3.5 Walt Whitman

Notes

Walt Whitman (1819-1892) published Leaves of Grass in 1855 and revised it throughout his life. He is known for celebrating democracy, the common person and the self.

• He wrote in free verse: no regular rhyme or meter, with long flowing lines.
• He used catalogs (long lists) to include every kind of American, as in "I Hear America Singing."
• "Song of Myself" begins "I celebrate myself," but the "self" includes everyone.
• During the Civil War he worked as a nurse in army hospitals. After Lincoln's assassination he wrote "O Captain! My Captain!" (1865), an extended metaphor in which the ship is the nation, the captain is Lincoln, and the "fearful trip" is the war.
• Worked example: in "I Hear America Singing," carpenters, mothers and mechanics each sing their own song, which expresses democracy as many voices together.