Some Poems
Biography
Videos
Books
Walt Whitman (31 May 1819 - 26 March 1892)
Walter "Walt" was an American poet, essayist and journalist. A 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
was very controversial in its time, particularly his poetry collection Leaves of
Grass, which was described as obscene for its overt sexuality.
Born on Long Island, Whitman worked as a journalist, a teacher, a
government clerk, and – in addition to publishing his poetry – was a
volunteer nurse during the American Civil War. 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 person 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, where his health further declined. He died at age 72 and his funeral
became a public spectacle.
Whitman's sexuality is often discussed alongside his poetry. Though
biographers continue to debate his sexuality, he is usually described as
either homosexual or bisexual in his feelings and attractions. However, there
is disagreement among biographers as to whether Whitman had actual
sexual experiences with men. Whitman was concerned with politics
throughout his life. He supported the Wilmot Proviso and opposed the
extension of slavery generally. His poetry presented an egalitarian view of
the races, and at one point he called for the abolition of slavery, but later he
saw the abolitionist movement as a threat to democracy.
Life and work
Early life
Walter Whitman was born on May 31, 1819, in West Hills, Town of
Huntington, Long Island, to parents with interests in Quaker thought, Walter
and Louisa Van Velsor Whitman. The second of nine children, he was
immediately nicknamed "Walt" to distinguish him from his father. Walter
Whitman Sr. named three of his seven sons after American leaders: Andrew
Jackson, George Washington, and Thomas Jefferson. The oldest was named
Jesse and another boy died unnamed at the age of six months. The couple's
sixth son, the youngest, was named Edward. At age four, Whitman moved
with his family from West Hills to Brooklyn, living in a series of homes, in
part due to bad investments. Whitman looked back on his childhood as
generally restless and unhappy, given his family's difficult economic status.
www.PoemHunter.com - The World's Poetry Archive
One happy moment that he later recalled was when he was lifted in the air
and kissed on the cheek by the Marquis de Lafayette during a celebration in
Brooklyn on July 4, 1825.
At age eleven Whitman concluded formal schooling. He then sought
employment for further income for his family; he was an office boy for two
lawyers and later was an apprentice and printer's devil for the weekly Long
Island newspaper the Patriot, edited by Samuel E. Clements. There, Whitman
learned about the printing press and typesetting. He may have written
"sentimental bits" of filler material for occasional issues. Clements aroused
controversy when he and two friends attempted to dig up the corpse of Elias
Hicks to create a plaster mold of his head. Clements left the Patriot shortly
after, possibly as a result of the controversy.
Early career
The following summer Whitman worked for another printer, Erastus
Worthington, in Brooklyn. His family moved back to West Hills in the spring,
but Whitman remained and took a job at the shop of Alden Spooner, editor
of the leading Whig weekly newspaper the Long-Island Star. While at the
Star, Whitman became a regular patron of the local library, joined a town
debating society, began attending theater performances, and anonymously
published some of his earliest poetry in the New York Mirror. At age 16 in
May 1835, Whitman left the Star and Brooklyn. He moved to New York City
to work as a compositor though, in later years, Whitman could not remember
where. He attempted to find further work but had difficulty in part due to a
severe fire in the printing and publishing district and in part due to a general
collapse in the economy leading up to the Panic of 1837. In May 1836, he
rejoined his family, now living in Hempstead, Long Island. Whitman taught
intermittently at various schools until the spring of 1838, though he was not
satisfied as a teacher.
After his teaching attempts, Whitman went back to Huntington, New York to
found his own newspaper, the Long Islander. Whitman served as publisher,
editor, pressman, and distributor and even provided home delivery. After ten
months, he sold the publication to E. O. Crowell, whose first issue appeared
on July 12, 1839. No copies of the Long-Islander published under Whitman
survive. By the summer of 1839, he found a job as a typesetter in Jamaica,
Queens with the Long Island Democrat, edited by James J. Brenton. He left
shortly thereafter, and made another attempt at teaching from the winter of
1840 to the spring of 1841. One story, possibly apocryphal, tells of Whitman
being chased away from a teaching job in Southold, New York in 1840. After
a local preacher called him a "Sodomite", Whitman was allegedly tarred and
feathered. Biographer Justin Kaplan notes that the story is likely untrue
because Whitman regularly vacationed in the town thereafter. Biographer
Jerome Loving calls the incident a "myth". During this time, Whitman
published a series of ten editorials called "Sun-Down Papers—From the Desk
of a Schoolmaster" in three newspapers between the winter of 1840 and July
1841. In these essays, he adopted a constructed persona, a technique he
would employ throughout his career.
Whitman moved to New York City in May, initially working a low-level job at
the New World, working under Park Benjamin, Sr. and Rufus Wilmot
Griswold. He continued working for short periods of time for various
newspapers; in 1842 he was editor of the Aurora and from 1846 to 1848 he
was editor of the Brooklyn Eagle. He also contributed freelance fiction and
poetry throughout the 1840s. Whitman lost his position at the Brooklyn Eagle
in 1848 after siding with the free-soil "Barnburner" wing of the Democratic
party against the newspaper's owner, Isaac Van Anden, who belonged to the
conservative, or "Hunker", wing of the party. Whitman was a delegate to the
1848 founding convention of the Free Soil Party.
Leaves of Grass
Whitman claimed that after years of competing for "the usual rewards", he
determined to become a poet. He first experimented with a variety of
popular literary genres which appealed to the cultural tastes of the period. As
www.PoemHunter.com - The World's Poetry Archive
early as 1850, he began writing what would become Leaves of Grass, a
collection of poetry which he would continue editing and revising until his
death. Whitman intended to write a distinctly American epic and used free
verse with a cadence based on the Bible. At the end of June 1855, Whitman
surprised his brothers with the already-printed first edition of Leaves of
Grass. George "didn't think it worth reading".
Whitman paid for the publication of the first edition of Leaves of Grass
himself and had it printed at a local print shop during their breaks from
commercial jobs. A total of 795 copies were printed. No name is given as
author; instead, facing the title page was an engraved portrait done by
Samuel Hollyer, but 500 lines into the body of the text he calls himself "Walt
Whitman, an American, one of the roughs, a kosmos, disorderly, fleshly, and
sensual, no sentimentalist, no stander above men or women or apart from
them, no more modest than immodest". The inaugural volume of poetry was
preceded by a prose preface of 827 lines. The succeeding untitled twelve
poems totaled 2315 lines—1336 lines belonging to the first untitled poem,
later called "Song of Myself". The book received its strongest praise from
Ralph Waldo Emerson, who wrote a flattering five page letter to Whitman
and spoke highly of the book to friends. The first edition of Leaves of Grass
was widely distributed and stirred up significant interest, in part due to
Emerson's approval, but was occasionally criticized for the seemingly
"obscene" nature of the poetry. Geologist John Peter Lesley wrote to
Emerson, calling the book "trashy, profane & obscene" and the author "a
pretentious ass". On July 11, 1855, a few days after Leaves of Grass was
published, Whitman's father died at the age of 65.
In the months following the first edition of Leaves of Grass, critical responses
began focusing more on the potentially offensive sexual themes. Though the
second edition was already printed and bound, the publisher almost did not
release it. In the end, the edition went to retail, with 20 additional poems, in
August 1856. Leaves of Grass was revised and re-released in 1860 again in
1867, and several more times throughout the remainder of Whitman's life.
Several well-known writers admired the work enough to visit Whitman,
including Bronson Alcott and Henry David Thoreau.
During the first publications of Leaves of Grass, Whitman had financial
difficulties and was forced to work as a journalist again, specifically with
Brooklyn's Daily Times starting in May 1857. As an editor, he oversaw the
paper's contents, contributed book reviews, and wrote editorials. He left the
job in 1859, though it is unclear if he was fired or chose to leave. Whitman,
who typically kept detailed notebooks and journals, left very little information
about himself in the late 1850s.
Civil War years
As the American Civil War was beginning, Whitman published his poem
"Beat! Beat! Drums!" as a patriotic rally call for the North. Whitman's brother
George had joined the Union army and began sending Whitman several
vividly detailed letters of the battle front. On December 16, 1862, a listing of
fallen and wounded soldiers in the New York Tribune included "First
Lieutenant G. W. Whitmore", which Whitman worried was a reference to his
brother George. He made his way south immediately to find him, though his
wallet was stolen on the way. "Walking all day and night, unable to ride,
trying to get information, trying to get access to big people", Whitman later
wrote, he eventually found George alive, with only a superficial wound on his
cheek. Whitman, profoundly affected by seeing the wounded soldiers and the
heaps of their amputated limbs, left for Washington on December 28, 1862
with the intention of never returning to New York.
In Washington, D.C., Whitman's friend Charley Eldridge helped him obtain
part-time work in the army paymaster's office, leaving time for Whitman to
volunteer as a nurse in the army hospitals. He would write of this experience
in "The Great Army of the Sick", published in a New York newspaper in 1863
and, 12 years later, in a book called Memoranda During the War. He then
contacted Emerson, this time to ask for help in obtaining a government post.
Another friend, John Trowbridge, passed on a letter of recommendation from
www.PoemHunter.com - The World's Poetry Archive
Emerson to Salmon P. Chase, Secretary of the Treasury, hoping he would
grant Whitman a position in that department. Chase, however, did not want
to hire the author of such a disreputable book as Leaves of Grass.
The Whitman family had a difficult end to 1864. On September 30, 1864,
Whitman's brother George was captured by Confederates in Virginia, and
another brother, Andrew Jackson, died of tuberculosis compounded by
alcoholism on December 3. That month, Whitman committed his brother
Jesse to the Kings County Lunatic Asylum. Whitman's spirits were raised,
however, when he finally got a better-paying government post as a
low-grade clerk in the Bureau of Indian Affairs in the Department of the
Interior, thanks to his friend William Douglas O'Connor. O'Connor, a poet,
daguerreotypist and an editor at the Saturday Evening Post, had written to
William Tod Otto, Assistant Secretary of the Interior, on Whitman's behalf.
Whitman began the new appointment on January 24, 1865, with a yearly
salary of $1,200. A month later, on February 24, 1865, George was released
from capture and granted a furlough because of his poor health. By May 1,
Whitman received a promotion to a slightly higher clerkship and published
Drum-Taps.
Effective June 30, 1865, however, Whitman was fired from his job. His
dismissal came from the new Secretary of the Interior, former Iowa Senator
James Harlan. Though Harlan dismissed several clerks who "were seldom at
their respective desks", he may have fired Whitman on moral grounds after
finding an 1860 edition of Leaves of Grass. O'Connor protested until J.
Hubley Ashton had Whitman transferred to the Attorney General's office on
July 1. O'Connor, though, was still upset and vindicated Whitman by
publishing a biased and exaggerated biographical study, The Good Gray
Poet, in January 1866. The fifty-cent pamphlet defended Whitman as a
wholesome patriot, established the poet's nickname and increased his
popularity. Also aiding in his popularity was the publication of "O Captain! My
Captain!", a relatively conventional poem on the death of Abraham Lincoln,
the only poem to appear in anthologies during Whitman's lifetime.
Part of Whitman's role at the Attorney General's office was interviewing
former Confederate soldiers for Presidential pardons. "There are real
characters among them", he later wrote, "and you know I have a fancy for
anything out of the ordinary." In August 1866, he took a month off in order
to prepare a new edition of Leaves of Grass which would not be published
until 1867 after difficulty in finding a publisher. He hoped it would be its last
edition. In February 1868 Poems of Walt Whitman was published in England
thanks to the influence of William Michael Rossetti, with minor changes that
Whitman reluctantly approved. The edition became popular in England,
especially with endorsements from the highly respected writer Anne Gilchrist.
Another edition of Leaves of Grass was issued in 1871, the same year it was
mistakenly reported that its author died in a railroad accident. As Whitman's
international fame increased, he remained at the attorney general's office
until January 1872. He spent much of 1872 caring for his mother who was
now nearly eighty and struggling with arthritis. He also traveled and was
invited to Dartmouth College to give the commencement address on June 26,
1872.
Health decline and death
After suffering a paralytic stroke in early 1873, Whitman was induced to
move from Washington to the home of his brother - George Washington
Whitman, an Engineer — at 431 Stevens Street in Camden, New Jersey. His
mother, having fallen ill, was also there and died that same year in May.
Both events were difficult for Whitman and left him depressed and he would
remain at his brothers home until buying his own in 1884. However, before
purchasing his own home, he spent the greatest period of his residence in
Camden at his brother's home in Stevens Street. While in residence he was
very productive publishing three version of Leaves of Grass among other
works. He was also last fully physically active in this house, receiving both
Oscar Wilde and Thomas Eakins. His other brother, Edward, an "invalid"
since birth, also lived in the house.
www.PoemHunter.com - The World's Poetry Archive
When his brother and sister-in-law were forced to move for business
reasons, he bought his own house at 328 Mickle Street (now 330 Mickle
Street). First taken care of by tenants, he was completely bed ridden for
most of his time in Mickle Street. During this time, he began socializing with
Mary Oakes Davis – the widow of a sea captain. She was a neighbor to him
boarding with a family in Bridge Avenue just a few blocks from Mickle Street.
She moved in with Whitman on February 24, 1885, to serve as his
housekeeper in exchange for free rent. She brought with her a cat, a dog,
two turtledoves, a canary, and other assorted animals. During this time,
Whitman produced further editions of Leaves of Grass in 1876, 1881, and
1889.
As the end of 1891 approached, he prepared a final edition of Leaves of
Grass, an edition which has been nicknamed the "Deathbed Edition". He
wrote, "L. of G. at last complete—after 33 y'rs of hackling at it, all times &
moods of my life, fair weather & foul, all parts of the land, and peace & war,
young & old". Preparing for death, Whitman commissioned a granite
mausoleum shaped like a house for $4,000 and visited it often during
construction. In the last week of his life, he was too weak to lift a knife or
fork and wrote: "I suffer all the time: I have no relief, no escape: it is
monotony — monotony — monotony — in pain."
Whitman died on March 26, 1892. An autopsy revealed his lungs had
diminished to one-eighth their normal breathing capacity, a result of
bronchial pneumonia, and that an egg-sized abscess on his chest had eroded
one of his ribs. The cause of death was officially listed as "pleurisy of the left
side, consumption of the right lung, general miliary tuberculosis and
parenchymatous nephritis." A public viewing of his body was held at his
Camden home; over one thousand people visited in three hours and
Whitman's oak coffin was barely visible because of all the flowers and
wreaths left for him. Four days after his death, he was buried in his tomb at
Harleigh Cemetery in Camden . Another public ceremony was held at the
cemetery, with friends giving speeches, live music, and refreshments.
Whitman's friend, the orator Robert Ingersoll, delivered the eulogy. Later,
the remains of Whitman's parents and two of his brothers and their families
were moved to the mausoleum.
Writing
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.
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. This connection was emphasized especially in "Song of
Myself" by using an all-powerful first-person narration. As an American epic,
it deviated from the historic use of an elevated hero and instead assumed
the identity of the common people. Leaves of Grass also responded to the
impact that recent urbanization in the United States had on the masses.
Lifestyle and beliefs
Alcohol
Whitman was a vocal proponent of temperance and in his youth 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
www.PoemHunter.com - The World's Poetry Archive
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". Later in life he was more liberal with alcohol, enjoying
local wines and champagne.
Religion
Whitman was deeply influenced by deism. He denied any one faith was more
important than another, and embraced 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, genealogies, 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." Whitman was a religious skeptic:
though he accepted all churches, he believed in none. God, to Whitman, was
both immanent and transcendent and the human soul was immortal and in a
state of progressive development.
Sexuality
Whitman's sexuality is generally assumed to be homosexual or bisexual
based on his poetry, though that has been at times disputed. His poetry
depicts love and sexuality in a more earthy, individualistic way common in
American culture before the medicalization of sexuality in the late 19th
century. Though Leaves of Grass was often labeled pornographic or obscene,
only one critic remarked on its author's presumed sexual activity: in a
November 1855 review, Rufus Wilmot Griswold suggested Whitman was
guilty of "that horrible sin not to be mentioned among Christians". Whitman
had intense friendships with many men and boys throughout his life. Some
biographers have claimed that he may not have actually engaged in sexual
relationships with males, while others cite letters, journal entries and other
sources which they claim as proof of the sexual nature of some of his
relationships.
Peter Doyle may be the most likely candidate for the love of Whitman's life,
according to biographer David S. Reynolds. Doyle was a bus conductor whom
Whitman met around 1866 and the two 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." In his notebooks, Whitman disguised
Doyle's initials using the code "16.4". A more direct 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. The only explicit description of
Whitman's sexual activities is second hand. In 1924 Edward Carpenter, then
an old man, described an erotic encounter he had had in his youth with
Whitman to Gavin Arthur, who recorded it in detail in his journal. Late in his
life, when Whitman was asked outright if his series of "Calamus" poems were
homosexual, he chose not to respond.
Another possible lover was Bill Duckett. As a young teenage boy he lived in
on the same street in Camden and moved in with Whitman, living with him a
number of years and serving him in various roles. Duckett was fifteen when
Whitman bought his house at 328 Mickle Street. Since, at least 1880,
Duckett and his grandmother, Lydia Watson, were boarders subletting space
from another family at 334 Mickle Street. Due to this close proximity it is
obvious that Duckett and Whitman met as neighbors. Their relationship was
close, with the youth sharing Whitman's money when he had it. Whitman
described their friendship as "thick." Though some biographers describe him
as a boarder, others identify him as a lover. Their photograph is described as
"modeled on the conventions of a marriage portrait," part of a series of
portraits of the poet with his young male friends, and encrypting male-male
www.PoemHunter.com - The World's Poetry Archive
desire. Yet another intense relationship with a young man was the one with
Harry Stafford, with whose family he stayed when at Timber Creek, and
whom he first met when the young man was 18, in 1876. Whitman gave
young Stafford a ring, which was returned and given back over the course of
a stormy relationship lasting a number of years. Of that ring Stafford wrote
to Whitman, "You know when you put it on there was but one thing to part it
from me, and that was death."
There is also some evidence that Whitman may have had sexual
relationships with women. He had a romantic friendship with a New York
actress named Ellen Grey in the spring of 1862, but it is not known if it was
also sexual. 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". This
claim has never been corroborated. 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". As Whitman
biographer Jerome Loving wrote, "the discussion of Whitman's sexual
orientation will probably continue in spite of whatever evidence emerges."
Shakespeare authorship
Whitman was an adherent of the Shakespeare authorship question, refusing
to believe in the historic attribution of the works to William Shakespeare of
Stratford-upon-Avon. Whitman comments in his November Boughs (1888)
regarding Shakespeare's historical plays:
Conceiv'd out of the fullest heat and pulse of European
feudalism—personifying in unparalleled ways the medieval aristocracy, its
towering spirit of ruthless and gigantic caste, with its own peculiar air and
arrogance (no mere imitation)—only one of the "wolfish earls" so plenteous
in the plays themselves, or some born descendant and knower, might seem
to be the true author of those amazing works—works in some respects
greater than anything else in recorded literature.
Slavery
Whitman opposed the extension of slavery in the United States and
supported the Wilmot Proviso. At first he was opposed to abolitionism,
believing the movement did more harm than good. In 1846, he 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. In 1856, in his
unpublished The Eighteenth Presidency, addressing the men of the South, he
wrote "you are either to abolish slavery or it will abolish you". 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 America's first "poet of democracy", a
title meant to reflect his ability to write in a singularly 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 considered
himself 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".
The literary critic, Harold Bloom wrote, as the introduction for the 150th
anniversary of Leaves of Grass:
www.PoemHunter.com - The World's Poetry Archive
If you are American, then Walt Whitman is your imaginative father and
mother, even if, like myself, you have never composed a line of verse. You
can nominate a fair number of literary works as candidates for the secular
Scripture of the United States. They might include Melville's Moby-Dick,
Twain's Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, and Emerson's two series of Essays
and The Conduct of Life. None of those, not even Emerson's, are as central
as the first edition of Leaves of Grass.
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. Lawrence
Ferlinghetti numbered himself among Whitman's "wild children", and the title
of his 1961 collection Starting from San Francisco is a deliberate reference to
Whitman's Starting from Paumanok. 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.
Other admirers included the Eagle Street College, an informal group
established in 1885 at the home of James William Wallace in Eagle Street,
Bolton, to read and discuss the poetry of Whitman. The group subsequently
became known as the Bolton Whitman Fellowship or Whitmanites. Its
members held an annual 'Whitman Day' celebration around the poet's
birthday.
Whitman's poetry has been set to music by a large number of composers;
indeed it has been suggested his poetry has been set to music more than
any other American poet except for Emily Dickinson and Henry Wadsworth
Longfellow. Those who have set his poems to music have included Kurt Weill,
Ralph Vaughan Williams, Frederick Delius, Paul Hindemith, Karl Amadeus
Hartmann, Benjamin Britten, Leonard Bernstein, Ned Rorem, Ronald Corp,
George Crumb, Roger Sessions and John Adams.
Whitman is a 2009 inductee of the New Jersey Hall of Fame. The Walt
Whitman Bridge crosses the Delaware River near his home in Camden.
Works:
Franklin Evans (1842)
Leaves of Grass (1855)
Drum-Taps (1865)
Memoranda During the War
Specimen Days
Democratic Vistas (1871)
www.PoemHunter.com - The World's Poetry Archive
This Is What You Shall Do – Walt Whitman (Powerful Life Poetry)
In Search of Walt Whitman, Part One: The Early Years (1819-1860)
Walt Whitman Revolutionised American Poetry
O Me! O Life! - Walt Whitman (Powerful Life Poetry)
Oh Captain! My Captain! - Walt Whitman (Powerful Life Poetry)
Song of the Open Road - Walt Whitman (Powerful Life Poetry)
Walt Whitman: America's Poet
Literatura Fundamental 92: Walt Whitman - Maria Clara Bonetti Paro
Don Quixote - Miguel de Cervantes - 52 Books in 52 Weeks
♡ Audiobook ♡ Leaves of Grass by Walt Whitman ♡ Classic Literature & Poetry
In Search of Walt Whitman, Part Two: The Civil War and Beyond (1861-1892)
Dead Poets Society - Mr. Keating's Walt Whitman Speech
Como Breaking Bad Celebra a Poesia de Walt Whitman
Walt Whitman: PBS American Experience (2008)
Harvard professor and Nas discussing Walt Whitman
A poetic experiment: Walt Whitman, interpreted by three animators - Justin Moore
Whitman expert Bob Hass on 'Leaves of Grass'
Walt Whitman biography in hindi #literature #english
Walt Whitman - Journalist | Mini Bio | BIO
Perfect Praise (How Excellent) Walt Whitman and the Soul Children of Chicago
Walt Whitman
Walt Whitman
The Astronomer - Walt Whitman (Powerful Life Poetry)
Leaves of Grass - Book 1 - Poems of Walt Whitman - FULL Audio Book - Poetry
Harold Bloom Lecture on Walt Whitman
The Actual Voice of Walt Whitman from a late 1800's wax recording
Leaves of Grass by Walt Whitman (read by Tom O'Bedlam)
Eu canto meu próprio Ser (Walt Whitman) #PílulasDeInterpretação
from Song of Myself by Walt Whitman (read by Tom O'Bedlam)
Walt Whitman biography
Leaves of Grass by Walt Whitman | Song of Myself
Carpe Diem | Poema Motivacional de Walt Whitman narrado por Mundo Dos Poemas (Aproveite o Dia)
Walt Whitman Documentary 1988
O Captain! My Captain! by Walt Whitman (read by Tom O'Bedlam)
Sai Kolla: "O Captain! My Captain!" by Walt Whitman
Walt Whitman's "Song of Myself" helps explain perception
NO TE DETENGAS - De Walt Whitman - Voz: Ricardo Vonte
Walt Whitman - Chant de moi-même (Song of myself)
Poesia "A um estranho" [Walt Whitman]
Degree 3rd Semester O captain my captain lesson Walt Whitman #ou_sem3_english #o_captain_my_caption
WALT WHITMAN (1819-1892) – Une vie, une œuvre [2006]
Oda a Walt Whitman
Walt Whitman & The Soul Children of Chicago IFC 2018 Performance
Trampled By Turtles -- Walt Whitman
CANTO A MÍ MISMO. Walt Whitman.
To A Stranger. Poem by Walt Whitman
Cinismo, Poesia e Ingenuità: come Walt Whitman può salvarci dal baratro
Walt Whitman: poeta de eternidad.mp4
Leaves of Grass by Walt Whitman | Summary & Analysis
NO TE DETENGAS, CARPE DIEM. Poetas muertos.