Walt Whitman: The Heart, Body, and Soul of a Poet Walt Whitman in today's society is reviled as one of the most superb of all poets. But it certainly has not always been that way. In fact, Walt Whitman was thought, not of a poet, but of a madman, a radical, and some would say a pornographer. But was this so called evil man, truly a madman, a shadow behind his own work? Or just taking on one of the many faces of art. This reader believes that without a doubt, Walt Whitman was a poet that defined a part of the literate world.
Walt Whitman was born on May 31, 1819, in West Hills Huntington. He was the second the oldest in a family of nine. Whitman's father, Walter Whitman was a carpenter and his wife; Louis Velsor was a housewife. Later in life, several of Whitman's siblings as adults would suffer from numerous mental and emotional problems, including BI-polar disorder and sever chronic depression.
Walt Whitman's use of free verse became appreciate...
English: Manuscript handwritten by Walt Whitman, A...
Walt Whitman and Bill DuckettWhitman's father moved the family to Brooklyn in 1823 and from 1825-1830, Whitman attended public schools in Brooklyn, which was his entire formal education.
Whitman's first job at the age of twelve, was as an office boy and later an apprentice printer on the Long Island Patriot and later moving onto the Long Island Star. Both of the above were published in Brooklyn. Whitman's father decided to move the family back to Long Island, but Whitman decided to stay in Brooklyn continuing to work for the Star. Later on May 12, 1835, he went across the river to Manhattan where he continued his printing career in several printing offices for the next year. It wasn't until a fire in the Manhattan printing district in 1836 that made it impossible for him to find further...