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| Birth Name(s) : Walt Whitman |
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Full Walt Whitman Biography
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. His works have been translated into more than twenty-five languages. Whitman is among the most influential and controversial poets in the American canon. His work has been described as a "rude shock" and "the most audacious and debatable contribution yet made to American literature." As Whitman wrote in Leaves of Grass (By Blue Ontario's Shore), "Rhymes and rhymers pass away...America justifies itself, give it time..."
By 1865 Walt Whitman was world-famous, and Leaves of Grass had been accepted by a publishing house in the US. Though still considered an iconoclast and a literary outsider, the poet's status began to grow at home. During his final years, Whitman became a respected literary vanguard visited by young artists. Several photographs and paintings of Whitman with a large beard cultivated a "Christ-figure" mystique. Whitman did not invent American transcendentalism, but he had become its most famous exponent and was also associated with American mysticism. In the twentieth century, young writers such as Hart Crane, William Carlos Williams, Allen Ginsberg, and Jack Kerouac rediscovered Whitman and reinterpreted his literary manifesto for a new audience.
The events of late 1864 did little to raise Whitman's spirits. In October, he found out that his brother George had been captured by the Confederacy after a battle; whether he was wounded and where he was held remained unknown. In December Whitman took his brother Jesse, whose mind had been deteriorating, to the Kings County Lunatic Asylum and committed him. Fortunately for Whitman, more positive events were taking place in Washington. In late December, O'Connor pleaded Whitman 's case before W.T. Otto, Assistant Secretary of the Department of the Interior, and in January, Whitman was offered a low-level clerkship for, to Whitman, the more than adequate salary of $1,200 a year. Upon returning to Washington in January 1865, Whitman was assigned to the Indian Bureau division of the Interior Department. George, after being released from the Danville, Virginia, prisoner-of-war camp, returned home in March, and Whitman took a leave of absence to visit him. When he returned to Washington, Whitman was promoted to a clerkship one grade higher.
Over the next few years Whitman continued to work on his poetry, and in 1871 a number of works were published. Roberts Brothers of Boston published After All, Not to Create Only (later called "Song of the Exposition"), a poem which celebrated the opening of the National Industrial Exposition in New York on 7 September 1871. Whitman had been invited by the organizing committee and was paid $100 for his work, which he read in person on opening day. In the same year appeared Democratic Vistas, Whitman's prose comments on the role of the poet in shaping both America's and humanity's destinies, and the importance of democracy as an element in the formation of character. Also in 1871 Whitman published Passage to India, which praised the completion of the Suez Canal, the laying of the Atlantic cable, and the finishing of the transcontinental railroad.The Walt Whitman House in Camden, New Jersey.
In 1873, Whitman suffered a stroke while working and living in Washington, D. C. He never completely recovered, but continued to write poetry. He lived his final years at his home on Mickle Street in Camden, New Jersey, revising Leaves of Grass and receiving visitors, including Oscar Wilde.
After his stroke, his fame grew substantially both at home and abroad. Mostly it was stimulated by several prominent British writers criticizing the American academy for not recognizing Whitman's talents. These included William Rossetti and Anne Gilchrist. At this time in his life, Whitman also had a prominent group of national and international disciples, including Canadian writer and physician Richard Bucke.
In 1875, Whitman copyrighted his 11 articles written for the New York Times and the New York Weekly Graphic, along with some more material, which he called “Memoranda During the War”. In later years he released the work, only one thousand copies at first, from a private printing. “Memoranda During the War” was not meant to be a detailed description of the actions of the Civil War, but rather a spotlight on the men fighting this monumental battle. This topic touched close to home with Whitman because his brother George was wounded at the Battle of Fredericksburg, which was the catalyst to Whitman’s involvement.
Yale professor and literary critic Harold Bloom considers Walt Whitman to be one of the five most important American poets. The others in Bloom's pantheon are Emily Dickinson, Wallace Stevens, Hart Crane, and Robert Frost. Whitman also had a huge influence on the British novelist and poet D. H. Lawrence. Contemporary Spokane Indian poet, Sherman Alexie, has also been influenced by Whitman, mentioning him explicitly in his poem "Defending Walt Whitman".
In 1915, Fernando Pessoa explicitly described Whitman as being homosexual in his sensationalist poem Saudação a Walt Whitman. |
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