{\b Walt Whitman}.

{\b Date of Birth}.: 31 May 1819 

{\b Date of Death}.: 26 March 1892

{\b Works}.

US poet, journalist and essayist. 
Best known for the poetry collection Leaves of Grass (1855, 1856, 1860 with 
another six editions in his lifetime). Other poetry includes Drum Taps (1865) 
and Sequel to Drum Taps (1866). Prose includes Specimen Days (1882) which 
includes an informal autobiography. 

{\b Featured Works}.

'O Captain! My Captain!', 'The Wound-Dresser', 'Out of the Cradle Endlessly 
Rocking', 'When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloomed', 'Hushed Be the Camps 
Today', 'This Dust Was Once the Man', 'The Unexpressed', 'The Dalliance of the 
Eagles', 'To a Common Prostitute', 'A Noiseless Patient Spider', 'Come Up From 
the Fields Father', 'Crossing Brooklyn Ferry', 'I Saw in Louisiana a Live-Oak 
Growing', 'I Hear It Was Charged Against Me', 'Old Ireland', 'You Felons on 
Trial in Courts', 'Unfolded Out of the Folds', 'When I Heard at the Close of Day',
'Sometimes With One I Love', 'As If A Phantom Caress'd Me'.

{\b General Comment}.

Whitman had little formal education and began work at the age of eleven as an 
office boy. He went on to become a printer, a travelling school teacher and 
contributor to and editor of at least ten newspapers and magazines, as well as 
entering politics as a Democrat. 

Whitman was a voracious reader, reading everything from Shakespeare to the 
Bible, including the Greek and Hindu poets, all of which would influence his 
later work either in rhyme or thought. His early poems and short stories were 
conventional and unexciting and it has been argued that a love affair with a 
local girl during the poet's 1848 stay in New Orleans was a driving force in 
altering his character and work. 

On his return from New Orleans, Whitman was also much affected by a visit to 
the frontier. In Brooklyn he now adopted the dress of a "rough", having 
previously dressed as a dandy. He was also profoundly influenced by his 
experience as a volunteer hospital visitor amongst the wounded during the 
Civil War. Drum Taps is considered the best collection of poetry on the Civil 
War by any American writer. 

Whitman's Leaves of Grass was a poetry collection so radical it made him into 
a revolutionary figure. It was constantly revised by Whitman during his life, 
with a further 21 poems added to the original 12 in 1856, a further 122 for 
the 1860 edition and a further six editions each expanded and revised. At its 
centre lies a democratic desire for equality and brotherhood, with movement 
forward rather than a dependence on the corrupted past. Whitman was a great 
admirer of Emerson who provided inspiration for the first edition of Leaves of 
Grass. Emerson was one of the few to appreciate the early work and one of 
Whitman's rare travels in his final years was to visit Emerson, though his 
work was by now entirely original. 

Whitman was the first American poet to achieve a truly international 
reputation, and his work has influenced writers such as Henry Miller and D.H. 
Lawrence.