Who Was Walt Whitman?
Considered one of America's most influential poets, Walt Whitman aimed to transcend traditional epics and eschew normal aesthetic form to mirror the potential freedoms to be found in America. In 1855, he self-published the collection Leaves of Grass; the book is now a landmark in American literature, though at the time of its publication it was considered highly controversial. Whitman later worked as a volunteer nurse during the Civil War, writing the collection Drum Taps (1865) in connection to the experiences of war-torn soldiers. Having continued to produce new editions of Leaves of Grass along with original works, Whitman died on March 26, 1892, in Camden, New Jersey.
Walt Whitman
Early Life
Walt Whitman was born on May 31,
1819, in the village of West Hills on Long Island, New York, approximately 50
miles east of New York City. He was the second of eight children. Whitman’s
father was of English descent, and his mother was Dutch. In later life, he
would refer to his ancestors as having been early settlers of Long Island.
In 1822,
when Walt was 2 years old, the Whitman family moved to Brooklyn, which was
still a small town. Whitman would spend most of the next 40 years of his life
in Brooklyn, which grew into a thriving city during that time.
After finishing public school in Brooklyn, Whitman began working
at the age of 11. He was an office boy for a law office before becoming an
apprentice printer at a newspaper. In his late teens, Whitman worked for
several years as a schoolteacher in rural Long Island. In 1838, he founded a
weekly newspaper on Long Island. He reported and wrote stories, printed the
paper, and even delivered it on horseback. By the early 1840s, he had broken
into professional journalism,
writing articles for magazines and newspapers in New York.
What was Walt Whitman’s early life like?
Walt Whitman spent his childhood in New York, where he was first
employed at age 12 as a printer. He later held jobs as a newspaper editor
and a schoolteacher. During this time he began publishing poems in popular
magazines. The first edition of Leaves of
Grass was printed in 1855.
What
is Leaves of Grass?
The verse
collection Leaves of
Grass is Walt Whitman’s best-known work. He revised and added to the
collection throughout his life, producing ultimately nine editions. The
poems were written in a new form of free verse and contained controversial
subject matter for which they were censured. They received little critical
acclaim during his lifetime.
Death and Legacy
On March 26,
1892, 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 300 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. Books on the writer include the
award-winning Walt Whitman's America: A Cultural Biography (1995),
by David S. Reynolds, and Walt Whitman: The Song of Himself (1999),
by Jerome Loving.
