Walt Whitman (1819 - 1892) was an American poet, essayist and journalist widely regarded as a central figure in nineteenth-century American literature. [1] He is best known for Leaves of Grass, first published in 1855 and revised throughout his life, whose sprawling free verse broke with conventional rhyme and meter. [2] Bridging the transcendentalist and realist traditions, Whitman celebrated the common individual, the body and American democracy in a distinctive expansive voice. [3]
Early life
Whitman was born on 31 May 1819 in West Hills, on Long Island, New York, the second of nine children in a family of modest means. [1] His formal schooling ended early, and by his teens he was working as a printer's apprentice in Brooklyn, a trade that gave him a lasting practical knowledge of typesetting and publishing. [1] He later taught in country schools and turned to journalism, absorbing the varied life of the city and its working people.
Journalism and early career
During the 1840s Whitman worked as a printer, editor and reporter for a series of newspapers, most notably editing the Brooklyn Daily Eagle. [2] These years immersed him in politics, urban life and the popular idiom that would shape his verse. He also tried his hand at fiction and temperance writing, though he later distanced himself from this apprentice work in favor of the poetic voice he was developing.
Leaves of Grass
In 1855 Whitman published, largely at his own expense, the first edition of Leaves of Grass, a slim volume of twelve untitled poems set in long, unrhymed lines. [2] The book's frank treatment of the body and sexuality unsettled many contemporaries, but it drew an admiring letter from Ralph Waldo Emerson, who recognized its originality. [3] Whitman treated the collection as a lifelong project, revising and enlarging it across numerous editions until the so-called "deathbed" edition of 1891-92. [1] Poems such as "Song of Myself" advanced a democratic, all-embracing self and helped establish free verse as a serious literary form.
Civil War and later years
During the American Civil War, Whitman moved to Washington, D.C., where he volunteered as a nurse in army hospitals, tending wounded soldiers. [1] The experience deeply marked his work, informing the war poems of Drum-Taps and his elegy for Abraham Lincoln, "When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom'd." [3] After suffering a stroke in 1873, he settled in Camden, New Jersey, where he continued to write and revise until his death on 26 March 1892. [1]
Legacy
Whitman is often called the father of free verse and one of the founders of a distinctly American poetic tradition. [2] His expansive line and democratic vision influenced generations of later poets, and Leaves of Grass remains among the most studied works in American literature. [3] He was posthumously inducted into the New Jersey Hall of Fame in recognition of his enduring cultural importance. [1]
