Walt Whitman

Walt Whitman (1819-1892), today considered one of America’s most significant 19th-century poets, was born on Long Island. He dropped out of the schooling system relatively early, at age 12, to work in a printing house. Other jobs he held in the early years of his life include editing and teaching. Around this time, he began publishing some prose and poetry in local magazines but didn't get much recognition. In the quote above, Whitman communicates his views of nature, a view reflected in many of his poems. Whitman was fascinated with the fluid, ever-changing nature of the natural world. He could find beauty even in death and decay. His most well-known work is Leaves of Grass. This is a collection of poems first published in 1855 by Whitman himself. He couldn't find a publisher that would agree to print his poems, so he sold a house to afford the first edition of Leaves of Grass, which contained 12 poems. Many of the poems there were inspired by his travels in the American wild. This first publication was welcomed with open arms neither by critics nor by the American public. People found his openness hard to digest; his straightforwardness about physical love invoked discomfort in readers of that time. The public showed contempt for Whitman presenting himself as a hardworking man. There was a general reluctance to accept his innovative poetic style - he was a bit of an unusual poet in the contemporary scene - both in style and choice of themes. The quote above, from "‘I Sing the Body Electric" (1885) perfectly demonstrates Whitman's striving for unity, for a sense of oneness. He looked at nature with awe and saw the physical body and the soul as an integral part of it. Whitman was also fascinated by the notion of an eternal soul residing in a decaying body. During the Civil War, his brother was injured, and Whitman volunteered at the hospital to be close to him. His travels and time spent at the hospital with wounded soldiers had a great effect on his poetic work. The accumulated mental stress of the pain of war led to a heart attack and a general decline in health. After several years of unstable health, he died in 1892 at age 73. Despite not being revered back in the day, over 1,000 people came to his funeral. Much like Vincent Van Gogh, Whitman's genius was discovered and celebrated only after his death. And even when he finally gained recognition, he was first seen as a democrat and only then as a poet. https://www.ba-bamail.com/spirituality/quotes-by-the-canonic-american-poet-walt-whitman/