Hello everyone.

This presentation was made by Natália Šuchterová, Vanesa Minárová,

Veronika Malá, Simona Cázerová and Janka Minhová. We would like to talk about the
ultimate American poet - Walt Whitman. We are going to discuss ideas of America,
democracy and unity in his works. Let’s start.

Walt Whitman was born on May 31 in 1819. In 1823 he moved with his family into Brooklyn.
His work life was quite interesting, because he was working in many companies. At the age
of 11 he left school and became an office boy in a law firm and then worked for a doctor.
Then, he was working in the printing office of a newspaper and at 15 he was on his own.
Whitman reached full physical maturity in very early age. He was contributing with
conventional poems to the best Manhattan papers called the Mirror. Thanks to the
numberless romantic novels, his fantasy was very rich. Later on, in his 17 rejoined his family
and for five years he taught at small-town schools. However, he was a very good teacher, his
laziness was a bit stronger than him. Usually that was the main reason of changing his jobs
that much.

By early 1840, Whitman started to write poems for the Long Island Democrat. When his
teaching days were over, he began a political career by speaking at Democratic rallies. Then
he became an editor of a Manhattan daily, the Aurora. As usual, Whitman was fired from the
Aurora and wrote a temperance novel called Franklin Evans. People in that time knew him as
a journalist, writer and politician. Later on, he started to write a literary review on the books
by Emerson, Melville, Sand, Goethe or for example Fuller.

In 1840s he had attended operas and that was the reason of writing the Leaves of Grass.
Around the year 1851 Whitman became a “house builder”, more exactly a carpenter. In his
free time, he usually studied or read something, also he had a systematic plan of study.
Thanks to his trips to the Egyptian Museum on Broadway, later he became an expert of
Egyptology. Whitman were attending many lectures and became a student of astronomy and
from there he had some concepts for his poems like for example Song of Myself. Because he
really liked writing, he gave up newspaper work and the job of carpenter as well. After the
death of his father, the support of his mother and brother was very necessary for him. In
1856 Whitman published a second edition of Leaves of Grass.

Because of love for another man, he wrote a group of 12 poems, but it wasn’t enough. Later
on, he printed 45 poems about male love titled Calamus. During this time, Whitman had a
separate group of friends. The first one was a literary people and the second group was
made of stage drivers. He had made a regular visit to the prisons and hospitals. During the
Civil War he wrote a series of a war poems and for Specimen Days he wrote a section called
The real war will never get in the books.

If we are talking about the book Leaves of Grass, there were some sexual passages because
of whose Whitman was fired from his job. Then he tried to propagandize the book for its
acceptance. In 1822 published another prose work named Specimen Days and this book was
more personal and intense. Is about The life of an American who had lived in the midst of
great national events and who kept alert to nature and his own mind and body.
In 1873, Whitman suffered a paralytic stroke. His mother died a few months later and he
joined his brother in New Jersey as a recuperation of what happened. He started to rewrite
his book and during the next years he was publishing them. The last edition was in the year
1892 and he died shortly afterwards on March 26.

Generally, Whitman was one of the most influential American poets. He was a
transcendentalist, which can be characterized by a generation of highly educated people. In
that times he was very influenced by a writer known as Emerson and he strongly believed
that with political freedom comes also an individual freedom.

If we are talking about his style of writing, we should mention that Whitman was the father
of free verse, although he wasn’t the first one using it. Verses in his poems don’t rhyme and
the meter is regular. Also, he doesn’t use a comma that much, but he uses compound words.
A transcendentalist wanted to write different from what was already written as he states in
his Preface to Leaves of Grass: For such the expression of the American poet is to be
transcendent and new.

Preface to a Leaves of Grass is an introduction to a book written by Walt Whitman. It’s very
unusual, because it’s written in third person. With that, Whitman wanted to emphasize that
he is talking for every American, not just himself. This part of book is included only in the
first edition. We can say that it’s some kind of an essay and that the poems in the Leaves of
Grass have the same ideas that are introduced in the Preface.

In the first part, the author admires America with words: America itself is the greatest poem
and that it is full of diverse activities and natural wonders.

He also says that America is a great democratic nation formed of the diversity of people,
geography and culture. For Whitman is really important a relationship between the poet and
society, as is stated in the first part: The proof of a poet is that his country absorbs him as
affectionately as he has absorbed it.

In the next part of the Preface, the author describes love for nature: The land and sea, the
animal, fishes and birds, the sky of heaven and the orbs, the forests mountains and rivers,
are not small themes.

Then he suggests love Earth, sun and animals with words: This is what you shall do: Love the
earth and sun and the animals, despise riches, give alms to everyone that asks, stand up for
the stupid and crazy, devote your income and labor to others, hate tyrants, argue not
concerning God... etc.

The last part tells us what a poem should be and how the poet should be. Whitman also says
that The greatness of America is not represented only by the authors, but also by the
common people. The poets represent the liberty, because they can write whatever they
want.

A great poem is for ages and ages in common and for all degrees and complexions and all
departments and sects and for a woman as much as a man and a man as much as a woman.
A great poem is no finish to a man or woman but rather a beginning. - In this part he
expresses his opinion on what is the great poem. We can see the equality between the man
and woman as well.
The Preface ends with many poetry questions as he wanted us to think about it all.

In conclusion, the Preface to a Leaves of grass is a proclamation of what a poem should be.
Whitman tried to outline some characteristics for a great poet and wanted to tell us his
beliefs. The poets in that time had a big opportunity to express their feeling and teach
something new.