Facts on... Walt Whitman

 WALT WHITMAN

American poet, essayist and journalist.

Born: May 31, 1819, West Hills, New York, United States

Died: March 26, 1892, Camden, New Jersey, United States

FAMILY

He was born in Long Island, the second of a family of nine. He lived in New York. and worked there as a printer, journalist and editor without any formal education.

BEGINNINGS

During an opera concert, he met one of the leaders of the paper of New Orleans (Crescend), who convinced him to leave his job in New York and start writing for his company. While staying in New Orleans, he developed new opinions and saw different realities. These experiences led him to quit journalism and dedicate himself to writing.

HIS WORK

Whitman’s most well-known work, Leaves of Grass (1855), is a celebration of individuality, freedom, democracy, sexuality, and nationhood. It consists of 12 untitled poems, produced and self-published by him. 

Whitman is known as one of the first writers who introduced free verse in his poems, using a simple language, similar to prose. His topics, such as individualism, his defense for democracy, his own experiences… made him stand out in his time.

LAST YEARS

After receiving the news that his brother had been harmed in the War, Whitman moved to Washington, where he worked as a nursing assistant in several military hospitals. After these events, he stayed in Washington and worked for the Administration, writing political essays on democracy and freedom that rejected materialism.

The poet dedicated the last years of his life refining Leaves of Grass, and even adding new poems to it.

Notable poems:

• ‘Song of Myself’: 

Consisting of 52 stanzas, it is one of the original 12 poems in the first edition of Leaves of Grass, and Whitman would continue to work on it until his death. It is a joyful celebration of life and nature, in which the speaker has transcended the boundaries of the self to unite all living things.

I celebrate myself, and sing myself,

And what I assume you shall assume,

For every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you.

I loafe and invite my soul,

I lean and loafe at my ease observing a spear of summer grass.

 

Read the rest here

• ‘O Captain! My Captain!’: 

Mainly known because of the film Dead Poets Society. Whitman wrote this poem (among others) after the death of Abraham Lincoln in 1865 and it’s a mournful elegy to the fallen president.

O Captain! my Captain! our fearful trip is done,

The ship has weather’d every rack, the prize we sought is won,

The port is near, the bells I hear, the people all exulting,

While follow eyes the steady keel, the vessel grim and daring;

But O heart! heart! heart!

O the bleeding drops of red,

Where on the deck my Captain lies,

Fallen cold and dead.

Read the rest here.

• O Me! O Life!:

Whitman’s answer to the great question of life’s purpose. Whitman proclaims that the mere fact of our existence is reason enough for us to live it to the full.

 

Oh me! Oh life! of the questions of these recurring,

Of the endless trains of the faithless, of cities fill’d with the foolish,

Of myself forever reproaching myself, (for who more foolish than I, and who more faithless?)

Of eyes that vainly crave the light, of the objects mean, of the struggle ever renew’d,

Of the poor results of all, of the plodding and sordid crowds I see around me,

Of the empty and useless years of the rest, with the rest me intertwined,

The question, O me! so sad, recurring—What good amid these, O me, O life?

Answer.

That you are here—that life exists and identity,

That the powerful play goes on, and you may contribute a verse.

Read it here.