Walt Whitman

Walt Whitman (May 31, 1819 – March 26, 1892) was an American poet, essayist, journalist, and humanist born on Long Island, New York. His most famous work is the collection of poetry, Leaves of Grass. Today, Whitman is widely regarded as one of the greatest American poets.

Life

Whitman was born in a white farmhouse near present-day South Huntington, New York, on Long Island, New York, in 1819, the second of nine children. In 1823, the Whitman family moved to Brooklyn. Whitman attended school for only six years before starting work as a printer's apprentice. He was almost entirely self-educated, reading especially the works of Homer, Dante and Shakespeare.

Related Topics:
South Huntington, New York - Long Island - Brooklyn - School - Printer's - Homer - Dante - Shakespeare

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After a two year apprenticeship, Whitman moved to New York City and began work in various print shops. In 1835, he returned to Long Island as a country school teacher. Whitman also founded and edited a newspaper, the Long-Islander, in his hometown of Huntington in 1838 and 1839. Whitman continued teaching in Long Island until 1841, when he moved back to New York City to work as a printer and journalist. He also did some freelance writing for popular magazines and made political speeches. In 1840, he worked for Martin Van Buren's presidential campaign.

Related Topics:
Apprenticeship - New York City - 1835 - Newspaper - Huntington - 1838 - 1839 - 1841 - Journalist - Magazine - 1840 - Martin Van Buren

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Whitman's political speeches attracted the attention of the Tammany Society, which made him the editor of several newspapers, none of which enjoyed a long circulation. For two years he edited the influential Brooklyn Eagle, but a split in the Democratic party removed Whitman from this job for his support of the Free-Soil party. He failed in his attempt to found a Free Soil newspaper and began drifting between various other jobs. Between 1841 and 1859, Walt Whitman edited one newspaper in New Orleans (the Crescent), two in New York, and four newspapers in Long Island. While in New Orleans, Whitman witnessed the slave auctions that were a regular feature of the city at that time. At this point, Whitman began writing poetry, which took precedence over other activities.

Related Topics:
Tammany Society - Brooklyn Eagle - Democratic - Free-Soil party - 1841 - 1859

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The 1840s saw the first fruits of Whitman's long labor of words, with a number of short stories published, beginning in 1841, and one year later the temperance novel, "Franklin Evans," published in New York. However, one often-reprinted short story, "The Child's Champion," dating from 1842, is now recognized to be the most important of these early works. It established the theological foundation for Whitman's lifelong theme of the profoundly redemptive power of manly love.

Related Topics:
1840s - Temperance

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The first edition of Leaves of Grass was self-published at Whitman's expense in 1855, the same year Whitman's father passed away. At this point, the collection consisted of 12 long, untitled poems. Both public and critical response was muted. A year later, the second edition, including a personal letter of congratulations from Ralph Waldo Emerson that Emerson was surprised to see printed, was published. This edition contained an additional twenty poems. Emerson had been calling for a new American poetry; in Leaves of Grass, he found it.

Related Topics:
Ralph Waldo Emerson - Leaves of Grass

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During the American Civil War, Whitman cared for wounded soldiers in and around Washington, D.C. He often saw Abraham Lincoln in his travels around the city, and came to greatly admire the President. Whitman's poems "O Captain! My Captain!" (popularized in the 1989 movie Dead Poets Society) and "When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloomed" were influenced by his profound grief after Lincoln's assassination in 1865.

Related Topics:
American Civil War - Washington, D.C. - Abraham Lincoln - O Captain! My Captain! - 1989 - Dead Poets Society - When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloomed - 1865

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After the Civil War, Walt Whitman found a job as a clerk in the U.S. Department of the Interior. However, when James Harlan, Secretary of the Interior, discovered that Whitman was the author of the "offensive" Leaves of Grass, he fired Whitman immediately.

Related Topics:
Department of the Interior - James Harlan - Secretary of the Interior

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In 1877 he met a Canadian psychiatrist and author, Richard Maurice Bucke, who would become his personal physician, close friend and sanctioned literary executor.

Related Topics:
1877 - Richard Maurice Bucke

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By the 1881 seventh edition of Leaves, the collection of poetry was quite large. By this time Whitman was enjoying wider recognition and the edition sold a large number of copies, allowing Whitman to purchase a home in Camden, New Jersey.

Related Topics:
1881 - Camden, New Jersey

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Whitman died on March 26, 1892, and was buried in Camden's Harleigh Cemetery, in a simple tomb of his own design.

Related Topics:
March 26 - 1892 - Tomb

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A dedication to Whitman is carved on the side of a rock face at Bon Echo Provincial Park in Ontario, Canada. The inscription is the following excerpt from one of his poems.

Related Topics:
Bon Echo Provincial Park - Ontario - Canada

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:My foothold is tenon'd and mortis'd in granite;

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:I laugh at what you call dissolution;

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:And I know the amplitude of time.

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