This document provides a biography and analysis of Walt Whitman and his famous poetry collection Leaves of Grass. It summarizes that Whitman celebrated the human body and nature in a time when such topics were considered immoral. It also discusses how his free verse style rejected traditional poetic structures and instead used natural speech rhythms. Key themes in his work included democracy as a way of life, the cycle of growth and death, and the beauty of the individual.

1. SAN MARCOS UNIVERSITY
October 24th , 2011

2. Walt Whitman
His poetry externs
the
Transcendentalists’
joy in nature to a
love for humanity in
all its
manifestations.
Whitman's verse
become a
sweeping
catalogue of
America

3. Biography
1819 1830 1846
• He was • He left • He
born in school. becomes
Long editor of
Island the
Brooklyn
Eagle.

4. 1855 1876, 81-89 1892
• The first
edition • Whitman • Whitman
of produced died on
Leaves further March
of editions 26.
Grass. of Leaves
of Grass

5. Analysis of Leaves of Grass
 This book is notable for its
delight in and praise of the
senses during a time when
such candid displays were
considered immoral.
Where much previous
poetry, especially English,
relied on symbolism,
allegory, and meditation
on the religious and
spiritual, Leaves of Grass
(particularly the first
edition) exalted the body
and the material world.

6. Free Verse
 It is a poetry that has a  A child said What is the
irregular rhythm and grass? fetching it to
line length and that me with full hands.
attempts to avoid any  How could I answer
predetermined verse the child? I do not
structure; instead, it know what it is any
uses the cadences of more than he.
natural speech.

7. Themes
Democracy As a Way of The Cycle of Growth and The Beauty of the
Life Death Individual
• Whitman envisioned • Whitman’s poetry • He imagined a
democracy not just as a reflects the vitality and democratic nation as a
political system but as a growth of the early unified whole
way of experiencing the United States. composed of unique
world. • Describing the life cycle but equal individuals
• He imagined democracy of nature helped • Every voice and every
as a way of Whitman contextualize part will carry the same
interpersonal the severe injuries and weight within the single
interaction and as a way trauma he witnessed democracy—and thus
for individuals to during the Civil War— every voice and every
integrate their beliefs linking death to life individual is equally
into their everyday helped give the deaths beautiful. Despite this
lives. of so many soldiers pluralist view, Whitman
meaning. still singled out specific
individuals for praise in
his poetry, particularly
Abraham Lincoln.

8. Motifs
• These lists create a sense of expansiveness in the poem, as they mirror
the growth of the United States.
List • Lists are another way of demonstrating democracy in action: in lists, all
items possess equal weight, and no item is more important than
another item in the list.
Human • With physical contact comes spiritual communion: two touching bodies
form one individual unit of togetherness. Several poems praise the
bodies of both women and men, describing them at work, at play, and
Body interacting.
Rhythm
• Often, Whitman begins several lines in a row with the same word or
and phrase, a literary device called anaphora.
Incantation

9. Symbols
• Throughout Whitman’s poetry, plant life symbolizes both
growth and multiplicity.
• Rapid, regular plant growth also stands in for the rapid,
Plants regular expansion of the population of the United States.
• Whitman’s interest in the self ties into his praise of the
individual. Whitman links the self to the conception of
poetry throughout his work, envisioning the self as the
The self
birthplace of poetry. Most of his poems are spoken from the
first person, using the pronoun I.