The first that really made his name was in 1837 called the American Scholar, where he called for this indigenous kind of American literature and intellectual activity. He said, America is a poem in our eyes. It's ample geography dazzles the imagination, and it will not wait long for meters. And if we can just take a couple of lines of what Emerson said in that speech, it's almost as if Emerson calls Whitman's poetry fourth.
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the highly influential American poet Walt Whitman.
In 1855 Whitman was working as a printer, journalist and property developer when he published his first collection of poetry. It began:
I celebrate myself,
And what I assume you shall assume
For every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you.
The book was called Leaves of Grass. In it, Whitman set out to break away from European literary forms and traditions. Using long lines written in free verse, he developed a poetry meant to express a distinctively American outlook.
Leaves of Grass is full of verse that celebrates both the sovereign individual, and the deep fellowship between individuals. Its optimism about the American experience was challenged by the Civil War and its aftermath, but Whitman emerged as a celebrity and a key figure in the development of American culture.
With
Sarah Churchwell
Professor of American Literature and the Public Understanding of the Humanities at the University of London
Peter Riley
Lecturer in 19th Century American Literature at the University of Exeter
and
Mark Ford
Professor of English and American Literature at University College London
Producer Luke Mulhall