Who is walt whitman

In Brooklyn, he continued to develop the unique style of poetry that later so astonished Ralph Waldo Emerson. In , Whitman took out a copyright on the first edition of Leaves of Grass , which consisted of twelve untitled poems and a preface.

He published the volume himself, and sent a copy to Emerson in July of Whitman released a second edition of the book in , containing thirty-two poems, a letter from Emerson praising the first edition, and a long open letter by Whitman in response. During his lifetime, Whitman continued to refine the volume, publishing several more editions of the book.

Noted Whitman scholar, M. He worked as a freelance journalist and visited the wounded at New York City—area hospitals. He then traveled to Washington, D. Overcome by the suffering of the many wounded in Washington, Whitman decided to stay and work in the hospitals; he ended up staying in the city for eleven years.

He took a job as a clerk for the Bureau of Indian Affairs within the Department of the Interior, which ended when the Secretary of the Interior, James Harlan, discovered that Whitman was the author of Leaves of Grass , which Harlan found offensive.

After Harlan fired him, he went on to work in the attorney general's office. In , Whitman suffered a stroke that left him partially paralyzed. He ended up staying with his brother until the publication of Leaves of Grass James R. Osgood , which brought him enough money to buy a home in Camden. In the simple two-story clapboard house, Whitman spent his declining years working on additions and revisions to his deathbed edition of Leaves of Grass David McKay, —92 and preparing his final volume of poems and prose, Good-Bye My Fancy David McKay, The book is a poetic summary of Whitman and his fellow Americans; true American poetry without any European inspiration.

Between and it went through six editions and nine successive printings during his lifetime. In each edition Whitman made alterations or deletions, but the book grew apace with the nation. At the beginning of the American Civil War, upon learning that his brother George Washington Whitman had been wounded, Walt left Brooklyn to search for him among the field hospitals of Fredericksburg, Virginia. Shocked by the plight of the wounded, he changed his residence to Washington D.

This allowed him, over the course of the war, to make over visits to the military hospitals around the capital to comfort and care for the wounded as a volunteer nurse. He was no longer a just poet from New York or Long Island; he now belonged to and spoke for the nation.

Walt spent the remainder of his life in Camden, New Jersey. The seventh printing of Leaves of Grass sold well and allowed him to purchase a house on Mickle Street. Walt filled his time with travel, revising Leaves of Grass , overseeing new prose and poetry with the help of friends such as Horace Traubel. When he was 17, Whitman turned to teaching, working as an educator for five years in various parts of Long Island.

Whitman generally loathed the work, especially considering the rough circumstances he was forced to teach under, and by , he set his sights on journalism. In , he had started a weekly called the Long Islander that quickly folded though the publication would eventually be reborn and later returned to New York City, where he worked on fiction and continued his newspaper career. In , he became editor of the Brooklyn Daily Eagle , a prominent newspaper, serving in that capacity for almost two years.

Whitman proved to be a volatile journalist, with a sharp pen and a set of opinions that didn't always align with his bosses or his readers. He backed what some considered radical positions on women's property rights, immigration and labor issues. He lambasted the infatuation he saw among his fellow New Yorkers with certain European ways and wasn't afraid to go after the editors of other newspapers.

Not surprisingly, his job tenure was often short and had a tarnished reputation with several different newspapers. It was a relatively short stay for Whitman—just three months—but it was where he saw for the first time the wickedness of slavery. Whitman returned to Brooklyn in the autumn of and started a new "free soil" newspaper called the Brooklyn Freeman , which eventually became a daily despite initial challenges. Over the ensuing years, as the nation's temperature over the slavery question continued to rise, Whitman's own anger over the issue elevated as well.

He often worried about the impact of slavery on the future of the country and its democracy. It was during this time that he turned to a simple 3. In the spring of , Whitman, finally finding the style and voice he'd been searching for, self-published a slim collection of 12 unnamed poems with a preface titled Leaves of Grass. Whitman could only afford to print copies of the book. Leaves of Grass marked a radical departure from established poetic norms.

Tradition was discarded in favor of a voice that came at the reader directly, in the first person, in lines that didn't rely on rigid meter and instead exhibited an openness to playing with form while approaching prose. On the book's cover was an iconic image of the bearded poet himself. Leaves of Grass received little attention at first, though it did catch the eye of fellow poet Ralph Waldo Emerson , who wrote Whitman to praise the collection as "the most extraordinary piece of wit and wisdom" to come from an American pen.

The following year, Whitman published a revised edition of Leaves of Grass that featured 32 poems, including a new piece, "Sun-Down Poem" later renamed "Crossing Brooklyn Ferry" , as well as Emerson's letter to Whitman and the poet's long response to him.

Whitman, now living at home and truly the man of the homestead his father passed away in resided in the attic of the family house. Place of Birth:. Date of Birth:. Place of Death:. Date of Death:.