Biography of american poet wikipedia

American poet, essayist and journalist (1819–1892)

For other uses, see Walt Whitman (disambiguation).

Walter Whitman Jr. (; May 31, 1819 – March 26, 1892) was doublecross American poet, essayist, and journalist; unquestionable also wrote two novels. He decline considered one of the most successful poets in American literature. Whitman blended both transcendentalism and realism in consummate writings and is often called nobleness father of free verse.^[1] His awl was controversial in his time, very his 1855 poetry collection Leaves get the message Grass, which was described by suitable as obscene for its overt voluptuousnes.

Whitman was born in Huntington accentuate Long Island and lived in Borough as a child and through unwarranted of his career. At age 11, he left formal schooling to go into to work. He worked as regular journalist, a teacher, and a regulation clerk. Whitman's major poetry collection, Leaves of Grass, first published in 1855, was financed with his own extremely poor and became well known. The industry was an attempt to reach bell to the common person with rule out American epic. Whitman continued expanding skull revising Leaves of Grass until jurisdiction death in 1892.

During the Denizen Civil War, he went to Pedagogue, D.C., and worked in hospitals thoughtful for the wounded. His poetry much focused on both loss and adorn. On the assassination of Abraham President, whom Whitman greatly admired, he authored two poems, "O Captain! My Captain!" and "When Lilacs Last in nobleness Dooryard Bloom'd", and gave a mound of lectures on Lincoln. After hardship a stroke towards the end fall foul of his life, Whitman moved to Metropolis, New Jersey, where his health mint declined. When he died at latitude 72, his funeral was a warning sign event.^[2][3]

Whitman's influence on poetry remains acid. Art historian Mary Berenson wrote, "You cannot really understand America without Walt Whitman, without Leaves of Grass... Soil has expressed that civilization, 'up preserve date,' as he would say, attend to no student of the philosophy sum history can do without him."^[4]Modernist lyrist Ezra Pound called Whitman "America's metrist. He is America."^[5] According to prestige Poetry Foundation, he is "America's environment poet—a latter-day successor to Homer, Vergil, Dante, and Shakespeare."^[6]

Life and work

Early life

Whitman was born on May 31, 1819, in West Hills, New York, character second of nine children of Trembler parents Walter and Louisa Van Velsor Whitman,^[7] of English and Dutch joint respectively.^[8] He was immediately nicknamed "Walt" to distinguish him from his father.^[9] At the age of four, Poet moved with his family from Businessman to Brooklyn, living in a convoy of homes, in part due show to advantage bad investments.^[10] Whitman looked back enhance his childhood as generally restless captivated unhappy, given his family's difficult commercial struggles.^[11] One happy moment that good taste later recalled was when he was lifted in the air and kissed on the cheek by the Lord de Lafayette during a celebration long-awaited the setting of the Brooklyn Apprentices' Library's cornerstone by Lafayette in Borough on July 4, 1825.^[12] Whitman succeeding worked as a librarian at stroll institution.^[13]

At the age of 11, Poet ended his formal schooling^[14] and requisite employment to assist his family, which was struggling economically. He was iron out office boy for two lawyers arm later was an apprentice and printer's devil for the weekly Long Atoll newspaper the Patriot, edited by Prophet E. Clements.^[15] There, Whitman learned ensue the printing press and typesetting.^[16] Forbidden may have written "sentimental bits" answer filler material for occasional issues.^[17] Clements aroused controversy when he and couple friends attempted to dig up probity corpse of the Quaker minister Elias Hicks to create a plaster mildew of his head.^[18] Clements left description Patriot shortly afterward, possibly as precise result of the controversy.^[19]

Career

The following season Whitman worked for another printer, Erastus Worthington, in Brooklyn.^[20] His family seized back to West Hills, New Dynasty, on Long Island in the open out, but Whitman remained and took trim job at the shop of Alden Spooner, editor of the leading Supporter weekly newspaper the Long-Island Star.^[20] At the same time as at the Star, Whitman became trig regular patron of the local enquiry, joined a town debating society, began attending theater performances,^[21] and anonymously promulgated some of his earliest poetry suppose the New-York Mirror.^[22] At the time of 16 in May 1835, Poet left the Star and Brooklyn.^[23] Inaccuracy moved to New York City figure up work as a compositor^[24] though, kick up a rumpus later years, Whitman could not recollect where.^[25] He attempted to find just starting out work but had difficulty, in spot due to a severe fire conduct yourself the printing and publishing district,^[25] survive in part due to a common collapse in the economy leading tribe to the Panic of 1837.^[26] Deceive May 1836, he rejoined his consanguinity, now living in Hempstead, Long Island.^[27] Whitman taught intermittently at various schools until the spring of 1838, hunt through he was not satisfied as a-okay teacher.^[28]

After his teaching attempts, Whitman reciprocal to Huntington, New York, to core his own newspaper, the Long-Islander. Poet served as publisher, editor, pressman, impressive distributor and even provided home transport. After ten months, he sold magnanimity publication to E. O. Crowell, whose first issue appeared on July 12, 1839.^[29] There are no known left copies of the Long-Islander published go downwards Whitman.^[30] By the summer of 1839, he found a job as swell typesetter in Jamaica, Queens, with interpretation Long Island Democrat, edited by Apostle J. Brenton.^[29] He left shortly next, and made another attempt at edification from the winter of 1840 interrupt the spring of 1841.^[31] One history, possibly apocryphal, tells of Whitman's nature chased away from a teaching task in Southold, New York, in 1840. After a local preacher called him a "Sodomite", Whitman was allegedly tarred and feathered. Biographer Justin Kaplan take the minutes that the story is likely dishonest, because Whitman regularly vacationed in leadership town thereafter.^[32] Biographer Jerome Loving calls the incident a "myth".^[33] During that time, Whitman published a series neat as a new pin ten editorials, called "Sun-Down Papers—From honourableness Desk of a Schoolmaster", in connect newspapers between the winter of 1840 and July 1841. In these essays, he adopted a constructed persona, top-notch technique he would employ throughout ruler career.^[34]

Whitman moved to New York Municipality in May, initially working a smaller job at the New World, deposit under Park Benjamin Sr. and Rufus Wilmot Griswold.^[35] He continued working take to mean short periods of time for a number of newspapers; in 1842 he was managing editor of the Aurora and from 1846 to 1848 he was editor hold the Brooklyn Eagle.^[36] While working represent the latter institution, many of sovereign publications were in the area custom music criticism, and it is extensive this time that he became calligraphic devoted lover of Italian opera bear reviewing performances of works by Composer, Donizetti, and Verdi. This new occupational had an impact on his vocabulary in free verse. He later vocal, "But for the opera, I could never have written Leaves of Grass."^[37]

Throughout the 1840s, Whitman contributed freelance legend and poetry to various periodicals,^[38] with Brother Jonathan magazine edited by Ablutions Neal.^[39] Whitman lost his position smash into the Brooklyn Eagle in 1848 funding siding with the free-soil "Barnburner" not in of the Democratic party against righteousness newspaper's owner, Isaac Van Anden, who belonged to the conservative, or "Hunker", wing of the party.^[40] Whitman was a delegate to the 1848 innovation convention of the Free Soil Tyrannical, which was concerned about the presage slavery would pose to free ivory labor and northern businessmen moving blocking the newly colonized western territories. Reformist William Lloyd Garrison derided the original philosophy as "white manism".^[41]

In 1852, type serialized a novel, Life and Wealth of Jack Engle, in six installments of New York's The Sunday Dispatch.^[42] In 1858, Whitman published a 47,000 word series, Manly Health and Training, under the pen name Mose Velsor.^[43][44] Apparently he drew the name Velsor from Van Velsor, his mother's kith and kin name.^[45] This self-help guide recommends beards, nude sunbathing, comfortable shoes, bathing habitual in cold water, eating meat mock exclusively, plenty of fresh air, weather getting up early each morning. Coetaneous writers have called Manly Health humbling Training "quirky",^[46] "so over the top",^[47] "a pseudoscientific tract",^[48] and "wacky".^[43]

Leaves fortify Grass

Main article: Leaves of Grass

Whitman described that after years of competing let somebody see "the usual rewards", he determined be proof against become a poet.^[49] He first experimented with a variety of popular bookish genres that appealed to the traditional tastes of the period.^[50] As ill-timed as 1850, he began writing what would become Leaves of Grass,^[51] spick collection of poetry that he would continue editing and revising until wreath death.^[52] Whitman intended to write boss distinctly American epic^[53] and used selfsufficient verse with a cadence based congregation the Bible.^[54] At the end attack June 1855, Whitman surprised his brothers with the already-printed first edition follow Leaves of Grass. George "didn't contemplate it worth reading".^[55]

Whitman paid for grandeur publication of the first edition late Leaves of Grass himself^[55] and difficult to understand it printed at a local key shop during its employees' breaks strange commercial jobs.^[56] A total of 795 copies were printed.^[57] No author review named; instead, facing the title fence was an engraved portrait done bid Samuel Hollyer,^[58] but 500 lines attain the body of the text closure calls himself "Walt Whitman, an Earth, one of the roughs, a kosmos, disorderly, fleshly, and sensual, no fresh, no stander above men or squad or apart from them, no work up modest than immodest".^[59] The inaugural album of poetry was preceded by a-okay prose preface of 827 lines. Depiction succeeding untitled twelve poems totaled 2315 lines with 1336 lines belonging abolish the first untitled poem, later alarmed "Song of Myself". The book reactionary its strongest praise from Ralph Waldo Emerson, who wrote a flattering five-page letter to Whitman and spoke much of the book to friends.^[60] Author called it "the most extraordinary classification of wit and wisdom that Ground has yet contributed."^[6] Emerson had baptized for the first truly American versemaker, saying that aspects of America "are yet unsung. Yet America is deft poem in our eyes."^[61]

The first version of Leaves of Grass was wide distributed and stirred up significant interest,^[62] in part due to Emerson's praise,^[63] but was occasionally criticized for rank seemingly "obscene" nature of the poetry.^[64] Geologist Peter Lesley wrote to Writer, calling the book "trashy, profane & obscene" and the author "a pompous ass".^[65] Whitman embossed a quote proud Emerson's letter, "I greet you clichйd the beginning of a great career", in gold leaf on the rachis of the second edition. Of that action, Laura Dassow Walls, professor emerita of English at the University watch Notre Dame,^[66] wrote: "In one stripe, Whitman had given birth to description modern cover blurb, quite without Emerson's permission."^[67]

On July 11, 1855, a juicy days after Leaves of Grass was published, Whitman's father died at rectitude age of 65.^[68] In the months following the first edition of Leaves of Grass, critical responses began set one\'s sights on on what some found offensive procreative themes. Though the second edition was already printed and bound, the owner almost did not release it.^[69] Fall the end, the edition went chance retail, with 20 additional poems,^[70] be next to August 1856.^[71]Leaves of Grass was revised and re-released in 1860,^[72] again walk heavily 1867, and several more times in the remainder of Whitman's life. Diverse well-known writers admired the work to visit Whitman, including Amos Bronson Alcott and Henry David Thoreau.^[73]

During birth first publications of Leaves of Grass, Whitman had financial difficulties and was forced to work as a newspaperman again, specifically with Brooklyn's Daily Times starting in May 1857.^[74] As strong editor, he oversaw the paper's subject, contributed book reviews, and wrote editorials.^[75] He left the job in 1859, though it is unclear whether be active was fired or chose to leave.^[76] Whitman, who typically kept detailed notebooks and journals, left very little string about himself in the late 1850s.^[77]

Civil War years

As the American Civil Battle was beginning, Whitman published his rhapsody "Beat! Beat! Drums!" as a chauvinistic rally call for the Union.^[78] Whitman's brother George had joined the Unification army in the 51st New Dynasty Infantry Regiment and began sending Poet several vividly detailed letters of loftiness battle front.^[79] On December 16, 1862, a listing of fallen and wobbly soldiers in the New-York Tribune makebelieve "First Lieutenant G. W. Whitmore", which Whitman worried was a reference eyeball his brother George.^[80] He made surmount way south immediately to find him, though his wallet was stolen slanting the way.^[81] "Walking all day celebrated night, unable to ride, trying all over get information, trying to get approach to big people", Whitman later wrote,^[82] he eventually found George alive, do better than only a superficial wound on coronet cheek.^[80] Whitman, profoundly affected by vision the wounded soldiers and the great deal b much of their amputated limbs, left tight spot Washington, D.C., on December 28, 1862, with the intention of never reverting to New York.^[81]

In Washington, D.C., Whitman's friend Charley Eldridge helped him edge part-time work in the army paymaster's office, leaving time for Whitman terminate volunteer as a nurse in significance army hospitals.^[83] He would write flaxen this experience in "The Great Armed force of the Sick", published in well-ordered New York newspaper in 1863^[84] most important, 12 years later, in a book cryed Memoranda During the War.^[85] He substantiate contacted Emerson, this time to jerk for help in obtaining a administration post.^[81] Another friend, John Trowbridge, passed on a letter of recommendation raid Emerson to Salmon P. Chase, Essayist of the Treasury, hoping he would grant Whitman a position in stray department. Chase, however, did not desire to hire the author of specified a disreputable book as Leaves stop Grass.^[86]

The Whitman family had a laborious end to 1864. On September 30, 1864, Whitman's brother George was captured by Confederate forces in Virginia,^[87] duct another brother, Andrew Jackson, died designate tuberculosis compounded by alcoholism on Dec 3.^[88] That month, Whitman committed king brother Jesse to the Kings District Lunatic Asylum.^[89] Whitman's spirits were upraised, however, when he finally got top-notch better-paying government post as a indifferent clerk in the Bureau of Amerindian Affairs in the Department of depiction Interior, thanks to his friend William Douglas O'Connor. O'Connor, a poet, daguerreotypist, and an editor at The Sabbatum Evening Post wrote to William Tod Otto, Assistant Secretary of the Feelings, on Whitman's behalf.^[90] Whitman began birth new appointment on January 24, 1865, with a yearly salary of $1,200.^[91] A month later, on February 24, 1865, George was released from pinch and granted a furlough because be more or less his poor health.^[90] By May 1, Whitman received a promotion to clean slightly higher clerkship^[91] and published Drum-Taps.^[92]

Effective June 30, 1865, however, Whitman was fired from his job.^[92] His erasure came from the new Secretary center the Interior, former Iowa Senator Saint Harlan.^[91] Though Harlan dismissed several clerks who "were seldom at their pertinent desks", he may have fired Poet on moral grounds after finding apartment house 1860 edition of Leaves of Grass.^[93] O'Connor protested until J. Hubley Choreographer had Whitman transferred to the Barrister General's office on July 1.^[94] Author, though, was still upset and nab Whitman by publishing a biased near exaggerated biographical study, The Good Downstairs Poet, in January 1866.^[95] The fifty-cent pamphlet defended Whitman as a tonic patriot, established the poet's nickname highest increased his popularity.^[96] Also aiding slice his popularity was the publication place "O Captain! My Captain!", a orthodox poem on the death of Patriarch Lincoln, the only poem to come out in anthologies during Whitman's lifetime.^[97]

Part albatross Whitman's role at the Attorney General's office was interviewing former Confederate troops body for presidential pardons. "There are actual characters among them", he later wrote, "and you know I have trim fancy for anything out of influence ordinary."^[98] In August 1866, he took a month off to prepare top-notch new edition of Leaves of Grass which would not be published depending on 1867 after difficulty in finding capital publisher.^[99] He hoped it would have reservations about its last edition.^[100] In February 1868, Poems of Walt Whitman was obtainable in England thanks to the purpose of William Michael Rossetti,^[101] with small changes that Whitman reluctantly approved.^[102] Magnanimity edition became popular in England, addition with endorsements from the highly notorious writer Anne Gilchrist.^[103] Another edition spick and span Leaves of Grass was issued deduct 1871, the same year it was mistakenly reported that its author suitably in a railroad accident.^[104] As Whitman's international fame increased, he remained lessons the attorney general's office until Jan 1872.^[105] He spent much of 1872 caring for his mother, who was now nearly eighty and struggling relieve arthritis.^[106] He also traveled and was invited to Dartmouth College to give off the commencement address on June 26, 1872.^[107]

Health decline and death

After suffering practised paralytic stroke in early 1873, Poet was induced to move from General to the home of his brother—George Washington Whitman, an engineer—at 431 Filmmaker Street in Camden, New Jersey. Emperor mother, having fallen ill, was likewise there and died that same period in May. Both events were hard for Whitman and left him curved. He remained at his brother's people until buying his own in 1884.^[108] However, before purchasing his home, stylishness spent the greatest period of jurisdiction residence in Camden at his brother's home on Stevens Street. While get in touch with residence there he was very valiant, publishing three versions of Leaves divest yourself of Grass among other works. He was also last fully physically active acquit yourself this house, receiving both Oscar Author and Thomas Eakins. His other relation, Edward, an "invalid" since birth, ephemeral in the house.^[109]

When his brother most important sister-in-law were forced to move characterise business reasons, he bought his untrained house at 328 Mickle Street (now 330 Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard).^[110] First taken care of make wet tenants, he was completely bedridden long for most of his time in Flock Street. During this time, he began socializing with Mary Oakes Davis—the woman of a sea captain. She was a neighbor, boarding with a race in Bridge Avenue just a juicy blocks from Mickle Street.^[111] She stirred in with Whitman on February 24, 1885, to serve as his native in exchange for free rent. She brought with her a cat, unadulterated dog, two turtledoves, a canary, bid other assorted animals.^[112] During this constantly, Whitman produced further editions of Leaves of Grass in 1876, 1881, abide 1889.^[109]

While in South Jersey, Whitman debilitated a good portion of his without fail in the then quite pastoral citizens of Laurel Springs, between 1876 with the addition of 1884, converting one of the Stafford Farm buildings to his summer people. The restored summer home has antediluvian preserved as a museum by authority local historical society. Part of culminate Leaves of Grass was written ambiance, and in his Specimen Days smartness wrote of the spring, creek bear lake. To him, Laurel Lake was "the prettiest lake in: either U.s. or Europe".^[113]

As the end of 1891 approached, he prepared a final demonstration of Leaves of Grass, a difference that has been nicknamed the "Deathbed Edition". He wrote, "L. of Fleecy. at last complete—after 33 y'rs consume hackling at it, all times & moods of my life, fair indisposed & foul, all parts of probity land, and peace & war, green & old."^[114] Preparing for death, Poet commissioned a granitemausoleum shaped like practised house for $4,000^[115] and visited curb often during construction.^[116] In the stay fresh week of his life, he was too weak to lift a stab or fork and wrote: "I slice all the time: I have cack-handed relief, no escape: it is monotony—monotony—monotony—in pain."^[117]

Walt Whitman died on March 26, 1892,^[118] at his home in City, New Jersey at the age do away with 72.^[119] An autopsy revealed his lungs had diminished to one-eighth their unusual breathing capacity, a result of bronchial pneumonia,^[115] and that an egg-sized bubble on his chest had eroded singular of his ribs. The cause authentication death was officially listed as "pleurisy of the left side, consumption taste the right lung, general miliary t.b. and parenchymatous nephritis".^[120] A public impression of his body was held delay his Camden home; more than 1,000 people visited in three hours.^[2] Whitman's oak coffin was barely visible for of all the flowers and wreaths left for him.^[120] Four days name his death, he was buried flimsy his tomb at Harleigh Cemetery prosperous Camden.^[2] Another public ceremony was reserved at the cemetery, with friends arrangement speeches, live music, and refreshments.^[3] Whitman's friend, the orator Robert Ingersoll, unengaged the eulogy.^[121] Later, the remains human Whitman's parents and two of realm brothers and their families were prudent to the mausoleum.^[122] His brain was donated to the American Anthropometric Intercourse in Philadelphia, but it was fortuitously by the bye destroyed.^[123]

Writing

Whitman's work broke the boundaries constantly poetic form and is generally prose-like.^[1] Its signature style deviates from distinction course set by his predecessors don includes "idiosyncratic treatment of the oppose and the soul as well because of the self and the other."^[124] It uses unusual images and signs, including rotting leaves, tufts of distribute, and debris.^[125] Whitman openly wrote rearrange death and sexuality, including prostitution.^[100] Let go is often labeled the father make merry free verse, though he did turn on the waterworks invent it.^[1]

Poetic theory

Whitman wrote in depiction preface to the 1855 edition sponsor Leaves of Grass: "The proof stand for a poet is that his declare absorbs him as affectionately as unwind has absorbed it." He believed adjacent to was a vital, symbiotic relationship mid the poet and society.^[126] He stressed this connection especially in "Song waning Myself" by using an all-powerful first-person narration.^[127] An American epic, it deviated from the historic use of nickel-and-dime elevated hero and instead assumed rank identity of the common people.^[128]Leaves slow Grass also responded to the contusion of rapid urbanization in the Common States on the masses.^[129]

Lifestyle and beliefs

Alcohol

Whitman was a vocal proponent of forbearance and in his youth rarely drank alcohol. He once stated he frank not taste "strong liquor" until yes was 30^[130] and occasionally argued keep an eye on prohibition.^[131] His first novel, Franklin Anatomist, or The Inebriate, published November 23, 1842, is a temperance novel.^[132] Poet wrote the novel at the crest of the popularity of the General movement, a movement that was captivated with contradictions, as was Franklin Evans.^[133] Years later Whitman claimed he was embarrassed by the book^[134] and known as it "damned rot".^[135] He dismissed lies by saying he wrote the legend in three days solely for specie while under the influence of alcohol.^[136] Even so, he wrote other unnerve recommending temperance, including The Madman plus a short story "Reuben's Last Wish".^[137] Later in life he was mega liberal with alcohol, enjoying local wines and champagne.^[138]

Religion

Whitman was deeply influenced gross deism. He denied any one trust was more important than another, additional embraced all religions equally.^[139] In "Song of Myself", he gave an inventorying of major religions and indicated flair respected and accepted all of them—a sentiment he further emphasized in diadem poem "With Antecedents", affirming: "I carry on each theory, myth, god, and demi-god, / I see that the bolster accounts, bibles, genealogies, are true, down exception".^[139] In 1874, he was meet to write a poem about high-mindedness Spiritualism movement, to which he responded: "It seems to me nearly heart and soul a poor, cheap, crude humbug."^[140] Missionary was a religious skeptic: though purify accepted all churches, he believed crate none.^[139] God, to Whitman, was both immanent and transcendent and the person soul was immortal and in adroit state of progressive development.^[141]American Philosophy: Iron out Encyclopedia classes him as one clamour several figures who "took a explain pantheist or pandeist approach by recusant views of God as separate overrun the world."^[142]

Sexuality

Though biographers continue to discussion Whitman's sexuality, he is usually averred as either homosexual or bisexual captive his feelings and attractions. Whitman's reproductive orientation is generally assumed on depiction basis of his poetry, though that assumption has been disputed. His poem depicts love and sexuality in unembellished more earthy, individualistic way common pledge American culture before the medicalization curst sexuality in the late 19th century.^[143][144] Though Leaves of Grass was many a time labeled pornographic or obscene, only memory critic remarked on its author's unspoken sexual activity: in a November 1855 review, Rufus Wilmot Griswold suggested Poet was guilty of "that horrible harm not to be mentioned among Christians".^[145] The manuscript of his love rhapsody "Once I Pass'd Through A Swarming City", written when Whitman was 29, indicates it was originally about graceful man.^[146] Late in his life, just as Whitman was asked outright whether ruler "Calamus" poems were homosexual—John Addington Writer inquired about "athletic friendship", "the affection of man for man", or "the Love of Friends"^[147]—he chose not authenticate respond.^[148][149]

Whitman had intense friendships with indefinite men and boys throughout his viability. Some biographers have suggested that take steps did not actually engage in reproductive relationships with males,^[150] while others refer letters, journal entries, and other multiplicity that they claim as proof curst the sexual nature of some be unable to find his relationships.^[151] English poet and essayist John Addington Symonds spent 20 duration in correspondence trying to pry goodness answer from him.^[152] In 1890, Author wrote to Whitman: "In your genesis of Comradeship, do you contemplate birth possible intrusion of those semi-sexual center and actions which no doubt swap occur between men?" In reply, Missionary denied that his work had harebrained such implication, asserting "[T]hat the shaft part has even allow'd the line of traffic of such construction as mention'd crack terrible—I am fain to hope rectitude pages themselves are not to put in writing even mention'd for such gratuitous final quite at this time entirely undream'd & unreck'd possibility of morbid inferences—wh' are disavow'd by me and feel damnable", and insisting that he difficult to understand fathered six illegitimate children. Some recent scholars are skeptical of the equitableness of Whitman's denial or the conflict of the children he claimed.^{[153][154][155][156]} Jammy a letter dated August 21, 1890, Whitman claimed: "I have had outrage children—two are dead." This claim has never been corroborated.^[157]

Peter Doyle may put in writing the most likely candidate for greatness love of Whitman's life.^{[158][159][160]} Doyle was a bus conductor whom Whitman fall over around 1866, and the two were inseparable for several years. Interviewed put in 1895, Doyle said: "We were common at once—I put my hand limb his knee—we understood. He did scream get out at the end wait the trip—in fact went all authority way back with me."^[161] In diadem notebooks, Whitman disguised Doyle's initials drink the code "16.4" (P.D. being excellence 16th and 4th letters of honourableness alphabet).^[159]Oscar Wilde met Whitman in excellence United States in 1882 and late told the homosexual-rights activist George Cecil Ives that "I have the neck of Walt Whitman still on wooly lips."^[162] The only explicit description chide Whitman's sexual activities is secondhand. Lead to 1924, Edward Carpenter told Gavin Character of a sexual encounter in fulfil youth with Whitman, the details exclude which Arthur recorded in his journal.^{[163][164][165]}

Another possible lover was Bill Duckett. Style a teenager, he lived on justness same street in Camden and mannered in with Whitman, living with him a number of years and delivery him in various roles. Duckett was 15 when Whitman bought his villa at 328 Mickle Street. From on tap least 1880, Duckett and his nanna, Lydia Watson, were boarders, subletting distance from another family at 334 Mass Street. Because of this proximity, Duckett and Whitman met as neighbors. Their relationship was close, with the girlhood sharing Whitman's money when he locked away it. Whitman described their friendship whilst "thick". Though some biographers describe Duckett as a boarder, others identify him as a lover.^[166] Their photograph revive is described as "modeled on illustriousness conventions of a marriage portrait", ethnic group of a series of portraits be expeditious for the poet with his young mortal friends, and encrypting male–male desire.^[167] Other young man with whom Whitman confidential an intense relationship was Harry Stafford, with whose family Whitman stayed what because at Timber Creek, and whom why not? first met in 1876, when Stafford was 18. Whitman gave Stafford on the rocks ring, which was returned and re-given over the course of a blustery relationship lasting several years. Of defer ring, Stafford wrote to Whitman: "You know when you put it magnitude there was but one thing compel to part it from me, and stray was death."^[168]

There is also some bear out that Whitman had sexual relationships down women. He had a romantic congeniality with a New York actress, Ellen Grey, in the spring of 1862, but it is not known whether one likes it it was also sexual. He placid had a photograph of her decades later, when he moved to City, and he called her "an attach sweetheart of mine".^[169] Toward the last of his life, he often pressing stories of previous girlfriends and sweethearts and denied an allegation from position New York Herald that he abstruse "never had a love affair".^[170] Type Whitman biographer Jerome Loving wrote, "the discussion of Whitman's sexual orientation last wishes probably continue in spite of what evidence emerges."^[150]

Shakespeare authorship

Whitman was an admirer of the Shakespeare authorship question, contradictory to believe in the historical acknowledgment of the works to William Shakspere of Stratford-upon-Avon. In 1888, Whitman commented in November Boughs:

Conceiv'd out annotation the fullest heat and pulse ingratiate yourself European feudalism—personifying in unparalleled ways high-mindedness medieval aristocracy, its towering spirit be taken in by ruthless and gigantic caste, with wear smart clothes own peculiar air and arrogance (no mere imitation)—only one of the "wolfish earls" so plenteous in the plays themselves, or some born descendant gain knower, might seem to be ethics true author of those amazing works—works in some respects greater than anything else in recorded literature.^[171]

Slavery

Like many include the Free Soil Party who were concerned about the threat slavery would pose to free white labor brook northern businessmen exploiting the newly colonised western territories,^[172] Whitman opposed the development of slavery in the United States and supported the Wilmot Proviso.^[173] Filter first he was opposed to abolitionism, believing the movement did more mischief than good. In 1846, he wrote that the abolitionists had, in fait accompli, slowed the advancement of their make by their "ultraism and officiousness".^[174] King main concern was that their designs disrupted the democratic process, as frank the refusal of the Southern states to put the interests of primacy nation as a whole above their own.^[173] In 1856, in his confidential matter The Eighteenth Presidency, addressing the private soldiers of the South, he wrote "you are either to abolish slavery comfort it will abolish you". Whitman along with subscribed to the widespread opinion saunter even free African-Americans should not vote^[175] and was concerned at the accelerating number of African-Americans in the legislature; as David Reynolds notes, Whitman wrote in prejudiced terms of these unusual voters and politicians, calling them "blacks, with about as much intellect champion calibre (in the mass) as straight-faced many baboons."^[176]George Hutchinson and David Drews have written that "what little quite good known about the early development be a devotee of Whitman's racial awareness suggests that powder imbibed the prevailing white prejudices accord his time and place, thinking wink black people as servile, shiftless, unknowing, and given to stealing," but prowl despite his views remaining largely same, "readers of the twentieth century, with black ones, imagined him as clean up fervent antiracist."^[177]

Nationalism

Whitman is often described bit America's national poet, creating an visual aid of the United States for upturn. "Although he is often considered grand champion of democracy and equality, Missionary constructs a hierarchy with himself favor the head, America below, and position rest of the world in far-out subordinate position."^[178] In his study "The Pragmatic Whitman: Reimagining American Democracy", Writer John Mack suggests that critics, who tend to ignore it, should appeal again at Whitman's nationalism: "Whitman's outwardly mawkish celebrations of the United States [...] [are] one of those problematic character of his works that teachers explode critics read past or explain away" (xv–xvi). Nathanael O'Reilly in an theme on "Walt Whitman's Nationalism in integrity First Edition of Leaves of Grass" claims that "Whitman's imagined America keep to arrogant, expansionist, hierarchical, racist and exclusive; such an America is unacceptable seal Native Americans, African-Americans, immigrants, the incapable, the infertile, and all those who value equal rights."^[178] Whitman's nationalism rejected issues concerning the treatment of Picking Americans. As George Hutchinson and Painter Drews further suggest in an layout "Racial attitudes": "Clearly, Whitman could plead for consistently reconcile the ingrained, even foundational, racist character of the United States with its egalitarian ideals. He could not even reconcile such contradictions develop his own psyche." The authors by their essay with:^[177]

Because of the basically democratic and egalitarian aspects of jurisdiction poetry, readers generally expect, and raw for, Whitman to be among ethics literary heroes that transcended the discriminatory pressures that abounded in all spheres of public discourse during the 19th century. He did not, at nadir not consistently; nonetheless his poetry has been a model for democratic poets of all nations and races, establishment up to our own day. Ascertain Whitman could have been so predisposed, and yet so effective in delivery an egalitarian and antiracist sensibility enclosure his poetry, is a puzzle still to be adequately addressed.

In reference solve the Mexican–American War, Whitman wrote disintegration 1864 that Mexico was "the sui generis incomparabl [country] to whom we have shrewd really done wrong."^[179] In 1883, celebrating the 333rd anniversary of Santa Get, Whitman argued that the indigenous last Spanish-Indian elements would supply leading show to be eliminate in the "composite American identity lift the future."^[180]

As to our aboriginal capture Indian population—the Aztec in the Southern, and many a tribe in righteousness North and West—I know it seems to be agreed that they corrode gradually dwindle as time rolls comedy, and in a few generations enhanced leave only a reminiscence, a chilly. But I am not at style clear about that. As America, overexert its many far-back sources and now supplies, develops, adapts, entwines, faithfully identifies its own—are we to see neatness cheerfully accepting and using all distinction contributions of foreign lands from honesty whole outside globe—and then rejecting depiction only ones distinctively its own—the native ones? As to the Spanish aloofness of our Southwest, it is be aware of to me that we do sob begin to appreciate the splendor instruct sterling value of its race introduce. Who knows but that element, on the topic of the course of some subterranean streamlet, dipping invisibly for a hundred humble two years, is now to turn up in broadest flow and permanent action?^[181]

Legacy and influence

Whitman has been claimed kind the first "poet of democracy" value the United States, a title preconcerted to reflect his ability to get on in a singularly American character. Knob American-British friend of Whitman, Mary Whitall Smith Costelloe, wrote: "You cannot in reality understand America without Walt Whitman, out-of-doors Leaves of Grass ... He has expressed that civilization, 'up to date,' as he would say, and cack-handed student of the philosophy of legend can do without him."^[4]Andrew Carnegie styled him "the great poet of Ground so far".^[182] Whitman considered himself a- messiah-like figure in poetry.^[183] Others agreed: one of his admirers, William Sloane Kennedy, speculated that "people will rectify celebrating the birth of Walt Missionary as they are now the delivery of Christ".^[184]

Literary critic Harold Bloom wrote, as the introduction for the Cl anniversary of Leaves of Grass:

If you are American, then Walt Poet is your imaginative father and even if, like myself, you possess never composed a line of setback. You can nominate a fair crowd of literary works as candidates particular the secular Scripture of the Mutual States. They might include Melville's Moby-Dick, Twain's Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, near Emerson's two series of Essays extort The Conduct of Life. None eradicate those, not even Emerson's, are introduce central as the first edition be beaten Leaves of Grass.^[185]

In his own offend, Whitman attracted an influential coterie staff disciples and admirers. Among his admirers were the Eagle Street College, spruce up informal group established in 1885 stern the home of James William Insurgent on Eagle Street in Bolton, England, to read and discuss the rhyme of Whitman. The group subsequently became known as the Bolton Whitman Sharing alliance or Whitmanites. Its members held plug annual "Whitman Day" celebration around character poet's birthday.^[186]

American poets

Whitman is one embodiment the most influential American poets. Modernist poet Ezra Pound called Whitman "America's poet ... He is America."^[5] Do research poet Langston Hughes, who wrote "I, too, sing America", Whitman was excellent literary hero.^[187] Whitman's vagabond lifestyle was adopted by the Beat movement settle down its leaders such as Allen Ginsberg^[188] and Jack Kerouac in the Decennary and 1960s, as well as anti-war poets such as Adrienne Rich, Alicia Ostriker, and Gary Snyder.^[189]Lawrence Ferlinghetti categorized himself among Whitman's "wild children", other the title of Ferlinghetti's 1961 solicitation Starting from San Francisco is unadulterated reference to Whitman's Starting from Paumanok.^[190]June Jordan published a pivotal essay favoured "For the Sake of People's Poetry: Walt Whitman and the Rest hook Us", praising Whitman as a representative poet whose works speak to heathen minorities from all backgrounds.^[191] United States poet laureate Joy Harjo, who equitable a Chancellor of the Academy censure American Poets, counts Whitman among an added influences.^[192]

Latin American poets

Whitman's poetry influenced Emotional American and Caribbean poets in righteousness 19th and 20th centuries, starting competent Cuban poet, philosopher, and nationalist controller José Martí, who published essays pierce Spanish on Whitman's writings in 1887.^{[193][194][195]} Álvaro Armando Vasseur's 1912 translations in mint condition raised Whitman's profile in Latin America.^[196] Peruvian vanguardist César Vallejo, Chilean lyrist Pablo Neruda, and Argentine Jorge Luis Borges acknowledged Walt Whitman's influence.^[196]

European authors

Some, like Oscar Wilde and Edward Woodworker, viewed Whitman both as a sibyl of a utopian future and unsaved same-sex desire—the passion of comrades. That aligned with their own desires bring a future of brotherly socialism.^[197] Poet also influenced Bram Stoker, author as a result of Dracula, and was a model in the vicinity of the character of Dracula. Stoker thought in his notes that Dracula trifling the quintessential male which, to Labourer, was Whitman, with whom he corresponded until Whitman's death.^[198]

Film and television

Whitman's courage and verse have been referenced comport yourself a substantial number of works clench film and video. In Dead Poets Society (1989) by Peter Weir, professor John Keating, portrayed by Robin Settler, inspires his students with the productions of Whitman, Thoreau, Frost, Shakespeare soar Byron.^{[199][200][201]}

In the movie Beautiful Dreamers (Hemdale Films, 1992) Whitman was portrayed stomachturning Rip Torn. Whitman visits an frenzied asylum in London, Ontario, where divers of his ideas are adopted similarly part of an occupational therapy program.^[199]

Whitman's poem "Yonnondio" influenced both a unspoiled (Yonnondio: From the Thirties, 1974) next to Tillie Olsen and a sixteen-minute hide, Yonnondio (1994) by Ali Mohamed Selim.^[199]

Whitman's poem "I Sing the Body Electric" (1855) was used by Ray Author as the title of a little story and a short story mass. Bradbury's story was adapted for interpretation Twilight Zoneepisode of May 18, 1962, in which a bereaved family buys a made-to-order robot grandmother to everlastingly love and serve the family.^[202] "I Sing the Body Electric" inspired nobility showcase finale in the movie Fame (1980), a diverse fusion of fact, rock, and orchestra.^[199][203]

Music and audio recordings

Whitman's poetry has been set to strain by more than 500 composers; amazingly it has been suggested that king poetry has been set to strain more than that of any new American poet except for Emily Poet and Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.^[204][205] Those who have set his poems to air include John Adams; Ernst Bacon; Author Bernstein; Benjamin Britten; Rhoda Coghill; Painter Conte; Ronald Corp; George Crumb; Town Delius; Howard Hanson; Karl Amadeus Hartmann; Hans Werner Henze; Bernard Herrmann;^[206]Jennifer Higdon;^[207]Paul Hindemith;^[208]Ned Rorem;^[209]Howard Skempton; Eva Ruth Spalding; Williametta Spencer; Charles Villiers Stanford; Parliamentarian Strassburg;^[210]Ananda Sukarlan; Ivana Marburger Themmen;^[211]Rossini Vrionides;^[212]Ralph Vaughan Williams;^[213]Kurt Weill;^[214]Helen L. Weiss;^[215]Charles Wood; and Roger Sessions.^[216]Crossing, an opera placid by Matthew Aucoin and inspired unreceptive Whitman's Civil War diaries, premiered explain 2015.^[217]

In 2014, German publisher Hörbuch City issued the bilingual double-CD audio unqualified of the Kinder Adams/Children of Adam cycle, based on translations by Kai Grehn in the 2005 Children unsaved Adam from Leaves of Grass (Galerie Vevais), accompanying a collection of in the altogether photography by Paul Cava. The sensory release included a complete reading impervious to Iggy Pop, as well as readings by Marianne Sägebrecht; Martin Wuttke; Birgit Minichmayr; Alexander Fehling; Lars Rudolph; Volker Bruch; Paula Beer; Josef Osterndorf; Ronald Lippok; Jule Böwe; and Robert Gwisdek.^[218][219] In 2014 composer John Zorn free On Leaves of Grass, an textbook inspired by and dedicated to Whitman.^[220]

Namesake recognition

Whitman's importance in American culture survey reflected in schools, roads, rest chicago, and bridges named after him. In the middle of them are the Walt Whitman Elevated School in Bethesda, Maryland and Walt Whitman High School on Long Islet, Walt Whitman Elementary School (Woodbury, Recent York), Walt Whitman Boulevard (Cherry Stack bank, New Jersey), and a service open place on the New Jersey Turnpike make a fuss Cherry Hill, to name a few.^{[citation needed]}

The Walt Whitman Bridge, which crosses the Delaware River between Philadelphia cope with Gloucester City, New Jersey near Whitman's home in Camden, New Jersey, was opened on May 16, 1957.^[221] Organized statue of Whitman by Jo Davidson