Unit 5: American Literature

New Visions of America

Walt Whitman

Poe, Hawthorne and Melville all struggled to find their individual voices, and through them American literature began to acquire its own personality. One more figure emerged in the 1850s to assert a truly American voice, one that celebrated the American landscape, the American people, their speech and democratic form of government. His name was Walt Whitman (1818-1892), and like so many others of these writers, he had had to work hard for a living as a school teacher, printer and journalist. In 1848, he took a trip to the southern city of New Orleans, at the mouth of the Mississippi River, that great waterway flowing through the heart of the country. There Whitman gained a new vision of America and began writing poetry that would embody his vision. In 1855, he published a ground—breaking book called Leaves of Grass. Readers were amazed by the free—flowing structure of this poetry, with its long irregular lines. Like Melville in Moby Dick, Whitman ventured beyond traditional forms to meet his need for more space to express the American spirit. Some readers were disturbed by Whitman's egotism (one main poem in Leaves of Grass is called "Song of Myself"), but Whitman dwelt on himself simply because he saw himself as a prototype of "The American." Startling as this poetry was, it won Whitman admirers across America and in Europe. Throughout the rest of his life, he kept rewriting and republishing editions of Leaves of Grass. He celebrated a sweeping panorama of the American landscape and sang almost mystically of the rhythms of life uniting all citizens of the democracy.

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