Walt Whitman

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Walt Whitman

• Transcendentalist Poet

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Walt Whitman

• The United States themselves are essentially the
  greatest poem. Walt Whitman

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Access Prior Knowledge

• What do we know about Transcendentalism?
• What do we know about Romanticism?
• What do we know about what was going on with
  poetry during the period of British Romanticism
  (Victorian Age)? (e.g. What styles of poems were
  popular?)

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A Little Bit About Whitman

• Spent his entire life composing one long series
  of poems, called Leaves of Grass
• 1855 first edition contained 12 poems
• 1891 deathbed edition contained 383 poems
• Sort of like an urban Transcendentalist
• Loved NYC, not nature dweller
• Worked as an office boy, doctors helper,
  printer, journalist, typesetter, volunteer nurse
  during Civil War
• First poet to write in free verse
• His poetry celebrated democracy and the common man

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Guiding Questions

• How are these poems quintessential Whitman poems
  (and, therefore, quintessential Transcendentalist
  poems)?
• How do the poems structures and literary devices
  contribute meaning?

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Lets Read and Analyze the Poems

• I Hear America Singing
• When I Heard the Learnd Astronomer