem in anapestic or
  amphibrachic meter with a strict rhyme scheme
  (aabba), which intendes to be witty or humorous,
  and is sometimes obscene with humorous intent
• Example
• The limerick packs laughs anatomical
• In space that is quite economical,
• But the good ones I've seen
• So seldom are clean,
• And the clean ones so seldom are comical.

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List Poetry

• The writer is telling you something--pointing
  something out--saying, "Look at this" or, "Think
  about this."
• There's a beginning and an end to it, like in a
  story.
• Each item in the list is written the same way.
• They rarely rhyme.
• And it is fun to juxtapose things that seem
  non-sequential fruits and meats, nuts and dairy,
  big picture to little flower.
• List poems have a layering effect.