Walt Whitman Influences

His father was a carpenter, farmer and a freethinking deist and had a reasonable impact on Whitman's thinking. His father was also abusive and most likely an alcoholic. On the other hand, his mother was a Dutch Quaker with whom Walt shared a close relationship. He grew-up during a time when America was growing, making integral decisions that would shape the country's future. His mother helped him through all these times.

Walt Whitman was a solitary man of many words. He was an extremely famous poet during the 19th century. Whitman influenced pop culture in his era through his many poems. Popular culture is the activities or ideas that the mass of population enjoy. Some say that he was the most influential writer of his era. Whitman went down a long, windy road to get to the point of greatness where he got. Although he started writing as a newspaper editor, he developed into an influential genius. Whitmans most famous writings was a book of poems called “Leaves of Grass” which consisted of over 400 poems. Walt Whitman influenced people of the 19th century by his writings in which he told people to focus on the individual, and that they were the most important

Walt Whitman was an American poet whose free verse brought a new style and uniqueness to American poetry. “Free verse is poetry organized according to the cadences of speech and image patterns rather than according to a regular metrical scheme. The meter is irregular and its rhythms are based on patterned elements such as sounds, words, phrases, sentences, and paragraphs, rather than on the traditional units of metrical feet” (“Free Verse Encyclopedia” 1). You can see his free verse style through his literary works such as “Leaves of Grass” and “Song of Myself”.

After the Civil War, Walt Whitman realized that the American people were in need of their own identity. Therefore, he wrote the book “Leaves of Grass” with the goal of creating a literature piece that was authentic and organic to the United States in every sense. Whitman introduced to literature the idea of the “American Dream” and highlighted how important it was for the American people to develop their own identity. Consequently, he rejected the European writing styles and adapted the use of free-verses to his writing, making it a popular writing style in American poetry. Whitman valued of humanity, nature and spirituality. Therefore, he joined the Transcendental literary movement and

Whitman was able to change people’s views on life and was able to give people something that they wanted and were looking for in his creation of a new writing style. His writing about real life experiences connected him well with the common man, which is another aspect of the Romantic period. Whitman is also thought of as the “father of free verse.” He enjoyed using free verse because it could further distinguish him from other writers of the past, and of his time.

During the 1800’s, the period of the life of Walt Whitman, there were several notable writers who felt strong ties to the natural world and allowed their work to reflect this. These included Henry David Thoreau, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Emily Dickinson and John Muir and they were all players in the Transcendentalism movement that was coming to life. That theory – that people found their own version of spirituality, often through a connection to nature – is one that all of these great minds espoused in one way or another. But, perhaps Ralph Waldo Emerson had the most influence over Walt Whitman. Their views of nature were closely matched and Emerson, already being an admired writer, was someone Whitman looked up to.

After studying American author, Walt Whitman, it is clear that he has had a long lasting impact on society and the lives of authors and artists who came after him. Through works like Democratic Vistas and Song of Myself, Whitman gave American society tools to promote creative expression and the essence of democracy. However, Whitman’s methods had to be adopted over time to touch/bring attention to different social issues. Two authors who were able to branch off of Whitman’s works and ideas were Isadora Duncan and James Baldwin. By analyzing these two important characters of history, we will be able explore two different social issues in two different eras and how Duncan and Baldwin refined Whitman’s approach in order to make a statement in society. It’s significant to identify the importance of these artists because this process is still relevant in today’s society, adapting from Whitman in order to get points across and make a difference.

To start off, throughout Walt Whitman's life he had experienced a variety of things that influenced his writing which, I think made him stand out from other writers of the late romantic period because he kind of had a different overall viewpoint. One of the first major things that influenced Whitman's overall viewpoint was the serious injury of his brother. According to an article by David Baker,

Walt Whitman was a revolutionary poet who let his emotions run free through his poetry. Whitman was never afraid to express himself no matter how inappropriate or offensive his emotions might have seemed at the time. This is why Whitman's poem still echo that same sentiment and emotion today almost as loudly as when the drums were first tapped.

Steve Prefontaine stated, "My philosophy is that I'm an artist. I perform an art not with a paint brush or a camera. I perform with bodily movement. Instead of exhibiting my art in a museum or a book or on canvas, I exhibit my art in front of the multitudes. " Art can be created with our own human anatomy, and this is what some may call dance, contortion, or even football.

Carl Sandburg and Walt Whitman had very similar lives. They both came from working class families and neither one of them went to high school or graduated college. They learned from watching people and by reading books on their own. They both had a certain sense for the world that made them able to see what was going on around them and grasp its significance. Although Whitman was born sixty years before Sandburg there were still a lot of the same things happening in America and they both picked up on one important factor of the time, that of the average working class man. Whitman and Sandburg admired the working class man for all of his hard work and they wrote a lot about this

Walt Whitman, another talented poet, was known in his time of the late 1800’s. He was best known for being extremely egotistical. He also was a part of the transition between transcendentalism, which Emerson was known for, and realism. Some would argue that his work was very controversial but because of that, he conveyed individualism just like Emerson did. In Whitman’s poem “Song of Myself”, he not only talks a lot about himself but also nature. Emerson and Whitman share this trait. They also share the quality of being independent and providing for themselves. Whitman

Walt Whitman is a famous American poet. His work is a combination of romantic and realistic characteristics like emotion, nature, free thought, individualism, imagination, yet with the depiction of life in an objective manner. Like Whitman claimed, “the proof of a poet is that his country absorbs him as affectionately as he has absorbed it.” In other words, the life in his country influences writing. However, unlike most famous American writers, Whitman was self-taught and is the father of free verse, as stated by many universities and scholars. In relationship to Whitman, Whitman’s “When I Heard the Learn’d Astronomer, is about a student deciding to learn from nature than from the lecturer. This reflects Whitman’s self-taught experience.

Walter Whitman, also known as Walt Whitman, was born on May 31, 1819, in Long Island, New York, to Walter Whitman and Louisa Van Velsor Whitman. When he was twelve, Walt and his family settled in Brooklyn, up to then his family had lived in a dozen different places (Conarroe 4). Walt worked in many different positions; to some he was even viewed as a drifter. Walt was many different things; he worked as a carpenter and home builder, like his father, and apprentice printer, a school teacher, editor of several newspapers, including Brooklyn’s Daily Eagle, journalist, and writer. However, despite whatever job Walt Whitman was working as,

The dominant themes that are more pervasive in Whitman’s poetry are democracy, life/death cycles, individualism, and nature. These themes play major roles in some of his more notable poems such as “Songs of Myself” or “Crossing Brooklyn Ferry.” He used democracy as a theme to bring society together, and unite everyone based on their general beliefs. He depicted life and death cycles to merge society together on a spiritual level. Despite his eagerness to unite society he also embraced individualism, and is also a persistent theme in most of his poetry. Nature was an important concept that Whitman used to convince people who there were more important things to life than class structure. He used nature connect us all, and encourage people to