Walt whitman poem biography

Biographer Justin Kaplan notes that the story is likely untrue, because Whitman regularly vacationed in the town thereafter. In these essays, he adopted a constructed persona, a technique he would employ throughout his career. This new interest had an impact on his writing in free verse. He later said, "But for the opera, I could never have written Leaves of Grass.

Throughout the s, Whitman contributed freelance fiction and poetry to various periodicals, [ 38 ] including Brother Jonathan magazine edited by John Neal. Abolitionist William Lloyd Garrison derided the party philosophy as "white manism". Present-day writers have called Manly Health and Training "quirky", [ 46 ] "so over the top", [ 47 ] "a pseudoscientific tract", [ 48 ] and "wacky".

Whitman claimed that after years of competing for "the usual rewards", he determined to become a poet. George "didn't think it worth reading". Whitman paid for the publication of the first edition of Leaves of Grass himself [ 55 ] and had it printed at a local print shop during its employees' breaks from commercial jobs. The succeeding untitled twelve poems totaled lines with lines belonging to the first untitled poem, later called " Song of Myself ".

The book received its strongest praise from Ralph Waldo Emerson , who wrote a flattering five-page letter to Whitman and spoke highly of the book to friends. Yet America is a poem in our eyes. The first edition of Leaves of Grass was widely distributed and stirred up significant interest, [ 62 ] in part due to Emerson's praise, [ 63 ] but was occasionally criticized for the seemingly "obscene" nature of the poetry.

Of this action, Laura Dassow Walls , professor emerita of English at the University of Notre Dame , [ 66 ] wrote: "In one stroke, Whitman had given birth to the modern cover blurb , quite without Emerson's permission. On July 11, , a few days after Leaves of Grass was published, Whitman's father died at the age of Though the second edition was already printed and bound, the publisher almost did not release it.

During the first publications of Leaves of Grass , Whitman had financial difficulties and was forced to work as a journalist again, specifically with Brooklyn's Daily Times starting in May Whitmore", which Whitman worried was a reference to his brother George. In Washington, D. Chase , Secretary of the Treasury, hoping he would grant Whitman a position in that department.

Walt whitman poem biography

Chase, however, did not want to hire the author of such a disreputable book as Leaves of Grass. The Whitman family had a difficult end to On September 30, , Whitman's brother George was captured by Confederate forces in Virginia , [ 87 ] and another brother, Andrew Jackson, died of tuberculosis compounded by alcoholism on December 3.

Effective June 30, , however, Whitman was fired from his job. Part of Whitman's role at the Attorney General's office was interviewing former Confederate soldiers for presidential pardons. After suffering a paralytic stroke in early , Whitman was induced to move from Washington to the home of his brother—George Washington Whitman, an engineer—at Stevens Street in Camden, New Jersey.

His mother, having fallen ill, was also there and died that same year in May. Both events were difficult for Whitman and left him depressed. He remained at his brother's home until buying his own in While in residence there he was very productive, publishing three versions of Leaves of Grass among other works. He was also last fully physically active in this house, receiving both Oscar Wilde and Thomas Eakins.

His other brother, Edward, an "invalid" since birth, lived in the house. When his brother and sister-in-law were forced to move for business reasons, he bought his own house at Mickle Street now Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. During this time, he began socializing with Mary Oakes Davis—the widow of a sea captain. She was a neighbor, boarding with a family in Bridge Avenue just a few blocks from Mickle Street.

She brought with her a cat, a dog, two turtledoves, a canary, and other assorted animals. While in South Jersey , Whitman spent a good portion of his time in the then quite pastoral community of Laurel Springs , between and , converting one of the Stafford Farm buildings to his summer home. The restored summer home has been preserved as a museum by the local historical society.

Part of his Leaves of Grass was written here, and in his Specimen Days he wrote of the spring, creek and lake. To him, Laurel Lake was "the prettiest lake in: either America or Europe". As the end of approached, he prepared a final edition of Leaves of Grass , a version that has been nicknamed the "Deathbed Edition". He wrote, "L. The cause of death was officially listed as " pleurisy of the left side, consumption of the right lung, general miliary tuberculosis and parenchymatous nephritis ".

Whitman's work broke the boundaries of poetic form and is generally prose-like. Whitman wrote in the preface to the edition of Leaves of Grass : "The proof of a poet is that his country absorbs him as affectionately as he has absorbed it. Whitman was a vocal proponent of temperance and in his youth rarely drank alcohol. He once stated he did not taste "strong liquor" until he was 30 [ ] and occasionally argued for prohibition.

Whitman was deeply influenced by deism. He denied any one faith was more important than another, and embraced all religions equally. Though biographers continue to debate Whitman's sexuality, he is usually described as either homosexual or bisexual in his feelings and attractions. Whitman's sexual orientation is generally assumed on the basis of his poetry, though this assumption has been disputed.

His poetry depicts love and sexuality in a more earthy, individualistic way common in American culture before the medicalization of sexuality in the late 19th century. Whitman had intense friendships with many men and boys throughout his life. Some biographers have suggested that he did not actually engage in sexual relationships with males, [ ] while others cite letters, journal entries, and other sources that they claim as proof of the sexual nature of some of his relationships.

Some contemporary scholars are skeptical of the veracity of Whitman's denial or the existence of the children he claimed. Peter Doyle may be the most likely candidate for the love of Whitman's life. Interviewed in , Doyle said: "We were familiar at once—I put my hand on his knee—we understood. He did not get out at the end of the trip—in fact went all the way back with me.

In , Edward Carpenter told Gavin Arthur of a sexual encounter in his youth with Whitman, the details of which Arthur recorded in his journal. Another possible lover was Bill Duckett. As a teenager, he lived on the same street in Camden and moved in with Whitman, living with him a number of years and serving him in various roles. Duckett was 15 when Whitman bought his house at Mickle Street.

From at least , Duckett and his grandmother, Lydia Watson, were boarders, subletting space from another family at Mickle Street. Because of this proximity, Duckett and Whitman met as neighbors. Their relationship was close, with the youth sharing Whitman's money when he had it. Whitman described their friendship as "thick". Though some biographers describe Duckett as a boarder, others identify him as a lover.

Whitman gave Stafford a ring, which was returned and re-given over the course of a stormy relationship lasting several years. Of that ring, Stafford wrote to Whitman: "You know when you put it on there was but one thing to part it from me, and that was death. There is also some evidence that Whitman had sexual relationships with women.

He had a romantic friendship with a New York actress, Ellen Grey, in the spring of , but it is not known whether it was also sexual. He still had a photograph of her decades later, when he moved to Camden, and he called her "an old sweetheart of mine". Whitman was an adherent of the Shakespeare authorship question , refusing to believe in the historical attribution of the works to William Shakespeare of Stratford-upon-Avon.

In , Whitman commented in November Boughs :. Conceiv'd out of the fullest heat and pulse of European feudalism—personifying in unparalleled ways the medieval aristocracy, its towering spirit of ruthless and gigantic caste, with its own peculiar air and arrogance no mere imitation —only one of the "wolfish earls" so plenteous in the plays themselves, or some born descendant and knower, might seem to be the true author of those amazing works—works in some respects greater than anything else in recorded literature.

Like many in the Free Soil Party who were concerned about the threat slavery would pose to free white labor and northern businessmen exploiting the newly colonized western territories, [ ] Whitman opposed the extension of slavery in the United States and supported the Wilmot Proviso. In , he wrote that the abolitionists had, in fact, slowed the advancement of their cause by their " ultraism and officiousness".

Whitman also subscribed to the widespread opinion that even free African-Americans should not vote [ ] and was concerned at the increasing number of African-Americans in the legislature; as David Reynolds notes, Whitman wrote in prejudiced terms of these new voters and politicians, calling them "blacks, with about as much intellect and calibre in the mass as so many baboons.

Whitman is often described as America's national poet, creating an image of the United States for itself. Nathanael O'Reilly in an essay on "Walt Whitman's Nationalism in the First Edition of Leaves of Grass " claims that "Whitman's imagined America is arrogant, expansionist, hierarchical, racist and exclusive; such an America is unacceptable to Native Americans, African-Americans, immigrants, the disabled, the infertile, and all those who value equal rights.

As George Hutchinson and David Drews further suggest in an essay "Racial attitudes": "Clearly, Whitman could not consistently reconcile the ingrained, even foundational, racist character of the United States with its egalitarian ideals. He could not even reconcile such contradictions in his own psyche. Because of the radically democratic and egalitarian aspects of his poetry, readers generally expect, and desire for, Whitman to be among the literary heroes that transcended the racist pressures that abounded in all spheres of public discourse during the nineteenth century.

He did not, at least not consistently; nonetheless his poetry has been a model for democratic poets of all nations and races, right up to our own day. Whitman released a second edition of the book in , containing thirty-two poems, a letter from Emerson praising the first edition, and a long open letter by Whitman in response. During his lifetime, Whitman continued to refine the volume, publishing several more editions of the book.

Noted Whitman scholar, M. He worked as a freelance journalist and visited the wounded at New York City—area hospitals. He then traveled to Washington, D. Overcome by the suffering of the many wounded in Washington, Whitman decided to stay and work in the hospitals; he ended up staying in the city for eleven years. He took a job as a clerk for the Bureau of Indian Affairs within the Department of the Interior, which ended when the Secretary of the Interior, James Harlan, discovered that Whitman was the author of Leaves of Grass , which Harlan found offensive.

After Harlan fired him, he went on to work in the attorney general's office. In , Whitman suffered a stroke that left him partially paralyzed. He ended up staying with his brother until the publication of Leaves of Grass James R. He took a job as a clerk for the Department of the Interior, which ended when the Secretary of the Interior, James Harlan, discovered that Whitman was the author of Leaves of Grass , which Harlan found offensive.

Harlan fired the poet. Whitman struggled to support himself through most of his life. He had also been sending money to his widowed mother and an invalid brother. Walt Whitman was heavily influenced by Deism — a belief in God without needing an organised religion. In his writings, he suggested that all religions were valid, but he himself did not adhere to one particular creed.

In this broad earth of ours, Amid the measureless grossness and the slag, Enclosed and safe within its central heart, Nestles the seed perfection. However, after suffering a stroke, Whitman found it impossible to return to Washington. He stayed with his brother until the publication of Leaves of Grass gave Whitman enough money to buy a home in Camden.

In the simple two-story clapboard house, Whitman spent his declining years working on additions and revisions to a new edition of the book and preparing his final volume of poems and prose, Good-Bye, My Fancy After his death on March 26, , Whitman was buried in a tomb he designed and had built on a lot in Harleigh Cemetery. In May he traveled to Camden, New Jersey, to see his ailing mother, who died just three days after his arrival.

Frail himself, Whitman found it impossible to continue with his job in Washington and relocated to Camden to live with his brother George and sister-in-law Lou. Over the next two decades, Whitman continued to tinker with Leaves of Grass. An edition of the collection earned the poet some fresh newspaper coverage after a Boston district attorney objected to and blocked its publication.

That, in turn, resulted in robust sales, enough so that Whitman was able to buy a modest house of his own in Camden. These final years proved to be both fruitful and frustrating for Whitman. His life's work received much-needed validation in terms of recognition, especially overseas, as over the course of his career many of his contemporaries had viewed his output as prurient, distasteful and unsophisticated.

Yet even as Whitman felt new appreciation, the America he saw emerge from the Civil War disappointed him. His health, too, continued to deteriorate. On March 26, , Whitman passed away in Camden. Right up until the end, he'd continued to work with Leaves of Grass , which during his lifetime had gone through many editions and expanded to some poems.

Whitman's final book, Good-Bye, My Fancy , was published the year before his death. He was buried in a large mausoleum he had built in Camden's Harleigh Cemetery. Despite the previous outcry surrounding his work, Whitman is considered one of America's most groundbreaking poets, having inspired an array of dedicated scholarship and media that continues to grow.

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