Read complete books and articles on: Leaves of Grass

Whitman, Walt - (Walter Whitman), 1819–92, American poet, b. West Hills, N.Y. Considered by many to be the greatest of all American poets, Walt Whitman celebrated the freedom and dignity of the individual and sang the praises of democracy and the brotherhood of man. His Leaves of Grass, unconventional in both content and technique, is probably the most influential volume of poems in the

Early Life

Whitman left school in 1830, worked as a printer's devil and later as a compositor. In 1838–39 he taught school on Long Island and edited the Long Islander newspaper. By 1841 he had become a full-time journalist, editing successively several papers and writing prose and verse for New York and Brooklyn journals. His active interest in politics during this period led to the editorship of the Brooklyn Daily Eagle, a Democratic party paper; he lost this job, however, because of his vehement advocacy of abolition and the "free-soil" movement. After a brief trip to New Orleans in 1848, Whitman returned to Brooklyn, continued as a journalist, and later worked as a carpenter.

Leaves of Grass

In 1855 Whitman published at his own expense a volume of 12 poems, Leaves of Grass, which he had begun working on probably as early as 1847. Prefaced by a statement of his theories of poetry, the volume included the poem later known as "Song of Myself," in which the author proclaims himself the symbolic representative of common people. Although the book was a commercial failure, critical reviewers recognized the appearance of a bold new voice in poetry. Two larger editions appeared in 1856 and 1860, and they had equally little public success.

Leaves of Grass was criticized because of Whitman's exaltation of the body and sexual love and also because of its innovation in verse form—that it, the use of free verse in long rhythmical lines with a natural, "organic" structure. Emerson was one of the few intellectuals to praise Whitman's work, writing him a famous congratulatory letter. Whitman continued to enlarge and revise further editions of Leaves of Grass; the last edition prepared under his supervision appeared in 1892.

Later Life and Works

From 1862 to 1865 Whitman worked as a volunteer hospital nurse in Washington. His poetry of the Civil War, Drum-Taps (1865), reissued with Sequel to Drum Taps (1865–66), included his two poems about Abraham Lincoln, "When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom'd," considered one of the finest elegies in the English language, and the much-recited "O Captain! My Captain!" For a while Whitman served as a clerk in the Dept. of the Interior, but he was discharged because Leaves of Grass was considered an immoral book.

In 1873 Whitman suffered a paralytic stroke and afterward lived in a semi-invalid state. His prose collection Democratic Vistas had appeared in 1871, and his last long poem, "Passage to India," was published in the 1871 edition of Leaves of Grass. From 1884 until his death he lived in Camden, N.J., where he continued to write and to revise his earlier work. His last book, November Boughs, appeared in 1888.

Assessment

Whitman was a complex person. He saw himself as the full-blooded, rough-and-ready spokesman for a young democracy, and he cultivated a bearded, shaggy appearance. Indeed, Whitman's early biographers John Burroughs and R. M. Bucke were so affected by the robust "I" of Whitman's poems and by the poet himself that they depicted him as a rowdy, sensual man, a great lover of women, and the father of several illegitimate children. Most of this was false. In reality Whitman was a quiet, gentle, circumspect man, robust in youth but sickly in middle age, who sired no children and is generally acknowledged to have been homosexual. Whitman had an incalculable effect on later poets, inspiring them to experiment in prosody as well as in subject matter.

Bibliography

See T. L. Brasher, ed., Early Poems and Fiction (1963) and H. W. Blodgett and S. Bradley, ed., Leaves of Grass (1965); his published prose, ed. by F. Stovall (2 vol., 1963–64); his uncollected prose, ed. by E. F. Grier et al. (6 vol., 1984); his daybooks and notebooks, ed. by W. White (3 vol., 1978); Collected Poetry and Prose (1982); his correspondence, ed. by E. H. Miller (6 vol., 1961–77); G. W. Allen, New Walt Whitman Handbook (1986); biographies by G. W. Allen (1955, rev. ed. 1969), J. Kaplan (1986), and J. Loving (1999); P. Zweig, Walt Whitman: The Making of a Poet (1984); D. S. Reynolds, Walt Whitman's America (1995).

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11 of the Best Books and Articles on: Leaves of Grass

as selected by Questia librarians

1.

Leaves of Grass » Read Now
by Walt Whitman. 318 pgs.

Collections: Literature, Entire Library

This personalized group of poems arranged autobiographically has influenced generations of American poets.
2.

Whitman, Slavery and the Emergence of Leaves of Grass » Read Now
by Martin Klammer. 182 pgs.

Collections: Literature, Entire Library
3.

Walt Whitman: Here and Now (Chap. 15 "Whitman's Democratic Vista in the First Leaves of Grass") » Read Now
by Joann P. Krieg. 250 pgs.

Collections: Literature, Entire Library

...frontispiece of the first edition of Leaves of Grass in 1855. WALT WHITMAN Here...indicated, all quotations from Leaves of Grass are reprinted by permission of...University...
4.

Whitman and His Doubles: Division and Union in Leaves of Grass and Its Critics, in American Literary History » Read Now
by Mark Maslan. 21 pgs.

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...Doubles: Division and Union in Leaves of Grass and Its Critics Mark Maslan...Revision and Corporeality in Leaves of Grass By Michael Moon Harvard University...point. When...
5.

Whitman as Furtive Mother: The Supplementary Jouissance of the "Ambushed Womb" in "Song of Myself," in Texas Studies in Literature and Language » Read Now
by Daneen Wardrop. 16 pgs.

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...That is how I felt in writing Leaves of Grass . (Kaplan, 18) This response...language experiment" (as he called Leaves of Grass ) dependent upon the figuration...mode...
6.

Walt Whitman ("Leaves of Grass, 1855-89" The Growth of a Book and a Poet" begins on p. 77) » Read Now
by Evie Allison Allen, Frederik Schyberg. 392 pgs.

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7.

A Historical Guide to Walt Whitman ("The Political Roots of Leaves of Grass" begins on p. 97) » Read Now
by David S. Reynolds. 280 pgs.

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Few authors are so well suited to historical study as Whitman, who is widely considered America's greatest poet. This Guide combines contemporary cultural studies and historical scholarship to illuminate Whitman's diverse contexts. The essays explore dimensions of Whitman's dynamic relationship to...
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Few authors are so well suited to historical study as Whitman, who is widely considered America's greatest poet. This Guide combines contemporary cultural studies and historical scholarship to illuminate Whitman's diverse contexts. The essays explore dimensions of Whitman's dynamic relationship to working-class politics, race and slavery, sexual mores, the visual arts, and the idea of democracy. The poet who emerges from this volume is no "solitary singer," distanced from his culture, but what he himself called "the age transfigured," fully enmeshed in his times and addressing issues that are still vital today.
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8.

On Whitman ("'Chants Democratic and Native American': A Neglected Sequence in the Growth of Leaves of Grass" begins on p. 145, and "The Last Eleven Poems in the 1855 Leaves of Grass" begins on p. 261) » Read Now
by Edwin H. Cady, Louis J. Budd. 300 pgs.

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...Neglected Sequence in the Growth of Leaves of Grass 1970 Robin P. Hoople 145...Last Eleven Poems in the 1855 Leaves of Grass 1982 Ivan Marki 261...development, as it is...
9.

The Cast of Consciousness: Concepts of the Mind in British and American Romanticism ("Recasting Leaves of Grass: Whitman's Moral Vocabulary in the Early and Late Poems" begins on p. 173) » Read Now
by Beverly Taylor, Robert Bain, M. H. Abrams. 249 pgs.

Collections: Literature, Psychology, Entire Library

The contributors to this volume represent acknowledged experts in the field as well as a number of promising young scholars. They provide a thorough examination of how Romantic authors grappled with the problem of describing the connections between consciousness, unconsciousness, and language in...
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The contributors to this volume represent acknowledged experts in the field as well as a number of promising young scholars. They provide a thorough examination of how Romantic authors grappled with the problem of describing the connections between consciousness, unconsciousness, and language in their endeavor to capture this interplay in their art.
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10.

The Erotic Whitman (Chap. Four "Faith in Sex: Leaves of Grass in 1855-56") » Read Now
by Vivian R. Pollak. 261 pgs.

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In this provocative analysis of Whitman's exemplary quest for happiness, Vivian Pollak skillfully explores the intimate relationships that contributed to his portrayal of masculinity in crisis. She maintains that in representing himself as a characteristic nineteenth-century American and in...
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In this provocative analysis of Whitman's exemplary quest for happiness, Vivian Pollak skillfully explores the intimate relationships that contributed to his portrayal of masculinity in crisis. She maintains that in representing himself as a characteristic nineteenth-century American and in proposing to heal national ills, Whitman was trying to temper his own inner conflicts as well.
The poet's expansive vision of natural eroticism and of unfettered comradeship between democratic equals was, however, only part of the story. As Whitman waged a conscious campaign to challenge misogynistic and homophobic literary codes, he promoted a raceless, classless ideal of sexual democracy that theoretically equalized all varieties of desire and resisted none. Pollak suggests that this goal remains imperfectly achieved in his writings, which liberates some forbidden voices and silences others.
Integrating biography and criticism, Pollak employs a loosely chronological organization to describe the poet's multifaceted "faith in sex." Drawing on his early fiction, journalism, poetry, and self-reviews, as well as letters and notebook entries, she shows how in spite of his personal ambivalence about sustained erotic intimacy, Whitman came to imagine himself as "the phallic choice of America."
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11.

The Neglected Walt Whitman: Vital Texts ("Fallen Leaves I: Poems Dropped from Leaves of Grass" begins on p. 57, and "Fallen Leaves II: Passages Dropped from Leaves of Grass" begins on p. 101) » Read Now
by Walt Whitman, Sam Abrams. 200 pgs.

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...major revision. POEMS DROPPED FROM LEAVES OF GRASS 57 Respondez...PASSAGES DROPPED FROM LEAVES OF GRASS 101 from Poets...immortal persona he created in Leaves of Grass...