Walt Whitman Quick Facts

Walt Whitman

American poet, essayist, and journalist

• Birth: May 31, 1819
• Death: March 26, 1892
• Place of Birth: West Hills, New York
• Full Name: Walter Whitman
• Known for: His unconventional, individualistic, and dynamic poetic style, which overlooked traditional rules of metrical structure
• Influence on Others: Influenced modern poets William Carlos Williams, T.S. Eliot, and Allen Ginsberg
• Allegation: Rumoured to be homosexual or bisexual
• Opposition: Opposed slavery, but not an abolitionist
• Advocacy: Advocate of temperance

Quote:

“I celebrate myself, and sing myself,
And what I assume you shall assume,
For every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you.”

" Leaves of Grass, "Song of Myself," (1855)

Notable Works:

Leaves of Grass (1855)

Did You Know?

• Though he received little formal education, Whitman often attended the opera and also spent time studying great works of literature in the libraries of New York City.
• The first edition of Leaves of Grass was not well received by the public, but was praised by the American essayist Ralph Waldo Emerson in a letter that Whitman published in the second edition.
• In 1865 Whitman was fired from a government job with the Department of the Interior after he was discovered to be the author of Leaves of Grass

References

“Walt Whitman Quick Facts.” Microsoft Encarta. DVD-ROM. Redmond: Microsoft, 2005.