The gist, however, remains the same: Whitman's speaker is off for the open road, to experience the freedom and expansiveness it promises. He was deeply troubled by the injustices of slavery and poverty, and he made a point to extend his poetic cheerleading to every kind of person he could conceive of-slave and freeperson alike.ĭon't believe us? Just take a quick peep at "Song of the Open Road." This was originally called "Poem of the Open Road" when it first appeared in the 1856 edition of Leaves of Grass, but Whitman kept tinkering with this, and the other poems in the collection, for the rest of his life. After all, the dude did live through the Civil War (during which he spent some time as a medical assistant for the Union troops) and Abraham Lincoln's assassination. Whitman's not just the poetic version of Ned Flanders. As a result, his poems read a bit like encyclopedia entries, listing every nook and cranny of American life in a bid to lift them up in celebration. We say more about Whitman's free verse form over in " Form and Meter," and we say everything worth saying about his content in our " Detailed Summary." For now, though, we'll just note that these breakthroughs came in the way that Whitman jammed his poems full of every possible aspect of life. (Are you taking notes out there, budding poets?) Whitman kept adding to his book, publishing five more subsequent versions in his life and adding to it along the way until it became known as a radical new breakthrough in form and content. He footed the publication bill himself and even wrote some of his own reviews. In 1855 he published a collection of twelve poems he called Leaves of Grass. The country was filled with optimism and excitement, and an ample dose of that infected young Walt and influenced the poetry he would go on to write.Īfter stints as a journalist and a schoolteacher, Whitman first started writing poetry in the 1840s. Born in 1819, Whitman came into a brand new America, which had just won its independence from England forty years earlier. Specifically, he wrote and published his work as a member of the first American generation. And by "day" we mean the nineteenth-century day. Still, Whitman was one of a kind in his day. Accidentally squeeze lemon juice into a paper cut and they're right there to tell you what the silver lining is. Whitman's a bit like that friend you have who thinks that everything is just the bee's knees. In person, we get that this can be kind of annoying. Nothing escaped the scope of his celebratory praise, and it seems like every face, animal, plant, and object he came across in life ended up in a typically long line in one of his typically huge poems. Of course, that's partly because Whitman is known for his poems celebrating, well… everything-every street, every flower, every person, practically every grain of sand. If he were alive today, we're almost positive that he would love you, no matter what.
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