Walt+Whitman

=**"I am as bad as the worst, but, thank god , i am as good as the best." Walt Whitman.** =
 * Walter "Walt" Whitman, was an American poet, essayist and journalist.He was part of the transition between transcendentalism and realism. Whitman is one of the most influential poets in America's history.He was called the father of free verse.**

**__Early life__**

 * Whitman was born on may 31,1819 in West Hills, Long Island, New York. Whitman's family in the early 17th century moved to North America.His parents Louisa Von Veslor his Dutch mother, and his English descended father Walter Whitman were simple farm people,with little education.**



**In 1823 Walter Whitman, Sr., moved his wife and nine children to Brooklyn.Walt, the second child, attended public school in Brooklyn.Walt started working after he learned the printing trade at twelve.He had printing jobs in both Brooklyn and New York** **City.At 23 he edited a daily newspaper in new york**,**in 1846 he became editor of the //Brooklyn Daily Eagle,// a fairly important newspaper of the time. Discharged from the //Eagle// early in 1848 because of his support for the Free Soil faction of the Democratic Party, he went to New Orleans, La., where he worked for three months on the //Crescent// before returning to New York.**

**__Influences__**

 * In the many years that Whitman lived in New York and Long Island he had visited the theater many times and seen many plays of William Shakespeare. He had come to have a great passion for music, his favor opera.IN these years he had also read extensively at home and the many of the New York libraries, and Then he started experimenting with a new style of poetry.**

**__Relationships__**

 * Whitman's sexuality is often talked with his poetry. Though many people continue to debate his sexuality, he is usually described as either homosexual or bisexual in his feelings and attractions. However, there is disagreement among biographers as to whether Whitman had actual sexual experiences with men. George Cecil Ives that there was "no doubt" about the great American poet's sexual orientation — "I have the kiss of Walt Whitman still on my lips," he boasted. The only explicit description of Whitman's sexual activities is second hand. In 1924 Edward Carpenter, then an old man, described an erotic encounter he had had in his youth with Whitman to ,Gavin Arthur, who recorded it in detail in his journal. Late in his life, when Whitman was asked outright if his series of "Calamus" poems were homosexual, he chose not to respond. Another possible lover was Bill Duckett. As a young teenage boy he lived in on the same street in Camden and moved in with Whitman, living with him a number of years and serving him in various roles.**

__Later life__

 * Whitman's collection of poems, Leaves of Grass, stands among the masterpieces of world literature. contained much revision and rearrangement. Apart from the poems collected in //Drum Taps,// it contained eight new poems, and some poems had been omitted. In the late 1860s Whitman's work began to receive greater recognition. O'Connor's //The Good Gray Poet// and John Burroughs' //Notes on Walt Whitman as Poet and Person// (1867) were followed in 1868 by an expurgated English edition of Whitman's poems prepared by William Michael Rossetti, the English man of letters. During the remainder of his life Whitman received much encouragement from leading writers in England.Whitman was ill in 1872, probably as a result of long-experienced emotional strains related to his sexual ambiguity. Whitman was ill in 1872, probably as a result of long-experienced emotional strains related to his sexual ambiguity; in January 1873 his first stroke left him partly paralyzed. By May he had recovered sufficiently to travel to his brother's home in Camden, N.J., where his mother was dying.**

**__Poems by Walt Whitman__**
>
 * **Leaves of Grass**
 * **Among the Multitude**
 * **Beat! Beat! Drums!**
 * **Facing West from California's Shores**
 * **From Pent-Up Arching Rivers**
 * **I saw in Louisiana a Live-Oak growing**
 * **A Noiseless, Patient spider**
 * **O Captain! My Captain!**
 * **O Hymen! O Hymenee!**
 * **On the Beach at Night**
 * **On the Beach at Night Alone**
 * **Patroling Barnegat**
 * **To a Stranger**
 * **Vigil Stranger I Kept on the Field one Night**
 * **When i Heard the Learn'd Astronomer**
 * **The World Below the Brine**

**__Refences__**

 * http://waltwhitman.org/**
 * http://ww.brainyquotes.com/quotes/authors/w/walt_whitman.html**
 * http://www.biography.com/articles/walt-whitman-9530126**