At the age of twelve, Whitman began to work at printing firms and fell in love with the written word. He was the second son of Walter Whitman, a house-builder, and Louisa Van Velsor. Walt Whitman was born on May 31, 1819, in West Hills, on Long Island, New York. Whitman was a free-thinker, as shown by his own words in the preface to Leaves of Grass. 1892.Walt Whitman was a printer, journalist, essayist, teacher, and one of America’s most important poets.
A good friend of Robert Ingersoll, Whitman was at most a Deist who scorned religion. In 1881, the book had the compliment of being banned by the commonwealth of Massachusetts on charges of immorality.
Leaves of Grass was published in nine editions, with Whitman elaborating on it in each successive edition. After a stroke in 1873, which left him partially paralyzed, Whitman lived his next 20 years with his brother, writing mainly prose, such as Democratic Vistas (1870). His health compromised by the experience, he was given work at the Treasury Department in Washington, D.C.
Emerson, whom Whitman revered, said of Leaves of Grass that it held "incomparable things incomparably said." During the Civil War, Whitman worked as an army nurse, later writing Drum Taps (1865) and Memoranda During the War (1867). Early in his career, he also produced a temperance novel, Franklin Evans (1842).Īfter working as clerk, teacher, journalist and laborer, Whitman wrote his masterpiece, Leaves of Grass, pioneering free verse poetry in a humanistic celebration of humanity, in 1855. Whitman is among the most influential poets in the American canon, often called the father of free verse.īorn on Long Island, Whitman worked as a journalist, a teacher, a government clerk, and a volunteer nurse during the American Civil War in addition to publishing his poetry. He was a part of the transition between Transcendentalism and realism, incorporating both views in his works.
Walter Whitman (1819-1892) was an American poet, essayist, journalist, and humanist.
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