Walt Whitman Attitudes

I Contain Multitudes: The Life and Work of Walt Whitman After its first publication in 1855, a notable friend of author Ralph Waldo Emerson described Walt Whitman’s Leaves of Grass as being “trashy, profane & obscene,” and derided the volume’s author as “a pretentious ass, without decency” (Kaplan 211). Equally harsh criticism came en masse from other platforms, as well, with The Saturday Press reportedly encouraging Whitman to take his life (Loving). Such pointed and vicious criticism beggars belief when one considers the high regard “The Good Gray Poet” is held in today -- however, in his time, his frank exploration of life, the body, sex, nature, and more was highly controversial and divisive. Born on May 31, 1819, in Long Island, New

His next job, at a printing press, would inspire his love for words -- especially seeing his own in print. He’d become a teacher after this, by which time he was beginning to write poetry -- although, these poems were far more conventional than the unusual, controversial verses he’d write later. Equally conventional was the fiction Whitman attempted to write around this time: while several pieces were published, they were, by his own admission, heavy-handed and sensationalistic.

With several careers and several stabs at writing under his belt, Whitman’s tenure as a journalist was highly successful. His passionate beliefs and causes, especially his firm abolitionist views, made him a valuable asset to papers such as the Brooklyn Eagle, which he’d edit for several years in the late 1840s. Eventually, these liberal beliefs caught up to him, making him lose his post at the Eagle because of its conservative

Very well then I contradict myself,

(I am large, I contain multitudes.)” Whitman would continue to revise and publish Leaves of Grass until his death in 1892 (along with other various poetry collections, including Drum Taps, poems inspired by the Civil War), publishing the last edition in that year -- which had increased in size to include hundreds of poems. By the time he passed away, due to tuberculosis officially, but also due to many other ailments, he considered Leaves of Grass complete -- and it still stands as his most ambitious and most highly regarded work.

When examining Walt Whitman’s life, and his writing, it becomes clear that he was truly ahead of his time. His works were often too honest and too purely unconventional for the time in which he lived, but this is why they are appreciated in today’s world. He took everything he saw around him, synthesized it, and turned these visions into works of supreme wisdom and beauty. For that, the Good Gray Poet will never be forgotten. Works