1. WALT WHITMAN 1819-1892

2. Growing Up… Born May 31, 1819 near Huntington, Long Island, New York Second child (of 8) born to Walter and Louisa Van Velsor Whitman. Parents were Deists but with a Quaker background. Education was not formal, but he read widely, including the works of Sir Walter Scott, Shakespeare, Homer, and Dante Although the family moved to Brooklyn when Whitman was 4 and he lived there and in New York and Washington for much of his life, he often drew on Long Island and its seashore--calling the island Paumonok, the Native American name for the place--in poems such as “Out of the Cradle, Endlessly Rocking.”

3. Early Career… Whitman worked as printer’s apprentice (to 1835) and as a schoolteacher. Whitman also worked for several different newspapers In 1838-9, Whitman founds and publishes The Long Islander; and writes for the Long Island Democrat. 1842 Whitman works as an editor for New York City’s Aurora and publishes Franklin Evans: The inebriate At 27 he became the editor of the Brooklyn Eagle, a respected newspaper, but the paper fired in in 1848 because of his opposition to slavery Whitman then accepted a position on a paper in New Orleans and traveled across the country for the first time where he could observe the diversity of America’s landscapes and people

4. The Poet at Work… Whitman later returned to New York City, and in 1850 quit journalism to devote his energy to writing poetry. Whitman was praised by Ralph Waldo Emerson,who called Whitman “a new kind of American poet.” Whitman broke every poetic tradition of rhyme and meter to celebrate America and the common man. The first edition of Leaves of Grass was published in 1855 Critics attacked Whitman’s subject matter and abandonment of traditional poetic devices and forms However, Emerson responded with great enthusiasm, remarking that the collection was “the most extraordinary piece of wit and wisdom that America has yet contributed.”

5. Leaves of Grass… Despite publishing other works Leaves of Grass proved to be Whitman’s life’s work, which he continually revised, reshaped, and expanded until his death on March 26, 1892. Whitman viewed the volume as a single long poem that expressed his evolving vision of the world. Using his poetry to convey his passionate belief in democracy, equality, and the spiritual unity of all forms of life, he celebrated the potential of the human spirit. Though Whitman’s philosophy grew out of the ideas of the Transcendentalists, his poetry was mainly shaped by his ability to absorb and comprehend everything he observed. From its first appearance as twelve unsigned and untitled poems, Leaves of Grass grew to include 383 poems in its final, “death-bed” edition (1892).

6. His Legacy… In the preface to the 1855 edition of Leaves of Grass Whitman wrote: “The proof of a poet is that his country absorbs him as affectionately as he absorbed it.” Although Leaves of Grass was at first disliked by many, throughout the decades his poems gained popularity and he became famous as “the Good Gray Poet” and “the Bard of Democracy” In his later years, Whitman was admired by writers and intellectuals on both sides of the Atlantic. Today, he is widely recognized as one of the greatest and most influential poets the United States has ever produced.