Search more than 3, biographies of contemporary and classic poets. In the s and s, the family, which consisted of nine children, lived in Long Island and Brooklyn, where Whitman attended the Brooklyn public schools. Largely self-taught, he read voraciously, becoming acquainted with the works of Homer , Dante , Shakespeare , and the Bible.
Whitman worked as a printer in New York City until a devastating fire in the printing district demolished the industry. In , at the age of seventeen, he began his career as teacher in the one-room schoolhouses of Long Island. He continued to teach until , when he turned to journalism as a full-time career. 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. O Life! Oh me! Oh life! Come, my tan-faced children, Follow well in order, get your weapons ready; Have you your pistols?
O pioneers! Another tribute to America as a self-made country and to the pioneering spirit of its people, and a nice counterbalance to the more personal and individual poems on this list.
The author of this article, Dr Oliver Tearle, is a literary critic and lecturer in English at Loughborough University. Pingback: Podcast Ideas and Outline — Natural thoughts. Reblogged this on creativebentofmind and commented: Reblogged on creativebentofmind. Enter your email address to subscribe to this site and receive notifications of new posts by email.
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Like this: Like Loading Neha Kundapur June 20, at am. 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. By this point, Whitman's family was marked by dysfunction, inspiring a fervent need to escape home life. His heavy-drinking older brother Jesse would eventually be committed to Kings County Lunatic Asylum in , while his brother Andrew was also an alcoholic. His sister Hannah was emotionally unwell and Whitman himself had to share his bed with his mentally handicapped brother.
Alcott described Whitman' as ''Bacchus-browed, bearded like a satyr, and rank" while his voice was heard as "deep, sharp, tender sometimes and almost melting. Like its earlier edition, this second version of Leaves of Grass failed to gain much commercial traction.
In , a Boston publisher issued a third edition of Leaves of Grass. The revised book held some promise, and also was noted for a sensual grouping of poems—the "Children of Adam" series, which explored female-male eroticism, and the "Calamus" series, which explored intimacy between men. But the start of the Civil War drove the publishing company out of business, furthering Whitman's financial struggles as a pirated copy of Leaves came to be available for some time.
In later , Whitman traveled to Fredericksburg to search for his brother George, who fought for the Union and was being treated there for a wound he suffered. Whitman moved to Washington, D.
This volunteer work proved to be both life-changing and exhausting. By his own rough estimates, Whitman made hospital visits and saw anywhere from 80, to , patients. The work took a toll physically, but also propelled him to return to poetry. In , he published a new collection called Drum-Taps , which represented a more solemn realization of what the Civil War meant for those in the thick of it as seen with poems like "Beat!
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