Walt Whitman Resources
As always, these resources can be found on the network on the Shared drive in the Internet
Resources folder. Please consider using these resources to develop an internet activity for your
students. Perhaps you can ask them to prove that Whitman was a transcendentalist by
investigating the movement, his poetry, prose and perspectives. In addition, they can research
other people’s perspectives regarding his poetry and views.
Biography
Biographical material and a wealth of poems online
http://www.americanpoems.com/poets/waltwhitman/
Poets.org includes biographical materials and a listening booth
http://www.poets.org/poets/poets.cfm?prmID=127&CFID=14383316&CFTOKEN=31284897
Walt Whitman Biography at Bartleby
http://www.bartleby.com/65/wh/WhitmnW.html
Biography.com offers related links and bios
http://search.biography.com/print_record.pl?id=20730
Great overview of his life and works (the development of Leaves of Grass)
http://www.sc.edu/library/spcoll/amlit/whitman/whitman.html
Whitman’s Perspective
Walt Whitman’s Democracy at The Making of America (Cornell)
http://cdl.library.cornell.edu/cgibin/moa/pageviewer?frames=1&coll=moa&view=50&root=%2Fmoa%2Fnewe%2Fnewe0012%2
F&tif=00729.TIF&cite=http%3A%2F%2Fcdl.library.cornell.edu%2Fcgi-bin%2Fmoa%2Fmoacgi%3Fnotisid%3DAFJ3026-0012-95
Whitman on Freedom
http://www.bartleby.com/229/3018.html
Article on Whitman’s politics
http://www.mises.org/fullstory.asp?control=950
Walt Whitman and Slavery – part of the “Dickinson, Whitman and American Culture” site
http://jefferson.village.virginia.edu/fdw/volume1/price/
Lesson Plan at PBS – Whitman and the Civil War
http://www.pbs.org/civilwar/classroom/lesson_whitman.html
Images of the Civil War at PBS
http://www.pbs.org/civilwar/images/
Whitman – Complete Prose Works
http://www.whitmanarchive.org/archive1/works/completeprose/frameset.html
Memoranda During the War
http://etext.lib.virginia.edu/toc/modeng/public/WhiMemo.html
Audio/Multimedia
Audio Files – Readings of “As I Ebb’d With the Ocean of Life”
http://www.theatlantic.com/unbound/poetry/soundings/ocean.htm
More Whitman poems read aloud at
http://wiredforbooks.org/waltwhitman/
The only known recording of Whitman’s voice
http://guweb2.gonzaga.edu/faculty/campbell/enl311/whitman.htm
Poets on Reading Poetry Aloud
http://www.speak-a-poem.co.uk/poetsviews.html
Harper Audio – Audio files
http://town.hall.org/radio/HarperAudio/
Free Verse & Style
Whitman’s “innate musicality” at PBS
http://www.pbs.org/wnet/ihas/poet/whitman.html
What is free verse?
http://alabamapoets.org/style_tips.php
On free verse and cadence
http://www.english.upenn.edu/~afilreis/88/freeverse.html
Whitman and free verse
http://www.english.upenn.edu/~afilreis/50s/whitman-per-sillen.html
Literary Criticism and Commentaries
Robert Louis Stevenson on Whitman
http://essayists.8m.com/waltwhitman.html
Lit Criticism at the UV Walt Whitman Archive (incomplete but comprehensive site)
http://jefferson.village.virginia.edu/whitman/criticism/
Emerson on Whitman
http://lcweb2.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/r?ammem/mcc:@field(DOCID+@lit(mcc/012))
Leaves of Grass – Contemporary Reviews
http://jefferson.village.virginia.edu/whitman/reviews/index.html
Interesting Essay on Major Themes (and more) in Whitman
http://college.hmco.com/english/heath/syllabuild/iguide/whitman.html
http://xroads.virginia.edu/~CAP/hospital/whitman.htm Civil War hospital experience
Emerson’s “The Poet” – Preface to Leaves of Grass
http://www.radicalacademy.com/amphdiagram1.htm
Transcendentalism
Essay on Whitman / Themes / Transcendentalism
http://www.mum.edu/msvs/9199susan.html
Art & Culture has a lovely overview and offers info on romanticism and transcendentalism
http://www.artandculture.com/cgi-bin/WebObjects/ACLive.woa/wa/artist?id=287
The Home of American Transcendentalism
http://www.pbs.org/wnet/ihas/icon/concord.html
What is Transcendentalism?
http://www.transcendentalists.com/transcendentalism.htm
Transcendentalism - brief overviews with links
http://guweb2.gonzaga.edu/faculty/campbell/enl311/amtrans.htm
http://www.csustan.edu/english/reuben/pal/chap4/4intro.html
http://www.vcu.edu/engweb/transcendentalism/ideas/introduction.html
Trans & Political Reform
http://www.vcu.edu/engweb/transcendentalism/roots/legacy/leg-political.html
Female Transcendentalists
http://womenshistory.about.com/library/weekly/aa031599.htm
General Resources with Incredible Articles and Links
**The Atlantic Online Poetry Pages (Articles include “Can Poetry Matter?” “Reminiscences of Walt
Whitman” and “America’s Bard: Walt Whitman”) – Site also includes audio files
http://www.theatlantic.com/unbound/poetry/poetpage.htm
Whitman – Complete Prose Works
http://www.whitmanarchive.org/archive1/works/completeprose/frameset.html
Interviews with poets
http://wiredforbooks.org/poetry/poetry.htm
Info at America’s Library
http://www.americaslibrary.gov/jb/nation/jb_nation_whitman_1.html
McGraw Hill has an online learning center that focuses on Whitman, among others.
http://highered.mcgrawhill.com/sites/0072486813/student_view0/chapter10/about_the_author.html
Recovered Whitman Notebooks at Library of Congress
http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/wwhtml/wwhome.html
Accompanying School project/activity resources
http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/ndlpedu/collections/ww/
Just For Fun
Magnetic Poetry Online
http://www.magneticpoetry.com/magnet/index.html
Emily Dickinson BIRTHDAY DEC 10th
Bio http://search.biography.com/print_record.pl?id=14236
Hear the poems read aloud
http://www.harperaudio.com/harris.htm