Walt Whitman Essay Writing

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Walt Whitman was a poet born on May 31, 1819 in West Hills, Long Island, New York. His first published work came in 1855; called Leaves of Grass, it is now a landmark in American literature. The second oldest of eight surviving children, Walt grew up in a democratic family, with his parents showing their love for America by naming his younger brothers after great American heroes. Walt and his family moved from Long Island to Brooklyn when he was just three years old. When he was eleven years old, Walt’s father took him out of school to help support his family, and he got into the business of printing. At age seventeen, he started teaching at a one-room schoolhouse in Long Island. After five years, Whitman turned to journalism, starting a paper called the Long-Islander, and later continuing his newspaper career in New York City. He became the editor of the Brooklyn Daily Eagle in 1846, and “proved to be a volatile editor, with a sharp pen and a set of opinions that didn’t always align with his bosses or his readers. He backed what some considered radical positions on women’s propert...

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  • Walter Whitman Research Paper Outline Draft

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    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 that 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.

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    Walt Whitman was a revolutionary poet who let his emotions run free through his poetry. Whitman was never afraid to express himself no matter how inappropriate or offensive his emotions might have seemed at the time. This is why Whitman's poem still echo that same sentiment and emotion today almost as loudly as when the drums were first tapped.

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    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).

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  • Walt Whitman Influences

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    Walt was not the type of writer who wrote for the “norm.” He was the type who was against it, constantly crossing the conservative boundaries by expressing his views, political,.religious and sexual. His outspoken attitude, and fearlessness was exactly what separated him from the rest. “Walt Whitman had a passion for his native soil; he was hypnotized by the word America; he spent much of his mature life in brooding over the question, “What, after all, is an American, and what should an American poet be in our age of science and democracy?”(Bliss) Walt Whitman is exactly what an American poet should be, an outspoken individual not afraid to go against the normality. Although Walt was a great writer, what led him be able to create work such as the ones he did? His life experiences. Just as the majority of the greatest writers of history, they were highly influenced by their life experi...

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