Walt Whitman Research Paper

Author Walt Whitman, who is considered one of the Great American authors, wrote during the romanticism period. Particularly, in his work(s) titled The Leaves of Grass, written in 1855 we can see evidence of the characteristics, themes and style identified with the romanticism movement which was extant in American letters between 1800 to 1850. As a representative of such a movement, Walt Whitman then remains one of the most identifiable and iconic writers of his time.

He was born on May 31, 1819 in West Hills, NY and died March 26, 1892 Camden, NJ. His parents were of modest means and had 7 siblings. At the age of 11 he was pulled from school to help his family support itself in the printing industries. He is basically self-taught himself.

At 17 he tried being a teacher and got a job at a one room school house for five years. In 1841 he stared to get interested in journalism. He was a volatile editor and writer. He had strong ideas about women’s property rights, immigration, and slavery. From 1848 to 1855 he made one of his best works Leaves of Grass. Over his life time there were 7 additions of the book. During the war he moved to Washington D.C. to attend his wounded brother George. He stayed in D.C. for several years. Working in the paymasters’ office and volunteered. He volunteered by visiting wounded soldiers. He spoke with young solders about what they witness in the war. Due to his experience with the wounded soldiers, he published a book of poems. The book that he published was called Drum Taps. It was one of the only two accounts of the civil war written by people that

For example in A Song, it states “COME, I will make the continent indissoluble; I will make the most splendid race the sun ever yet shone upon; I will make divine magnetic lands, With the love of comrades, With the life-long love of comrades. I will plant companionship thick as trees along all the rivers of America, and along the shores of the great lakes, and all over the prairies; I will make inseparable cities, with their arms about each other's necks; By the love of comrades, By the manly love of comrades. For you these, from me, O Democracy, to serve you, ma femme! 10 For you! for you, I am trilling these songs, In the love of comrades, In the high-towering love of comrades.” He uses imagination over reality by saying “I will make divine magnetic lands.” He also said that “I will plant companionship thick as trees along all the rivers of America” that shows that nature is good. Another example is A Song of Myself, it states “Has any one supposed it lucky to be born? I hasten to inform him or her it is just as lucky to die, and I know it. I pass death with the dying and birth with the new-wash'd babe, and am not contain'd between my hat and boots, And peruse manifold objects, no two alike and every one good, The earth good and the stars good, and their adjuncts all good. I am not an earth nor an adjunct of an earth, I am the mate and