Walt Whitman's life is the story of a young man's journey to become the great americian poet that he set out to be. It was a life of struggle and adversity. While we all know too well how it feels to be judged for what or how we believe, Whitman didn't let it scare him off easily. He had strong beliefs and stood his ground for what he believed in, no matter what names he was called or what people said about him. In his writtings and his life Whitman was true to who he was and what he believed.
Walt Whitman was born May 31, 1819, to Walter and Louisa Whitman, a working class family in West Hills, New York, a village near Hempstead, Long Island. The second of six children, Whitman grew up in a community full of Quakers and followed religion very strictly as a child. From 1825-1830, Whitman attended public schools in Brooklyn. He loved to read the works of Ralph Waldo Emerson because he thought he related to Emerson's ideas and theologies which were close to his own (123HelpMe.com).
By the age of eleven, Whitman was done with his formal education and began his life as a laborer. Whitman's first job was that of an office boy for some lawyers who gave him a subscription to a library. This is where he would self educate himself further. Whitman gained his knowledge from visiting museums, his love of reading books, and by engaging everyone he met in conversation or a debate. In 1831 Whitman became an apprentice on a working class newspaper. This is where he learned the printing trade and was first exposed to the excitement of putting words into print. By the age of twelve Whitman had begun getting his own work published. By 1833, Whitman's family had left and gone back to West Hills, leaving fourteen year old Walt al...
... middle of paper ...
...but he was unable. Because of his health he went back to New Jersey, where he was never again a well man, and seemed old and steadily aging (Briggs 24). For the rest of Whitman's life, he would add, delete, fuse, seperate, and rearrange poems as he issued six very different editions of Leaves of Grass (Price and Folsom). Ninteen years later Whitman passed away in New Jersey. After his passing Whitman was the voice people needed and wanted to remember. Over a century after Whitman's death, he is a huge presence in American culture. Television shows depict him. Musicians allude to him. Schools and bridges are named after him. Truck stops, apartments, parks, summer camps, corporate centers, and shopping malls even bear his name. Look for him, just as he said you should, under your bootsoles (Price and Folsom). Whitman became known as the "Great Gray Poet."
Walt Whitman’s early life and childhood had an impact on his works of poetry later in his life. Walt Whitman was born on May 31, 1819, in West Hills, New York. His parents were Walter and Louisa Van Velsor Whitman. At the age of four, Whitman and his family moved to Brooklyn, living in a series of different houses due to bad investments by his parents. Whitman later viewed his childhood as sad and unhappy, because his family frequently moved and they were in a poor financial situation. Throughout most of his childhood, Whitman and his family were in constant financial duress. At the age of eleven, Whitman finished his formal education and started to look for a job. Whitman finished school at such a young age, so he could get a job
Walt Whitman was born in 1819 to a family with seven siblings. He started work at a printing service when he was just a boy in order to help out his family financially. During his tenure in the printing industry, Whitman began to read and write. He fell in love with the art of writing and would eventually go into editing as a career. Whitman created a new style of poetry called free verse, and at the time American culture would reject this
Thesis: People who read about Walter Whitman tend to say that he had a good life until his mother passed and his book Leaves of Grass is a book about his life and what he went through. Introduction: Walt Whitman was an American poet from West Hills, Long Island, New York. He wrote plenty of poems for the New York Times Journal newspaper, also known for the famous book Leaves of Grass, which had nine editions and is more than one book. The book Leaves of Grass was published in 1888 when he was finally done with all nine editions and he had passed after publishing the ninth edition.
Walt Whitman was born May 31, 1819, in West Hills, Long Island. His early years included much contact with words and writing; he worked as an office boy as a pre-teen, then later as a printer, journalist, and, briefly, a teacher, returning eventually to his first love and life’s work—writing. Despite the lack of extensive formal education, Whitman experienced literature, "reading voraciously from the literary classics and the Bible, and was deeply influenced by Goethe, Carlyle, Emerson, and Sir Walter Scott" (Introduction vii).
Life in its ever-evolving glory seems at times to be nothing more than a serious of random events that lead us from one place to another. It takes many years of grace and wisdom to see that life is much more than that. Life is far bigger than any one person or group of people. Life is a lesson and sometimes lessons need to repeat. Life during the time of Walt Whitman was oddly and sadly similar to our very own time in some ways. Like us, Whitman dealt in "Leaves of Grass" with living in a nation during wartimes; and if you can say anything about war, it is that, it is never fast and never easy.
Walt Whitman was an American poet, born in 1819. Whitman published a collection of poetry in which he outlined his democratic vision for America. Walt Whitman was credited with being the founder of a literature that was uniquely American. America was a very new country at this time, the Declaration of Independence, in which America claimed independence from England was signed in 1776 and was still quite recent. In 1781 America had proclaimed themselves as the First New Nation. They then began to create a culture that was uniquely American to give Americans a sense of nationalism. America had been influenced by English literature and now there was a search for a uniquely American literature. Walt Whitman took it upon himself to help to promote American identity. Whitman was very liberal as he was pro-homosexuality and an early supporter of women's equality. Whitman was also a passionate believer of an American Ideology that believed in American's exceptionalism. Whitman used his poetry to spread his democratic vision for America; there are many good examples of the theme of democracy in Whitman's poetry.
The Heath Anthology of American Literature repeatedly refers to Walt Whitman and his poetry in terms of being American, yet as I read Song of Myself, my thoughts are continually drawn to the philosophies and religions of the Far East. Like the Tao Te Ching ideas are expressed in enigmatic verse and each stanza is a Zen koan waiting to be meditated on and puzzled out. Even Emerson called Whitman's poetry "a remarkable mixture of the Bhagvat Gita and the New York Herald" ("The Whitman Project"). Song of Myself contains multitudes of passages that express Hindu, Buddhist, and Taoist thought.
Walt Whitman’s poem Time to Come explores Whitman’s curiosity of what happens when people die. Rather than taking a pessimistic approach, his writing is more insightful about the experience. The title alone introduces an aspect of his purpose; to point out that dying is inevitable. With Whitman captures the reader’s attention and shares his curiosity with vivid images, sophisticated diction, and his use of metaphor and personification in Time to Come.
Walt Whitman was born May 31, 1819 on Long Island. As a child he loved to read Sir Walter Scott (Baym 2076). As an adult he took a major interest in the Democratic party, and "began a political career by speaking at Democratic rallies" (2077). However, he is not remembered for his political action; Americans remember Whitman for his amazing poetry. He was one of the first American poets to write his poetry "without rhyme, in rolling, rhapsodic, metrical, or semi-metrical prose-verse of very irregular lengths" (Rossetti), as one of his contemporary critics noted. This new style was not the only way Whitman broke from the way the traditional poets wrote. As Rossetti described, "He not unfrequently alludes to gross things and in gross words—the clearest, the bluntest, and nearly the least civilly repeatable words which can come uppermost to the lips." Whitman’s refusal to shy away from taboo subjects disgusted and offended many of the people of his day, but Whitman possessed "determination not to yield to censorship or to apologize for his earlier poems" (Baym 2079).
Poetry is a universe of subjectivity. When two poems are set up, side-by-side, to create discussion, results may vary. But it is clear in Sherman Alexie’s two poems, “Defending Walt Whitman” and “How to Write the Great American Indian Novel”, where the discussion must go. Alexie explores Native American culture and the effect that the Europeans have had on the native people of the United States. This feat is accomplished through the thoughtful use of several literary devices, including tone, simile, allusion, and metaphor.
Walt Whitman is arguably America’s most influential poet in history. Born Walter Whitman in May 31st, 1819 to Walter Whitman and Louisa van Velsor, he was immediately nicknamed ‘Walt’ to distinguish him from his father. He came to life in West Hills on the famous Long Island, the second of nine children that grew up in Brooklyn. He came to be fondly known as ‘the Bard of Democracy’, mainly because that was a main message in his work. He is also celebrated as ‘the father of the free verse’. He was a liberal thinker and was vehemently against slavery, although later on he was against the abolitionists because, according to him, they were anti-democracy. He managed to marry transcendentalism with realism in his works. His occupation was a printer school teacher and editor.
Walt Whitman was arguable one of the most influential poets during the Civil War era. Though never directly involved in war, Whitman was able to talk about the war in a more insightful way than many poets at the time could. Whitman was most active in writing during the times before and after the war, choosing to dedicate himself to helping wounded soldiers during the war instead. Walt Whitman’s poetry reflects the progression of his philosophy of America: his initial view of America was uplifting, represented in his Pre-Civil war poems and while the Civil War poetry presents the degradation of American society, Whitman’s final poetry returns to a realistic, optimistic view for America.
The poem has set a certain theme and tone but no definite rhyme. In this poem, the poet explores into a thought of the self, the all-encompassing "I," sexuality, democracy, the human body, and what it means to live in the modern world. He addresses that the human body is sacred and every individual human is divine. Hence, Whitman was known for writing poems about individualism, democracy, nature, and war.
...e who are killed at war were usually buried at the battle field in which they died in. Whitman wrote, “I rose from the chill ground and folded my soldier well in his blanket, And buried him where he fell.” (25) Overall, Whitman does a great job of portraying the honest brutality and depressive nature of war, especially the Civil War, where it was a battle between countries. The personification of the Civil War was a great touch and a fitting addition to Whitman’s poem. The gloom of the war and subject matter of course, offered the reader a glimpse of what was to come of the narrator. The war gave every soldier the stark feeling of hopelessness at times, though the bonds they made with each other were what got them through the rigors of war. Now that the narrator’s comrade was dead, the poem’s tone gave the idea to the reader that the soldier had little to fight for.
Walt Whitman is considered the foremost poet of American democracy of his time. Not only did he fully embrace it, but he believed that American democracy was more than a political system, but a way of life (Casale 48). Many of his personal experiences influenced his deep democratic point of view (48). As a volunteer at an army hospital during the American Civil War, he saw many die and became increasingly grateful for the opportunities provided by the American government (Mirsky). Later, as he was residing in New York City, Whitman witnessed America face urbanization. He loved the diversity of the cities and believed it was possible because of democracy (Brand). This adoration of democracy is apparent in many of Whitman’s works, such as “Drum-Taps”