The word homosexual didn't come into the language until 1892, which was the year he died. He channeled his very strong feelings about young men into poetry and into loving behaviour with these men - not necessarily having genital sex with them, but sleeping with them. That kind of affection was not at all frowned upon. The poems which caused upset were the children of Adam poems or the... Or Phon Adam poems,. Those are the ones that Emerson said you've got to get rid of because they are offensive. And that's the reason that his books were banned and he lost his job in 1865. His last 20 years of his life was very unhappy. Undoubtedly the Europeans did play a
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