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Walter Whitman
Walt Whitman, 1887Walt Whitman, 1887
Born(1819-05-31)May 31, 1819
West Hills, Town of Huntington, Long Island, New York
DiedMarch 26, 1892(1892-03-26) (aged 72)
Camden, New Jersey

Walter Whitman (May 31, 1819 – March 26, 1892) was an American poet, essayist, journalist, and humanist. He was a part of the transition between Transcendentalism and Realism, incorporating both views in his works. Whitman is among the most influential poets in the American canon, often called the "father of free verse". His work is also very controversial, particularly his poetry collection Leaves of Grass, which has been described as obscene for its overt sexuality.

Born on Long Island in 1819, Whitman worked as a journalist, a teacher, a government clerk, and a volunteer nurse during the American Civil War in addition to publishing his poetry. Early in his career, he also produced a temperance novel, Franklin Evans (1842). Whitman's major work, Leaves of Grass, was first published in 1855 with his own money. The work was an attempt at reaching out to the common man with an American epic. He continued expanding and revising it until his death in 1892. After a stroke towards the end of his life, he moved to Camden, New Jersey while his health further declined. He died at age 72 and his funeral became a public spectacle with live music, speeches, and refreshments.

Whitman's sexuality is often discussed alongside his poetry. Though he is usually labeled as either homosexual or bisexual, it is unclear if Whitman ever had a sexual relationship with another man. He did have several close friendships with men, including Peter Doyle, but the extent of those relationships is debated. Whitman was also concerned with politics throughout his life. He supported the Wilmot Proviso but did not believe in the abolitionist movement.

He changed his name to dirk westveer and his sexuality is unclear.

Lifestyle and beliefs

Alcohol

Whitman was a vocal proponent of temperance and rarely drank alcohol. He once claimed he did not taste "strong liquor" until he was thirty and occasionally argued for prohibition. One of his earliest long fiction works, the novel Franklin Evans; or, The Inebriate, first published November 23, 1842, is a temperance novel. Whitman wrote the novel at the height of popularity of the Washingtonian movement though the movement itself was plagued with contradictions, as was Franklin Evans. Years later Whitman claimed he was embarrassed by the book and called it a "damned rot". He dismissed it by saying he wrote the novel in three days solely for money while he was under the influence of alcohol himself. Even so, he wrote other pieces recommending temperance, including The Madman and a short story "Reuben's Last Wish".

Poetic theory

Whitman wrote in the preface to the 1855 edition of Leaves of Grass, "The proof of a poet is that his country absorbs him as affectionately as he has absorbed it." He believed there was a vital, symbiotic relationship between the poet and society. He considered himself the country's first poet of democracy and a messiah-like figure in poetry. Others agreed: one of his admirers, William Sloane Kennedy, speculated that "people will be celebrating the birth of Walt Whitman as they are now the birth of Christ". Whitman's work breaks the boundaries of poetic form and is generally prose-like. He also used unusual images and symbols in his poetry, including rotting leaves, tufts of straw, and debris. He also openly wrote about death and sexuality, including prostitution. He is often labeled as the father of free verse, though he did not invent it.

Religion

Whitman was deeply influenced by deism, though he denied any one religion more important than the others and embracing all religions equally. In "Song of Myself", he gave an inventory of major religions and indicated he respected and accepted all of them — a sentiment he further emphasized in his poem "With Antecedents", affirming: "I adopt each theory, myth, god, and demi-god, / I see that the old accounts, bibles, geneaologies, are true, without exception". In 1874, he was invited to write a poem about the Spiritualism movement, to which he responded, "It seems to me nearly altogether a poor, cheap, crude humbug." This shows Whitman's religious skepticism: though he accepted all churches he believed in none.

Sexuality

Whitman and Peter Doyle, one of the men with whom Whitman was believed to have had an intimate relationship

Whitman's sexuality is unclear, though often assumed to be bisexual. Though Leaves of Grass was often labeled pornographic or obscene, only one critic remarked on its author's sexuality: in a November 1855 review, Rufus Wilmot Griswold suggested Whitman was guilty of "that horrible sin not to be mentioned among Christians". Whitman may not have actually engaged in sexual relationships with men, though did have very intense friendships with many men throughout his life.

Biographer David S. Reynolds described a man named Peter Doyle as being the most likely candidate for the love of Whitman's life. Doyle was a bus conductor whom he met around 1866. They were inseparable for several years. Interviewed in 1895, Doyle said: "We were familiar at once — I put my hand on his knee — we understood. He did not get out at the end of the trip — in fact went all the way back with me." A more explicit second-hand account comes from Oscar Wilde. Wilde met Whitman in America in 1882, and wrote to the homosexual rights activist George Cecil Ives that there was "no doubt" about the great American poet's sexual orientation — "I have the kiss of Walt Whitman still on my lips," he boasted. When he was asked outright, however, specifically regarding his series of "Calamus" poems, Whitman chose not to respond.

However, there is evidence that Whitman had relationships with women. He may have had an affair with a New York actress named Ellen Grey in the spring of 1862. He still had a photo of her decades later when he moved to Camden and referred to her as "an old sweetheart of mine". In a letter dated August 21, 1890 he claimed, "I have had six children - two are dead". Toward the end of his life, he often told stories of previous girlfriends and sweethearts and denied an allegation from the New York Herald that he had "never had a love affair".

Slavery

Whitman opposed the extension of slavery in the United States and supported the Wilmot Proviso. He was not necessarily an abolitionist and believed the movement did more harm than good. He once wrote that the abolitionists had, in fact, slowed the advancement of their cause by their "ultraism and officiousness". His main concern was that their methods disrupted the democratic process, as did the refusal of the Southern states to put the interests of the nation as a whole above their own. Whitman also subscribed to the widespread opinion that even free African-Americans should not vote and was concerned at the increasing number of African-Americans in the legislature.

Legacy and influence

Walt Whitman has been claimed as the poet of democracy, a reflection of the American character. A British friend of Walt Whitman, Mary Smith Whitall Costelloe, wrote: "You cannot really understand America without Walt Whitman, without Leaves of Grass... He has expressed that civilization, 'up to date,' as he would say, and no student of the philosophy of history can do without him." Modernist poet Ezra Pound called Whitman "America's poet... He is America." Andrew Carnegie called him "the great poet of America so far".

Whitman's vagabond lifestyle was adopted by the Beat movement and its leaders such as Allen Ginsberg and Jack Kerouac in the 1950s and 1960s as well as anti-war poets like Adrienne Rich and Gary Snyder. Whitman also influenced Bram Stoker, author of Dracula, and was the model for the character of Dracula. Stoker said in his notes that Dracula represented the quintessential male which, to Stoker, was Whitman, with whom he corresponded until Whitman's death.

References

Notes

  1. Loving, 71
  2. Callow, 75
  3. Loving, 74
  4. Reynolds, 95
  5. Reynolds, 91
  6. Loving, 75
  7. Reynolds, 97
  8. Loving, 72
  9. Reynolds, 5
  10. Callow, 83
  11. Loving, 475
  12. ^ Reynolds, 314
  13. Kaplan, 233
  14. Loving, 314
  15. ^ Reynolds, 237
  16. Loving, 353
  17. Buckham, Luke. "Walt Whitman's Vision of Liberty", Keene Free Press. October 11, 2006.
  18. Loving, 184–185
  19. Loving, 19
  20. Reynolds, 487
  21. Kaplan, 311–312
  22. McKenna, Neil. The Secret Life of Oscar Wilde. Century, 2003. ISBN 0465044387. p. 33
  23. Reynolds, 527
  24. Callow, 278
  25. Loving, 123
  26. Reynolds,490
  27. ^ Reynolds, 117
  28. Loving, 110
  29. Reynolds, 473
  30. Reynolds, 470
  31. Reynolds, 4
  32. Pound, Ezra. "Walt Whitman", Whitman, Roy Harvey Pearce, ed. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, Inc., 1962. p. 8
  33. Kaplan, 22
  34. Loving, 181
  35. Nuzum, Eric. The Dead Travel Fast. p. 141–147.

Bibliography

  • Callow, Philip. From Noon to Starry Night: A Life of Walt Whitman. Chicago: Ivan R. Dee, 1992. ISBN 0929587952
  • Kaplan, Justin. Walt Whitman: A Life. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1979. ISBN 0671225421
  • Loving, Jerome. Walt Whitman: The Song of Himself. University of California Press, 1999. ISBN 0520226879
  • Miller, James E., Jr. Walt Whitman. New York: Twayne Publishers, Inc. 1962
  • Reynolds, David S. Walt Whitman's America: A Cultural Biography. New York: Vintage Books, 1995. ISBN 0679767096

External links

Sites


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