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During the Romantic period,
American authors sparked a literary revolution. Their works communicated universal themes in innovative forms. Two groundbreaking poets were Walt Whitman and
Emily Dickinson, who echoed
Romantic and Transcendental ideals, but transformed
American poetry. Self-reliant and nonconforming, these two poets looked to nature and found songs of the divine all around them.

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Walt Whitman was born on May 31, 1819, and grew up in Brooklyn,
New York.
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Whitman went to public school for only six years. When he was 11, he, like many youngsters in the 1800s, had to go to work to help support the family. Fortunately, Whitman loved reading, so he continued to study on his own, reading Homer, Dante,
Shakespeare, and the Bible.
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Whitman's first job was as an office boy for a law firm. He then worked for a doctor and a newspaper. It was as an apprentice typesetter that he fell in love with words. Soon, he began writing short articles for the newspaper.
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Continued hardships forced the young Whitman back home, and he started teaching in a one-room schoolhouse when he was 17.

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At the age of 22, Walt Whitman moved to New
York City to become a journalist. He worked for a few local newspapers and even founded his own.
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In 1848, Whitman traveled south to become an editor for the New Orleans Crescent. He stayed only a few months in the city and was exposed to the ugliness of the slave markets there.
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Whitman´s minimal stay in New Orleans had maximum impact. He harshly criticized slavery and expressed great respect for its victims.

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Traveling back to New York, Whitman took advantage of all the available transportation routes: train, horse-drawn stagecoach, and steamboat. Immersed in the beauty of America, the inspired writer penned his observations poetically.
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Upon returning to New York, Whitman continued journalistic work in public newspapers. He also began collecting his poetry to create the first version of Leaves of Grass, which he selfpublished in 1855.

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At the time Whitman was writing,
America was still an experiment in democracy. This democracy had inspired much of the world with its new ideas of equality and plurality.
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Whitman recognized the uniqueness of America´s democracy and wanted to celebrate it. He wanted to write an epic, a long narrative poem that honors heroic achievements and communicates significant themes.
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His decision to write an epic was inspired by his desire to depict the broad sweep of the life of democracy in America.

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•
• Example: The Odyssey
A single hero:
Odysseus
•
• Direct line of action:
Odysseus’ journey home
Significant theme:
Value of cleverness, strength, etc.
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•
•
• Whitman’s Hero:
Democracy
Action: Depictions of
American life
Theme: Democracy’s ability to respect the individual

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Although many people today take American democracy for granted, in Whitman´s era, the democratic ideal was still relatively new.
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To convey an idea as original as democracy,
Whitman chose to break with traditional poetic forms.
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He decided to ignore poetic elements such as rhyme, fixed meter, and set line and stanza length, and thereby created a brand-new form of poetry.

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Read the opening lines from "Song of Myself."
• I celebrate myself, and sing myself,
And what I assume you shall assume,
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Whitman´s writing style and message reflect some of the ideas of Transcendentalism.
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The poem celebrates the individual and emphasizes the positive nature of humankind.

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All the Connections
I celebrate myself, and sing myself,
And what I assume you shall assume,
For every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you.
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Whitman wasn´t constrained by strict structures of poetic form. The writing flows from line to line without a real stopping point. He connects each line of poetry because he wants to show that there is a connection between all things in life.
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The poet emphasizes the interconnectedness of all things.
He refers to "every atom" because he wants to show how everything is connected to everything else.

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Although the work was groundbreaking, when Leaves of Grass was first published, it was generally ignored by readers and critics.
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However, Whitman had a significant fan in the acknowledged father of
American Transcendentalism,
Ralph Waldo Emerson.
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Emerson wrote to Whitman in
1855 to applaud the poet´s brave new work.
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DEAR SIR--I am not blind to the worth of the wonderful gift of
"LEAVES OF GRASS." I find it the most extraordinary piece of wit and wisdom that America has yet contributed. I am very happy in reading it, as great power makes us happy. It meets the demand I am always making of what seemed the sterile and stingy nature, as if too much handiwork, or too much lymph in the temperament, were making our western wits fat and mean.
I give you joy of your free and brave thought. I have great joy in it. I find incomparable things said incomparably well, as they must be. I find the courage of treatment which so delights us, and which large perception only can inspire.
I greet you at the beginning of a great career, which yet must have had a long foreground somewhere, for such a start. I rubbed my eyes a little, to see if this sunbeam were no illusion; but the solid sense of the book is a sober certainty. It has the best merits, namely, of fortifying and encouraging.
I did not know until I last night saw the book advertised in newspaper that I could trust the name as real and available for a post-office. I wish to see my benefactor, and have felt much like striking my tasks, and visiting New York to pay you my respects.
R.W. EMERSON
Concord, Massachusetts, 21 July, 1855