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181-499: Walter Whitman Jr. ( / ˈ hw ɪ t m ə n / ; May 31, 1819 – March 26, 1892) was an American poet, essayist, and journalist. He is considered one of the most influential poets in American literature . Whitman incorporated both transcendentalism and realism in his writings and is often called the father of free verse . His work was controversial in his time, particularly his 1855 poetry collection Leaves of Grass , which

362-467: A "Puritan utopia". Other religious writers included Increase Mather and William Bradford , author of the journal published as a History of Plymouth Plantation, 1620–47 . Others like Roger Williams and Nathaniel Ward more fiercely argued state and church separation. Others, such as Thomas Morton , cared little for the church; Morton's The New English Canaan mocked the Puritans and declared that

543-432: A 47,000 word series, Manly Health and Training , under the pen name Mose Velsor. Apparently he drew the name Velsor from Van Velsor, his mother's family name. This self-help guide recommends beards, nude sunbathing, comfortable shoes, bathing daily in cold water, eating meat almost exclusively, plenty of fresh air, and getting up early each morning. Present-day writers have called Manly Health and Training "quirky", "so over

724-745: A Native American in English, A Sermon Preached at the Execution of Moses Paul, an Indian , by Samson Occom, from the Mohegan tribe, was published and went through 19 editions. The Life and Adventures of Joaquin Murieta (1854) by John Rollin Ridge (Cherokee, 1827–67) was the first novel by a Native American, and O-gi-maw-kwe Mit-I-gwa-ki ( Queen of the Woods ) (1899) by Simon Pokagon (Potawatomi, 1830–99)

905-495: A biased and exaggerated biographical study, The Good Gray Poet , in January 1866. The fifty-cent pamphlet defended Whitman as a wholesome patriot, established the poet's nickname and increased his popularity. Also aiding in his popularity was the publication of " O Captain! My Captain! ", a conventional poem on the death of Abraham Lincoln , the only poem to appear in anthologies during Whitman's lifetime. Part of Whitman's role at

1086-494: A diary revealing the daily life of the late 17th century), and Sarah Kemble Knight (who likewise wrote a diary). New England was not the only area in the colonies with a literature: southern literature was also growing at this time. The diary of planter William Byrd and his The History of the Dividing Line (1728) described the expedition to survey the swamp between Virginia and North Carolina but also comments on

1267-519: A distinctly American epic and used free verse with a cadence based on the Bible. At the end of June 1855, Whitman surprised his brothers with the already-printed first edition of Leaves of Grass . George "didn't think it worth reading". Whitman paid for the publication of the first edition of Leaves of Grass himself and had it printed at a local print shop during its employees' breaks from commercial jobs. A total of 795 copies were printed. No author

1448-700: A farmer, settling on his wife's parents' farm in Jericho, New York , in what is now known as the Elias Hicks House. There he and his wife provided, as did other Jericho Quakers, free board and lodging to any traveler on the Jericho Turnpike rather than have them seek accommodation in taverns for the night. In 1778, Hicks helped to build the Friends meeting house in Jericho , which remains

1629-520: A good portion of his time in the then quite pastoral community of Laurel Springs , between 1876 and 1884, converting one of the Stafford Farm buildings to his summer home. The restored summer home has been preserved as a museum by the local historical society. Part of his Leaves of Grass was written here, and in his Specimen Days he wrote of the spring, creek and lake. To him, Laurel Lake was "the prettiest lake in: either America or Europe". As

1810-475: A house for $ 4,000 and visited it often during construction. In the last week of his life, he was too weak to lift a knife or fork and wrote: "I suffer all the time: I have no relief, no escape: it is monotony—monotony—monotony—in pain." Walt Whitman died on March 26, 1892, at his home in Camden, New Jersey at the age of 72. An autopsy revealed his lungs had diminished to one-eighth their normal breathing capacity,

1991-542: A love affair". As Whitman biographer Jerome Loving wrote, "the discussion of Whitman's sexual orientation will probably continue in spite of whatever evidence emerges." Whitman was an adherent of the Shakespeare authorship question , refusing to believe in the historical attribution of the works to William Shakespeare of Stratford-upon-Avon . In 1888, Whitman commented in November Boughs : Conceiv'd out of

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2172-414: A million and a half readers over a century and a half, Charlotte Temple was the biggest seller of the 19th century before Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin . Although Rowson was extremely popular in her time and is often acknowledged in accounts of the development of the early American novel, Charlotte Temple often is criticized as a sentimental novel of seduction. Hannah Webster Foster 's The Coquette: Or,

2353-621: A nearby cabin by a wooded pond, Thoreau wrote Walden (1854), a memoir that urges resistance to the dictates of society. Other Transcendentalists included Amos Bronson Alcott , Margaret Fuller , George Ripley , Orestes Brownson , and Jones Very . As one of the great works of the Revolutionary period was written by a Frenchman, so too was a work about America from this generation. Alexis de Tocqueville 's two-volume Democracy in America (1835 and 1840) described his travels through

2534-546: A place of Quaker worship. Hicks preached actively in Quaker meeting, and by 1778 he was acknowledged as a recorded minister . Hicks was regarded as a gifted speaker with a strong voice and dramatic flair. He drew large crowds when he was said to be attending meetings, sometimes in the thousands. In November 1829, the young Walt Whitman heard Hicks preach at Morrison's Hotel in Brooklyn , and later said, "Always Elias Hicks gives

2715-457: A plaster mold of his head. Clements left the Patriot shortly afterward, possibly as a result of the controversy. The following summer Whitman worked for another printer, Erastus Worthington, in Brooklyn . His family moved back to West Hills, New York , on Long Island in the spring, but Whitman remained and took a job at the shop of Alden Spooner, editor of the leading Whig weekly newspaper

2896-469: A prophet of a utopian future and of same-sex desire—the passion of comrades. This aligned with their own desires for a future of brotherly socialism . Whitman also influenced Bram Stoker , author of Dracula , and was a model for the character of Dracula . Stoker said in his notes that Dracula represented the quintessential male which, to Stoker, was Whitman, with whom he corresponded until Whitman's death. American literature American literature

3077-547: A religious response to slavery, most of the free produce stores were Quaker in origin, as with the first such store, that of Benjamin Lundy in Baltimore in 1826. Hicks supported Lundy's scheme to assist the emigration of freed slaves to Haiti and in 1824, he hosted a meeting on how to facilitate this at his home in Jericho. In the late 1820s, he argued in favor of raising funds to buy slaves and settle them as free people in

3258-432: A result of bronchial pneumonia, and that an egg-sized abscess on his chest had eroded one of his ribs. The cause of death was officially listed as " pleurisy of the left side, consumption of the right lung, general miliary tuberculosis and parenchymatous nephritis ". A public viewing of his body was held at his Camden home; more than 1,000 people visited in three hours. Whitman's oak coffin was barely visible because of all

3439-479: A romantic friendship with a New York actress, Ellen Grey, in the spring of 1862, but it is not known whether it was also sexual. He still had a photograph of her decades later, when he moved to Camden, and he called her "an old sweetheart of mine". Toward the end of his life, he often told stories of previous girlfriends and sweethearts and denied an allegation from the New York Herald that he had "never had

3620-567: A sea captain. She was a neighbor, boarding with a family in Bridge Avenue just a few blocks from Mickle Street. She moved in with Whitman on February 24, 1885, to serve as his housekeeper in exchange for free rent. She brought with her a cat, a dog, two turtledoves, a canary, and other assorted animals. During this time, Whitman produced further editions of Leaves of Grass in 1876, 1881, and 1889. While in South Jersey , Whitman spent

3801-546: A severe fire in the printing and publishing district, and in part due to a general collapse in the economy leading up to the Panic of 1837 . In May 1836, he rejoined his family, now living in Hempstead, Long Island . Whitman taught intermittently at various schools until the spring of 1838, though he was not satisfied as a teacher. After his teaching attempts, Whitman returned to Huntington, New York , to found his own newspaper,

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3982-506: A short story "Reuben's Last Wish". Later in life he was more liberal with alcohol, enjoying local wines and champagne. Whitman was deeply influenced by deism . He denied any one faith was more important than another, and embraced all religions equally. In "Song of Myself", he gave an inventory of major religions and indicated he respected and accepted all of them—a sentiment he further emphasized in his poem "With Antecedents", affirming: "I adopt each theory, myth, god, and demi-god, / I see that

4163-463: A state of luxury and excess on the gain of oppression … Observations on the Slavery of Africans and Their Descendents gave the free produce movement its central argument. This movement promoted an embargo of all goods produced by slave labor, which were mainly cotton cloth and cane sugar, in favor of produce from the paid labor of free people. Though the free produce movement was not intended to be

4344-403: A state of progressive development. American Philosophy: An Encyclopedia classes him as one of several figures who "took a more pantheist or pandeist approach by rejecting views of God as separate from the world." Though biographers continue to debate Whitman's sexuality, he is usually described as either homosexual or bisexual in his feelings and attractions. Whitman's sexual orientation

4525-409: A superficial wound on his cheek. Whitman, profoundly affected by seeing the wounded soldiers and the heaps of their amputated limbs, left for Washington, D.C. , on December 28, 1862, with the intention of never returning to New York. In Washington, D.C., Whitman's friend Charley Eldridge helped him obtain part-time work in the army paymaster's office, leaving time for Whitman to volunteer as a nurse in

4706-644: A traditional Protestant church. Friends in line with Gurney became known as Gurneyites. Those Orthodox Friends who did not agree with the practices of the Gurneyites, led by John Wilbur of Rhode Island, branched off to form the Wilburite branch of Conservative, Primitive and Independent yearly meetings. Those Hicksite Friends who did not agree with the lessened discipline within the Hicksite yearly meetings founded Congregational, or Progressive groups. In 1828,

4887-456: A unique voice in existing literary genre, and this tendency was reflected in novels. European styles were frequently imitated, but critics usually considered the imitations inferior. In the late 18th and early 19th centuries, the first American novels were published. These fictions were too lengthy to be printed for public reading. Publishers took a chance on these works in hopes they would become steady sellers and need to be reprinted. This scheme

5068-464: Is William Hill Brown 's The Power of Sympathy , published in 1791. Writer and critic John Neal in the early- to mid-nineteenth century helped advance America toward a unique literature and culture, by criticizing predecessors, such as Washington Irving , for imitating their British counterparts and by influencing writers such as Edgar Allan Poe . Edgar Allan Poe took American poetry and short fiction in new directions. Ralph Waldo Emerson pioneered

5249-474: Is a drama, set in Puritan Massachusetts, about a woman cast out of her community for committing adultery with a minister who refuses to acknowledge his own sin. Herman Melville (1819–1891) made a name for himself with Typee and Omoo , adventure tales based loosely on his own life at sea and jumping ship to live among South Sea natives. Becoming a friend of Hawthorne's in 1850, Melville

5430-431: Is a poem in our eyes." The first edition of Leaves of Grass was widely distributed and stirred up significant interest, in part due to Emerson's praise, but was occasionally criticized for the seemingly "obscene" nature of the poetry. Geologist Peter Lesley wrote to Emerson, calling the book "trashy, profane & obscene" and the author "a pretentious ass". Whitman embossed a quote from Emerson's letter, "I greet you at

5611-557: Is a puzzle yet to be adequately addressed. In reference to the Mexican–American War , Whitman wrote in 1864 that Mexico was "the only [country] to whom we have ever really done wrong." In 1883, celebrating the 333rd anniversary of Santa Fe, Whitman argued that the indigenous and Spanish-Indian elements would supply leading traits in the "composite American identity of the future." As to our aboriginal or Indian population—the Aztec in

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5792-583: Is a temperance novel. Whitman wrote the novel at the height of the popularity of the Washingtonian movement , a movement that was plagued with contradictions, as was Franklin Evans . Years later Whitman claimed he was embarrassed by the book and called it "damned rot". He dismissed it by saying he wrote the novel in three days solely for money while under the influence of alcohol. Even so, he wrote other pieces recommending temperance, including The Madman and

5973-542: Is attributed to that body, I acknowledge and give to that body, in its place, according as the Scripture attributeth it, which is through and because of that which dwelt and acted in it. "But that which sanctified and kept the body pure (and made all acceptable in him) was the life, holiness, and righteousness of the Spirit. 'And the same thing that kept his vessel pure, it is the same thing that cleanseth us." "In reply to

6154-565: Is best known for her novel Charlotte: A Tale of Truth , published in London in 1791. In 1794 the novel was reissued in Philadelphia under the title, Charlotte Temple . Charlotte Temple is a seduction tale, written in the third person, which warns against listening to the voice of love and counsels resistance. She also wrote nine novels, six theatrical works, two collections of poetry, six textbooks, and countless songs. Reaching more than

6335-520: Is generally assumed on the basis of his poetry, though this assumption has been disputed. His poetry depicts love and sexuality in a more earthy, individualistic way common in American culture before the medicalization of sexuality in the late 19th century. Though Leaves of Grass was often labeled pornographic or obscene, only one critic remarked on its author's presumed sexual activity: in a November 1855 review, Rufus Wilmot Griswold suggested Whitman

6516-458: Is known about the early development of Whitman's racial awareness suggests that he imbibed the prevailing white prejudices of his time and place, thinking of black people as servile, shiftless, ignorant, and given to stealing," but that despite his views remaining largely unchanged, "readers of the twentieth century, including black ones, imagined him as a fervent antiracist." Whitman is often described as America's national poet, creating an image of

6697-574: Is literature written or produced in the United States and in the colonies that preceded it . The American literary tradition is part of the broader tradition of English-language literature but also includes literature produced in languages other than English . The American Revolutionary Period (1775–1783) is notable for the political writings of Benjamin Franklin , Alexander Hamilton , Thomas Paine , and Thomas Jefferson . An early novel

6878-499: Is named; instead, facing the title page was an engraved portrait done by Samuel Hollyer, but 500 lines into the body of the text he calls himself "Walt Whitman, an American, one of the roughs, a kosmos, disorderly, fleshly, and sensual, no sentimentalist, no stander above men or women or apart from them, no more modest than immodest". The inaugural volume of poetry was preceded by a prose preface of 827 lines. The succeeding untitled twelve poems totaled 2315 lines with 1336 lines belonging to

7059-471: Is now to emerge in broadest flow and permanent action? Whitman has been claimed as the first "poet of democracy" in the United States, a title meant to reflect his ability to write in a singularly American character. An American-British friend of Whitman, Mary Whitall Smith Costelloe , wrote: "You cannot really understand America without Walt Whitman, without Leaves of Grass ... He has expressed that civilization, 'up to date,' as he would say, and no student of

7240-474: Is often labeled the father of free verse , though he did not invent it. Whitman wrote in the preface to the 1855 edition of Leaves of Grass : "The proof of a poet is that his country absorbs him as affectionately as he has absorbed it." He believed there was a vital, symbiotic relationship between the poet and society. He emphasized this connection especially in " Song of Myself " by using an all-powerful first-person narration. An American epic, it deviated from

7421-696: Is secondhand. In 1924, Edward Carpenter told Gavin Arthur of a sexual encounter in his youth with Whitman, the details of which Arthur recorded in his journal. Another possible lover was Bill Duckett. As a teenager, he lived on the same street in Camden and moved in with Whitman, living with him a number of years and serving him in various roles. Duckett was 15 when Whitman bought his house at 328 Mickle Street. From at least 1880, Duckett and his grandmother, Lydia Watson, were boarders, subletting space from another family at 334 Mickle Street. Because of this proximity, Duckett and Whitman met as neighbors. Their relationship

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7602-578: Is the primary focus of an individual’s faith over creed or doctrine, which follows George Fox and early Quaker concepts of inward light as “the presence of Christ in the heart,” God’s presence in each person, and the Holy Spirit speaking through each person. (The interchangeable use of Jesus, God, and the Holy Spirit is due to his and early Quaker rejection of the Trinity .) As a consequence,

7783-762: The Long-Islander . Whitman served as publisher, editor, pressman, and distributor and even provided home delivery. After ten months, he sold the publication to E. O. Crowell, whose first issue appeared on July 12, 1839. There are no known surviving copies of the Long-Islander published under Whitman. By the summer of 1839, he found a job as a typesetter in Jamaica, Queens , with the Long Island Democrat , edited by James J. Brenton. He left shortly thereafter, and made another attempt at teaching from

7964-715: The Magnalia Christi Americana (1702), the Wonders of the Invisible World and The Biblia Americana . Jonathan Edwards and George Whitefield represented the Great Awakening , a religious revival in the early 18th century that emphasized Calvinist thought . Other Puritan and religious writers include Thomas Hooker , Thomas Shepard , John Wise , and Samuel Willard . Less strict and serious writers included Samuel Sewall (who wrote

8145-786: The Academy of American Poets , counts Whitman among her influences. Whitman's poetry influenced Latin American and Caribbean poets in the 19th and 20th centuries, starting with Cuban poet, philosopher, and nationalist leader José Martí , who published essays in Spanish on Whitman's writings in 1887. Álvaro Armando Vasseur's 1912 translations further raised Whitman's profile in Latin America. Peruvian vanguardist César Vallejo , Chilean poet Pablo Neruda , and Argentine Jorge Luis Borges acknowledged Walt Whitman's influence. Some, like Oscar Wilde and Edward Carpenter , viewed Whitman both as

8326-491: The Bible was to Hicks a secondary source of faith and understanding of God, as it is written entirely and divinely inspired by the Holy Spirit. He wrote I confirm my doctrine abundantly from their testimony: and I have always endeavored sincerely to place them [the scriptures] in their true place and station, but never dare exalt them above what they themselves declare; and as no spring can rise higher than its fountain, so likewise

8507-567: The Byberry Friends Meeting in 1824 that: He gave us passions—if we may call them passions—in order that we might seek after those things which we need, and which we had a right to experience and know. Hicks taught that all wrongdoing and suffering occurred in the world as the consequence of "an excess in the indulgence of propensities. Independent of the regulating influence of God's light." This first split in Quakerism

8688-606: The Declaration of Independence , his influence on the U.S. Constitution , his autobiography, his Notes on the State of Virginia , and his many letters. The Federalist essays by Alexander Hamilton , James Madison , and John Jay presented a significant historical discussion of American government organization and republican values. Fisher Ames , James Otis , and Patrick Henry are also valued for their political writings and orations. Early American literature struggled to find

8869-551: The Free Soil Party who were concerned about the threat slavery would pose to free white labor and northern businessmen exploiting the newly colonized western territories, Whitman opposed the extension of slavery in the United States and supported the Wilmot Proviso . At first he was opposed to abolitionism , believing the movement did more harm than good. In 1846, he wrote that the abolitionists had, in fact, slowed

9050-609: The Hicksite-Orthodox split was the role of the Bible and Jesus Christ. Both Hicksites and Orthodox Quakers viewed their positions as continuations of the original Quakers views. Though historians such as Glen Crothers argues that the schism resulted from the Second Great Awakening in the United States leading to Orthodox Quakers adopting more Biblical views as influenced by American Evangelicals . Elias Hicks argued that Inward Light in each individual

9231-725: The Long-Island Star . While at the Star , Whitman became a regular patron of the local library, joined a town debating society, began attending theater performances, and anonymously published some of his earliest poetry in the New-York Mirror . At the age of 16 in May 1835, Whitman left the Star and Brooklyn. He moved to New York City to work as a compositor though, in later years, Whitman could not remember where. He attempted to find further work but had difficulty, in part due to

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9412-752: The Salem witch trials as the basis for a novel ) in 1828. Catherine Maria Sedgwick wrote A New England Tale in 1822, Redwood in 1824, Hope Leslie in 1827, and The Linwoods in 1835. James Kirke Paulding wrote The Lion of the West in 1830, The Dutchman's Fireside in 1831, and Westward Ho! in 1832. Omar ibn Said , a Muslim slave in the Carolinas, wrote an autobiography in Arabic in 1831, considered an early example of African-American literature . Robert Montgomery Bird wrote Calavar in 1834 and Nick of

9593-509: The 150th anniversary of Leaves of Grass : If you are American, then Walt Whitman is your imaginative father and mother, even if, like myself, you have never composed a line of verse. You can nominate a fair number of literary works as candidates for the secular Scripture of the United States. They might include Melville 's Moby-Dick , Twain 's Adventures of Huckleberry Finn , and Emerson's two series of Essays and The Conduct of Life . None of those, not even Emerson's, are as central as

9774-616: The 18th century, writing shifted from the Puritanism of Winthrop and Bradford to Enlightenment ideas of reason. The belief that human and natural occurrences were messages from God no longer fit with the budding anthropocentric culture. Many intellectuals believed that the human mind could comprehend the universe through the laws of physics, as described by Isaac Newton . One of these was Cotton Mather . The first book published in North America that promoted Newton and natural theology

9955-574: The 1920s, but John Dos Passos and Ernest Hemingway , who became famous with The Sun Also Rises and A Farewell to Arms , and William Faulkner , adopted experimental forms. American modernist poets included diverse figures such as Wallace Stevens , T. S. Eliot , Robert Frost , Ezra Pound , and E. E. Cummings . Depression -era writers included John Steinbeck , author of The Grapes of Wrath (1939). America's involvement in World War II led to works such as Norman Mailer 's The Naked and

10136-580: The American Southwest. Hicks influenced the abolition of slavery in his home state, from the partial abolition of the 1799 Gradual Abolition Act to the 1817 Gradual Manumission in New York State Act which led to the final emancipation of all remaining slaves within the state on July 4, 1827. Hicks ministry would be part of the first schism within Quakerism, the 1827-1828 Hicksite-Orthodox split. The central doctrinal focus of

10317-429: The American frontier. In New England , a group of writers known as Boston Brahmins included James Russell Lowell , then in later years Henry Wadsworth Longfellow and Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr. In 1836, Ralph Waldo Emerson , who had renounced his ministry, published his essay Nature , which argued that men should dispense with organized religion and reach a lofty spiritual state by studying and interacting with

10498-532: The Attorney General's office was interviewing former Confederate soldiers for presidential pardons . "There are real characters among them", he later wrote, "and you know I have a fancy for anything out of the ordinary." In August 1866, he took a month off to prepare a new edition of Leaves of Grass which would not be published until 1867 after difficulty in finding a publisher. He hoped it would be its last edition. In February 1868, Poems of Walt Whitman

10679-550: The Charity Society of Jericho and Westbury Meetings, established to give aid to local poor African Americans and provide their children with education. In 1811, Hicks wrote Observations on the Slavery of Africans and Their Descendants and in it he linked the moral issue of emancipation to the Quaker Peace Testimony , by stating that slavery was the product of war. He identified economic reasons for

10860-847: The Dead (1948), Joseph Heller 's Catch-22 (1961) and Kurt Vonnegut Jr. 's Slaughterhouse-Five (1969). Prominent playwrights of these years include Eugene O'Neill , who won a Nobel Prize. In the mid-twentieth century, drama was dominated by Tennessee Williams and Arthur Miller . Musical theater was also prominent. In late 20th century and early 21st century, there has been increased popular and academic acceptance of literature written by immigrant, ethnic, and LGBT writers, and of writings in languages other than English. Examples of pioneers in these areas include LGBT author Michael Cunningham , Asian American authors Maxine Hong Kingston and Ocean Vuong , and African Americans authors such as Ralph Ellison , James Baldwin , and Toni Morrison . In 2016,

11041-576: The Dooryard Bloom'd ", and gave a series of lectures on Lincoln . After suffering a stroke towards the end of his life, Whitman moved to Camden, New Jersey , where his health further declined. When he died at age 72, his funeral was a public event. Whitman's influence on poetry remains strong. Art historian Mary Berenson wrote, "You cannot really understand America without Walt Whitman, without Leaves of Grass ... He has expressed that civilization, 'up to date,' as he would say, and no student of

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11222-1046: The East Coast – in the border state of Missouri . His regional masterpieces were the memoir Life on the Mississippi and the novels Adventures of Tom Sawyer and Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1884). Twain's style – influenced by journalism, wedded to the vernacular, direct and unadorned but also highly evocative and irreverently humorous – changed the way Americans write their language. His characters speak like real people and sound distinctively American, using local dialects, newly invented words, and regional accents. Other writers interested in regional differences and dialect were George W. Cable , Thomas Nelson Page , Joel Chandler Harris , Mary Noailles Murfree ( Charles Egbert Craddock ), Sarah Orne Jewett , Mary E. Wilkins Freeman , Henry Cuyler Bunner , and William Sydney Porter ( O. Henry ). A version of local color regionalism that focused on minority experiences can be seen in

11403-408: The English renaming it New York and changing the administrative language from Dutch to English. From 1696 to 1700, only about 250 separate items were issued from the major printing presses in the American colonies. This is a small number, compared to the output of the printers in London at the time. London printers published materials written by New England authors, so, the body of American literature

11584-536: The Execution of Moses Paul and a popular hymnbook, Collection of Hymns and Spiritual Songs , "the first Indian best-seller". The Revolutionary period also contained political writings, including those by colonists Samuel Adams , Josiah Quincy , John Dickinson , and Joseph Galloway , the last being a loyalist to the crown. Two key figures were Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Paine . Franklin's Poor Richard's Almanack and The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin are esteemed works, with their wit and influence toward

11765-455: The French immigrant J. Hector St. John de Crèvecœur , whose Letters from an American Farmer (1782) addresses the question "What is an American?", by moving between praise for the opportunities and peace offered in the new society and recognition that the solid life of the farmer must rest, uneasily, between the oppressive aspects of the urban life and the lawless aspects of the frontier, where

11946-519: The History of Eliza Wharton was published in 1797 and was extremely popular. Told from Foster's point of view and based on the real life of Eliza Whitman, the novel is about a woman who is seduced and abandoned. Eliza is a "coquette" who is courted by two very different men: a clergyman who offers her a comfortable domestic life and a noted libertine. Unable to choose between them, she finds herself single when both men get married. She eventually yields to

12127-487: The Holy Spirit occurred at two points of Jesus’ life, his divine conception and his baptism by John the Baptist . Regarding salvation , Hicks firstly rejected the concept of original sin . Because of this, he did not argue that the sacrifice of Jesus’ body or his blood provided salvation, nor that faith in him does so. Rather that salvation came through living as Jesus exemplified, that is, in accordance and unity with

12308-532: The Holy Spirit/Inward Light. Consequently Hicks implicitly refutes doctrines of salvation such as penal substitution , or predestination . In the year 1829, "Six Queries" were proposed by Thomas Leggett, Jr., of New York, and answered by Elias Hicks. The last was as follows: Sixth Query. What relation has the body of Jesus to the Saviour of man? Dost thou believe that the crucifixion of

12489-545: The Inner Light before Scripture, Quaker elders decided to visit each meeting house in the city to examine the doctrinal soundness of all ministers and elders. This caused great resentment that culminated at the following Philadelphia Yearly Meeting in 1827. Hicks was not present when the differences between the meeting houses ended in acrimony and division, precipitated by the inability of the Meeting to reach consensus on

12670-490: The Interior , on Whitman's behalf. Whitman began the new appointment on January 24, 1865, with a yearly salary of $ 1,200. A month later, on February 24, 1865, George was released from capture and granted a furlough because of his poor health. By May 1, Whitman received a promotion to a slightly higher clerkship and published Drum-Taps . Effective June 30, 1865, however, Whitman was fired from his job. His dismissal came from

12851-400: The Kings County Lunatic Asylum. Whitman's spirits were raised, however, when he finally got a better-paying government post as a low-grade clerk in the Bureau of Indian Affairs in the Department of the Interior , thanks to his friend William Douglas O'Connor . O'Connor, a poet, daguerreotypist, and an editor at The Saturday Evening Post wrote to William Tod Otto , Assistant Secretary of

13032-931: The Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave (1845) and Harriet Jacobs 's Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl (1861). At this time, American Indian autobiography develops, most notably in William Apess 's A Son of the Forest (1829) and George Copway 's The Life, History and Travels of Kah-ge-ga-gah-bowh (1847). Moreover, minority authors were beginning to publish fiction, as in William Wells Brown 's Clotel; or, The President's Daughter (1853), Frank J. Webb 's The Garies and Their Friends , (1857) Martin Delany 's Blake; or, The Huts of America (1859–62) and Harriet E. Wilson 's Our Nig: Sketches from

13213-409: The Life of a Free Black (1859) as early African-American novels, and John Rollin Ridge 's The Life and Adventures of Joaquín Murieta (1854), which is considered the first American Indian novel but is also an early story that talks about Mexican-American issues. Mark Twain (the pen name used by Samuel Langhorne Clemens , 1835–1910) was among the first major American writers to be born away from

13394-572: The Mohicans , 1826) treated uniquely American material in ways that were popular both in the new country and Europe. John Neal as a critic played a key role in developing American literary nationalism . Neal criticized Irving and Cooper for relying on old British conventions of authorship to frame American phenomena, arguing that "to succeed ... [the American writer] must resemble nobody ... [he] must be unlike all that have gone before [him]" and issue "another Declaration of Independence, in

13575-721: The Old World-New World dilemma by writing directly about it. Although he was born in New York City, James spent most of his adult life in England. Many of his novels center on Americans who live in or travel to Europe. With its intricate, highly qualified sentences and dissection of emotional and psychological nuance, James's fiction can be daunting. Among his more accessible works are the novellas Daisy Miller (1878), about an American girl in Europe, and The Turn of

13756-717: The People of Morosofia, and Other Lunarians . After the war with Britain in 1812 , there was an increasing desire to produce a uniquely American literature and culture. Literary figures who took up the cause included Washington Irving , William Cullen Bryant , and James Fenimore Cooper . Irving wrote humorous works in Salmagundi and the satire A History of New York, by Diedrich Knickerbocker (1809). Bryant wrote early romantic and nature-inspired poetry, which evolved away from their European origins. Cooper's Leatherstocking Tales about Natty Bumppo (which includes The Last of

13937-920: The Red Death ", " The Pit and the Pendulum ", and " The Fall of the House of Usher ", that explore hidden depths of human psychology and push the boundaries of fiction. Poe's " The Murders in the Rue Morgue ", is seen as the first detective story . Humorous writers were also popular and included Seba Smith and Benjamin Penhallow Shillaber in New England and Davy Crockett , Augustus Baldwin Longstreet , Johnson J. Hooper , Thomas Bangs Thorpe , and George Washington Harris writing about

14118-621: The Screw (1898), a ghost story. Stephen Crane (1871–1900), best known for his Civil War novel The Red Badge of Courage (1895), depicted the life of New York City prostitutes in Maggie: A Girl of the Streets (1893). And in Sister Carrie (1900), Theodore Dreiser (1871–1945) portrayed a country girl who moves to Chicago and becomes a kept woman. Frank Norris 's (1870–1902) fiction

14299-561: The Scriptures can only direct to the fountain from whence they originated - the spirit of truth: as saith the apostle, 'The things of God knoweth no man, but the Spirit of God;' therefore when the Scriptures have directed and pointed us to this light within, or Spirit of Truth, there they must stop - it is their ultimatum - the top stone of what they can do And no other external testimony of men or books can do any more. Hicks sparked great controversy for writing in letters to his friends that

14480-450: The Scriptures? and by which so many cruel and bloody wars have been promulgated [promoted]. And yet at the same time, may it not be one of the best books, if rightly used under the guidance of the Holy Spirit? But, if abused, like every other blessing, it becomes a curse. Therefore to these it always does more hurt than good; and thou knowest that these comprehend far the greatest part of Christendom! Regarding Jesus Christ , Hicks wrote that

14661-512: The South, and many a tribe in the North and West—I know it seems to be agreed that they must gradually dwindle as time rolls on, and in a few generations more leave only a reminiscence, a blank. But I am not at all clear about that. As America, from its many far-back sources and current supplies, develops, adapts, entwines, faithfully identifies its own—are we to see it cheerfully accepting and using all

14842-584: The Treasury, hoping he would grant Whitman a position in that department. Chase, however, did not want to hire the author of such a disreputable book as Leaves of Grass . The Whitman family had a difficult end to 1864. On September 30, 1864, Whitman's brother George was captured by Confederate forces in Virginia , and another brother, Andrew Jackson, died of tuberculosis compounded by alcoholism on December 3. That month, Whitman committed his brother Jesse to

15023-501: The United States   [...] [are] one of those problematic features of his works that teachers and critics read past or explain away" (xv–xvi). Nathanael O'Reilly in an essay on "Walt Whitman's Nationalism in the First Edition of Leaves of Grass " claims that "Whitman's imagined America is arrogant, expansionist, hierarchical, racist and exclusive; such an America is unacceptable to Native Americans, African-Americans, immigrants,

15204-449: The United States for itself. "Although he is often considered a champion of democracy and equality, Whitman constructs a hierarchy with himself at the head, America below, and the rest of the world in a subordinate position." In his study "The Pragmatic Whitman: Reimagining American Democracy", Stephen John Mack suggests that critics, who tend to ignore it, should look again at Whitman's nationalism: "Whitman's seemingly mawkish celebrations of

15385-587: The Western hemisphere; Stephen Daye printed 1,000 copies on the first printing press in the American colonies. Of the second generation of New England settlers, Cotton Mather stands out as a theologian and historian, who wrote the history of the colonies with a view to God's activity in their midst and to connecting the Puritan leaders with the great heroes of the Christian faith. His best-known works include

15566-544: The Woods in 1837. James Fenimore Cooper was a notable author best known for his novel The Last of the Mohicans written in 1826. George Tucker produced in 1824 the first fiction of Virginia colonial life with The Valley of Shenandoah . He followed in 1827 with one of the country's first science fictions: A Voyage to the Moon: With Some Account of the Manners and Customs, Science and Philosophy, of

15747-492: The advancement of their cause by their " ultraism and officiousness". His main concern was that their methods disrupted the democratic process, as did the refusal of the Southern states to put the interests of the nation as a whole above their own. In 1856, in his unpublished The Eighteenth Presidency , addressing the men of the South, he wrote "you are either to abolish slavery or it will abolish you". Whitman also subscribed to

15928-652: The appointment of a new clerk required to record its discernment. Though the initial separation was intended to be temporary, by 1828, there were two independent Quaker groupings in the city, both claiming to be the Philadelphia Yearly Meeting. Other yearly meetings split along similar lines during subsequent years, including those in New York, Baltimore, Ohio , and Indiana . Those who followed Hicks became termed Hicksites and his critics termed Orthodox Friends, each faction considering itself to be

16109-502: The army hospitals. He would write of this experience in "The Great Army of the Sick", published in a New York newspaper in 1863 and, 12 years later, in a book called Memoranda During the War . He then contacted Emerson, this time to ask for help in obtaining a government post. Another friend, John Trowbridge, passed on a letter of recommendation from Emerson to Salmon P. Chase , Secretary of

16290-426: The artful libertine and gives birth to an illegitimate stillborn child at an inn. The Coquette is praised for its demonstration of the era's contradictory ideas of womanhood. even as it has been criticized for delegitimizing protest against women's subordination. Both The Coquette and Charlotte Temple are novels that treat the right of women to live as equals as the new democratic experiment. These novels are of

16471-498: The attorney general's office until January 1872. He spent much of 1872 caring for his mother, who was now nearly eighty and struggling with arthritis . He also traveled and was invited to Dartmouth College to give the commencement address on June 26, 1872. After suffering a paralytic stroke in early 1873, Whitman was induced to move from Washington to the home of his brother—George Washington Whitman, an engineer—at 431 Stevens Street in Camden, New Jersey. His mother, having fallen ill,

16652-539: The battle front. On December 16, 1862, a listing of fallen and wounded soldiers in the New-York Tribune included "First Lieutenant G. W. Whitmore", which Whitman worried was a reference to his brother George. He made his way south immediately to find him, though his wallet was stolen on the way. "Walking all day and night, unable to ride, trying to get information, trying to get access to big people", Whitman later wrote, he eventually found George alive, with only

16833-468: The beginning of a great career", in gold leaf on the spine of the second edition. Of this action, Laura Dassow Walls , professor emerita of English at the University of Notre Dame , wrote: "In one stroke, Whitman had given birth to the modern cover blurb , quite without Emerson's permission." On July 11, 1855, a few days after Leaves of Grass was published, Whitman's father died at the age of 65. In

17014-423: The calamus part has even allow'd the possibility of such construction as mention'd is terrible—I am fain to hope the pages themselves are not to be even mention'd for such gratuitous and quite at this time entirely undream'd & unreck'd possibility of morbid inferences—wh' are disavow'd by me and seem damnable", and insisting that he had fathered six illegitimate children. Some contemporary scholars are skeptical of

17195-589: The cheek by the Marquis de Lafayette during a celebration of the setting of the Brooklyn Apprentices' Library 's cornerstone by Lafayette in Brooklyn on July 4, 1825. Whitman later worked as a librarian at that institution. At the age of 11, Whitman ended his formal schooling and sought employment to assist his family, which was struggling economically. He was an office boy for two lawyers and later

17376-494: The conflicting claims of duty and compassion on board a ship in time of war. His more profound books sold poorly, and he had been long forgotten by the time of his death. He was rediscovered in the 1920s. Anti-transcendental works from Melville, Hawthorne, and Poe all comprise the Dark romanticism sub-genre of popular literature at this time. Slave narrative autobiography from this period include Frederick Douglass 's Narrative of

17557-529: The conservative, or " Hunker ", wing of the party. Whitman was a delegate to the 1848 founding convention of the Free Soil Party , which was concerned about the threat slavery would pose to free white labor and northern businessmen moving into the newly colonized western territories. Abolitionist William Lloyd Garrison derided the party philosophy as "white manism". In 1852, he serialized a novel, Life and Adventures of Jack Engle , in six installments of New York's The Sunday Dispatch . In 1858, Whitman published

17738-541: The continent among the numerous different Native American tribes. However, with the onset of English settlement of North America, the English language established a foothold in North America that would spread with the growth of England's political influence in the continent and the continued arrival of settlers from the British Isles. This included the English capture of the Dutch colony of New Amsterdam in 1664, with

17919-404: The continuation of the slave narrative autobiography. In 1837, the young Nathaniel Hawthorne (1804–1864) collected some of his stories as Twice-Told Tales , a volume rich in symbolism and occult incidents. Hawthorne went on to write full-length "romances", quasi-allegorical novels that explore the themes of guilt, pride, and emotional repression. His masterpiece, The Scarlet Letter (1850),

18100-409: The contributions of foreign lands from the whole outside globe—and then rejecting the only ones distinctively its own—the autochthonic ones? As to the Spanish stock of our Southwest, it is certain to me that we do not begin to appreciate the splendor and sterling value of its race element. Who knows but that element, like the course of some subterranean river, dipping invisibly for a hundred or two years,

18281-693: The controversy respecting the doctrines of Elias Hicks in 1824 in which she depicted Hicks as a radical eccentric. Hicks felt obliged to respond and in the same year published a letter to his ally in Philadelphia Meeting, Dr. Edwin Atlee, in The Misrepresentations of Anna Braithwaite . This in turn was replied to by Braithwaite in A Letter from Anna Braithwaite to Elias Hicks, On the Nature of his Doctrines in 1825. Neither party

18462-520: The differences between American Indians and the white settlers in the area. In a similar book, Travels through North and South Carolina, Georgia, East and West , William Bartram described the Southern landscape and the Indian tribes he encountered; Bartram's book was popular in Europe, being translated into German, French and Dutch. As the colonies moved toward independence from Britain, an important discussion of American culture and identity came from

18643-508: The disabled, the infertile, and all those who value equal rights." Whitman's nationalism avoided issues concerning the treatment of Native Americans. As George Hutchinson and David Drews further suggest in an essay "Racial attitudes": "Clearly, Whitman could not consistently reconcile the ingrained, even foundational, racist character of the United States with its egalitarian ideals. He could not even reconcile such contradictions in his own psyche." The authors concluded their essay with: Because of

18824-436: The economic reasons for their existence: Q. 11. What effect would it have on the slave holders and their slaves, should the people of the United States of America and the inhabitants of Great Britain, refuse to purchase or make use of any goods that are the product of Slavery? A. It would doubtless have a particular effect on the slave holders, by circumscribing their avarice, and preventing their heaping up riches, and living in

19005-406: The end of 1891 approached, he prepared a final edition of Leaves of Grass , a version that has been nicknamed the "Deathbed Edition". He wrote, "L. of G. at last complete —after 33 y'rs of hackling at it, all times & moods of my life, fair weather & foul, all parts of the land, and peace & war, young & old." Preparing for death, Whitman commissioned a granite mausoleum shaped like

19186-428: The end of the trip—in fact went all the way back with me." In his notebooks, Whitman disguised Doyle's initials using the code "16.4" (P.D. being the 16th and 4th letters of the alphabet). Oscar Wilde met Whitman in the United States in 1882 and later told the homosexual-rights activist George Cecil Ives that "I have the kiss of Walt Whitman still on my lips." The only explicit description of Whitman's sexual activities

19367-644: The existence of an external Devil . He never spoke of eternal Hell but he expressed the importance of the soul's union "now" in preparation for the "realms of eternity" and how the soul's condemnation is elected through our free agency, not by God's foreordination. Hicks rejected of the notion of an outward Devil as the source of evil, but rather emphasized that it was the human 'passions' or 'propensities'. Hicks stressed that basic urges, including all sexual passions, were neither implanted by an external evil, but all were aspects of human nature as created by God. Hicks claimed, in his sermon Let Brotherly Love Continue at

19548-607: The first European settlements in North America had been founded elsewhere, many years earlier. The first item printed in Pennsylvania was in German and was the largest book printed in any of the colonies before the American Revolution. Spanish and French had two of the strongest colonial literary traditions in the areas that now comprise the United States. Moreover, a wealth of oral literary traditions existed on

19729-680: The first edition of Leaves of Grass . In his own time, Whitman attracted an influential coterie of disciples and admirers. Among his admirers were the Eagle Street College , an informal group established in 1885 at the home of James William Wallace on Eagle Street in Bolton , England, to read and discuss the poetry of Whitman. The group subsequently became known as the Bolton Whitman Fellowship or Whitmanites. Its members held an annual "Whitman Day" celebration around

19910-564: The first reunified Monthly Meetings in the 1920s until finally resolved with the reunification of Baltimore Yearly Meeting in 1968. On June 24, 1829, at the age of 81, Elias Hicks went on his final traveling ministry to western and central New York State, arriving home in Jericho on November 11, 1829. There, in January 1830, he suffered a stroke that left him partially paralyzed and on February 14, 1830, he suffered an incapacitating secondary stroke. He died some two weeks later on February 27, 1830, his dying concern being that no cotton blanket,

20091-431: The first untitled poem, later called " Song of Myself ". The book received its strongest praise from Ralph Waldo Emerson , who wrote a flattering five-page letter to Whitman and spoke highly of the book to friends. Emerson called it "the most extraordinary piece of wit and wisdom that America has yet contributed." Emerson had called for the first truly American poet, saying that aspects of America "are yet unsung. Yet America

20272-402: The flowers and wreaths left for him. Four days after his death, he was buried in his tomb at Harleigh Cemetery in Camden. Another public ceremony was held at the cemetery, with friends giving speeches, live music, and refreshments. Whitman's friend, the orator Robert Ingersoll , delivered the eulogy. Later, the remains of Whitman's parents and two of his brothers and their families were moved to

20453-520: The folk-rock songwriter Bob Dylan won the Nobel Prize in Literature. Oral literature and storytelling has existed among the various Indigenous tribes , prior to the arrival of European colonists. The traditional territories of some tribes traverse national boundaries and such literature is not homogeneous but reflects the different cultures of these peoples . In 1771 the first work by

20634-534: The formation of a budding American identity. Paine's pamphlet Common Sense and The American Crisis writings are seen as playing a key role in influencing the political tone of the time. During the Revolutionary War , poems and songs such as " Nathan Hale " were popular. Major satirists included John Trumbull and Francis Hopkinson . Philip Morin Freneau also wrote poems about the War. During

20815-650: The formation of educational institutions. To wit, Orthodox Quakers founded Haverford College and Hicksites Swarthmore College . Both the Orthodox and Hicksite Friends experienced further schisms. The main following of the Orthodox Friends followed the practices of the English Quaker Joseph John Gurney who possessed an evangelical position. As time went on, a majority of the meetings endorsed forms of worship much like those of

20996-470: The fullest heat and pulse of European feudalism—personifying in unparalleled ways the medieval aristocracy, its towering spirit of ruthless and gigantic caste, with its own peculiar air and arrogance (no mere imitation)—only one of the "wolfish earls" so plenteous in the plays themselves, or some born descendant and knower, might seem to be the true author of those amazing works—works in some respects greater than anything else in recorded literature. Like many in

21177-519: The great Republic of Letters." As a pioneer of the literary device he referred to "natural writing", Neal was "the first in America to be natural in his diction" and his work represents "the first deviation from ... Irvingesque graciousness." Edgar Allan Poe was born in Boston but raised in Virginia and identified with the South. In 1832, he began writing short stories, such as " The Masque of

21358-476: The historic use of an elevated hero and instead assumed the identity of the common people. Leaves of Grass also responded to the impact of rapid urbanization in the United States on the masses. Whitman was a vocal proponent of temperance and in his youth rarely drank alcohol. He once stated he did not taste "strong liquor" until he was 30 and occasionally argued for prohibition . His first novel, Franklin Evans , or The Inebriate , published November 23, 1842,

21539-703: The incident a "myth". During this time, Whitman published a series of ten editorials, called "Sun-Down Papers—From the Desk of a Schoolmaster", in three newspapers between the winter of 1840 and July 1841. In these essays, he adopted a constructed persona, a technique he would employ throughout his career. Whitman moved to New York City in May, initially working a low-level job at the New World , working under Park Benjamin Sr. and Rufus Wilmot Griswold . He continued working for short periods of time for various newspapers; in 1842 he

21720-445: The influential Transcendentalism movement; Henry David Thoreau , author of Walden , was influenced by this movement. The conflict surrounding abolitionism inspired writers, like Harriet Beecher Stowe , and authors of slave narratives, such as Frederick Douglass . Nathaniel Hawthorne 's The Scarlet Letter (1850) explored the dark side of American history, as did Herman Melville 's Moby-Dick (1851). Major American poets of

21901-613: The job in 1859, though it is unclear whether he was fired or chose to leave. Whitman, who typically kept detailed notebooks and journals, left very little information about himself in the late 1850s. As the American Civil War was beginning, Whitman published his poem " Beat! Beat! Drums! " as a patriotic rally call for the Union . Whitman's brother George had joined the Union army in the 51st New York Infantry Regiment and began sending Whitman several vividly detailed letters of

22082-409: The lack of social structures leads to the loss of civilized living. This same period saw the beginning of African-American literature , through the poet Phillis Wheatley and the slave narrative of Olaudah Equiano , The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano (1789). At this time, American Indian literature also began to flourish. Samson Occom published his A Sermon Preached at

22263-576: The local Native Americans were better people than them. Other late writings described conflicts and interaction with the Indians, as seen in writings by Daniel Gookin , Alexander Whitaker , John Mason , Benjamin Church , and Daniel J. Tan . John Eliot translated the Bible into the Algonquin language (1663) as Mamusse Wunneetupanatamwe Up-Biblum God . It was the first complete Bible printed in

22444-633: The mausoleum. His brain was donated to the American Anthropometric Society in Philadelphia, but it was accidentally destroyed. Whitman's work broke the boundaries of poetic form and is generally prose-like. Its signature style deviates from the course set by his predecessors and includes "idiosyncratic treatment of the body and the soul as well as of the self and the other." It uses unusual images and symbols, including rotting leaves, tufts of straw, and debris. Whitman openly wrote about death and sexuality, including prostitution. He

22625-470: The miracles Jesus performed were meant to prove the existence of God. He argued that Jesus was the savior of the Jewish people by replacing the law put forth by Moses. He also argued that Jesus provided the path to salvation for all people exemplified by his life, which was perfectly and entirely guided and united with the Holy Spirit through his inward light. To Hicks, Jesus divinity by being united with God and

22806-475: The months following the first edition of Leaves of Grass , critical responses began focusing on what some found offensive sexual themes. Though the second edition was already printed and bound, the publisher almost did not release it. In the end, the edition went to retail, with 20 additional poems, in August 1856. Leaves of Grass was revised and re-released in 1860, again in 1867, and several more times throughout

22987-562: The natural world. He expanded his influence with his lecture " The American Scholar ", delivered in Cambridge in 1837, which called upon Americans to create a uniquely American writing style. Both the nation and the individual should declare independence. Emerson's influence fostered the movement now known as Transcendentalism . Among the leaders was Emerson's friend, Henry David Thoreau , a nonconformist and critic of American commercial culture. After living mostly by himself for two years in

23168-432: The new Secretary of the Interior, former Iowa Senator James Harlan . Though Harlan dismissed several clerks who "were seldom at their respective desks", he may have fired Whitman on moral grounds after finding an 1860 edition of Leaves of Grass . O'Connor protested until J. Hubley Ashton had Whitman transferred to the Attorney General's office on July 1. O'Connor, though, was still upset and vindicated Whitman by publishing

23349-401: The nineteenth century include Walt Whitman , Melville, and Emily Dickinson . Mark Twain was the first major American writer to be born in the West. Henry James achieved international recognition with novels like The Portrait of a Lady (1881). Following World War I , modernist literature rejected nineteenth-century forms and values. F. Scott Fitzgerald captured the carefree mood of

23530-474: The old accounts, bibles, genealogies, are true, without exception". In 1874, he was invited to write a poem about the Spiritualism movement, to which he responded: "It seems to me nearly altogether a poor, cheap, crude humbug ." Whitman was a religious skeptic: though he accepted all churches, he believed in none. God, to Whitman, was both immanent and transcendent and the human soul was immortal and in

23711-539: The opera, I could never have written Leaves of Grass ." Throughout the 1840s, Whitman contributed freelance fiction and poetry to various periodicals, including Brother Jonathan magazine edited by John Neal . Whitman lost his position at the Brooklyn Eagle in 1848 after siding with the free-soil " Barnburner " wing of the Democratic party against the newspaper's owner, Isaac Van Anden , who belonged to

23892-472: The outward body of Jesus Christ was an atonement for our sins? Hicks Answered. "In reply to the first part of this query, I answer, I believe, in unison with our ancient Friends, that it was the garment in which he performed all his mighty works, or as Paul expressed it, 'Know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost, which is in you,' therefore he charged them not to defile those temples. What

24073-485: The period from 1821 to 1827 to denounce his views. Their presence severely exacerbated the differences among American Quakers, differences that had been underscored by the 1819 split between the American Unitarians and Congregationalists . The influence of Anna Braithwaite was especially strong. She visited the United States between 1823 and 1827 and published her Letters and observations relating to

24254-469: The perpetuation of slavery: Q. 10. By what class of the people is the slavery of the Africans and their descendants supported and encouraged? A. Principally by the purchasers and consumers of the produce of the slaves' labour; as the profits arising from the produce of their labour, is the only stimulus or inducement for making slaves. and he advocated a consumer boycott of slave-produced goods to remove

24435-404: The philosophy of history can do without him." Andrew Carnegie called him "the great poet of America so far". Whitman considered himself a messiah-like figure in poetry. Others agreed: one of his admirers, William Sloane Kennedy, speculated that "people will be celebrating the birth of Walt Whitman as they are now the birth of Christ". Literary critic Harold Bloom wrote, as the introduction for

24616-590: The philosophy of history can do without him." Modernist poet Ezra Pound called Whitman "America's poet... He is America." According to the Poetry Foundation , he is "America's world poet—a latter-day successor to Homer , Virgil , Dante , and Shakespeare ." Whitman was born on May 31, 1819, in West Hills, New York , the second of nine children of Quaker parents Walter and Louisa Van Velsor Whitman, of English and Dutch descent respectively. He

24797-619: The poet's birthday. Whitman is one of the most influential American poets. Modernist poet Ezra Pound called Whitman "America's poet ... He is America." To poet Langston Hughes , who wrote " I, too, sing America ", Whitman was a literary hero. Whitman's vagabond lifestyle was adopted by the Beat movement and its leaders such as Allen Ginsberg and Jack Kerouac in the 1950s and 1960s, as well as anti-war poets such as Adrienne Rich , Alicia Ostriker , and Gary Snyder . Lawrence Ferlinghetti numbered himself among Whitman's "wild children", and

24978-424: The population of the colonies numbered approximately 111,000. Thirty years later, it was more than 250,000. By 1760, it reached 1,600,000. The growth of communities, and therefore social life, led people to become more interested in the progress of individuals and their shared experience in the colonies. These new ideas can be seen in the popularity of Benjamin Franklin 's Autobiography . Even earlier than Franklin

25159-550: The radically democratic and egalitarian aspects of his poetry, readers generally expect, and desire for, Whitman to be among the literary heroes that transcended the racist pressures that abounded in all spheres of public discourse during the nineteenth century. He did not, at least not consistently; nonetheless his poetry has been a model for democratic poets of all nations and races, right up to our own day. How Whitman could have been so prejudiced, and yet so effective in conveying an egalitarian and antiracist sensibility in his poetry,

25340-689: The religious foundations of the Massachusetts Bay Colony . Edward Winslow also recorded a diary of the first years after the Mayflower 's arrival. " A modell of Christian Charity " by John Winthrop, the first governor of Massachusetts, was a Sermon preached on the Arbella (the flagship of the Winthrop Fleet ) in 1630. This work outlined the ideal society that he and the other Separatists would build, in an attempt to realize

25521-463: The remainder of Whitman's life. Several well-known writers admired the work enough to visit Whitman, including Amos Bronson Alcott and Henry David Thoreau . During the first publications of Leaves of Grass , Whitman had financial difficulties and was forced to work as a journalist again, specifically with Brooklyn's Daily Times starting in May 1857. As an editor, he oversaw the paper's contents, contributed book reviews, and wrote editorials. He left

25702-503: The scriptures created more harm than good, because different factions of Christians held the Bible in too high a regard and without using the inward light as the primary source of understanding with which to interpret the Bible. In a personal letter he wrote For it is my candid belief, that those that hold and believe the Scriptures to be the only rule of faith and practice, to these it does much more hurt than good. And has anything tended more to divide Christendom into sects and parties than

25883-522: The second part of this query, I would remark that I 'see no need of directing men to the type for the antitype, neither to the outward temple, nor yet to Jerusalem, neither to Jesus Christ or his blood [outwardly], knowing that neither the righteousness of faith, nor the word of it doth so direct." "The new and second covenant is dedicated with the blood, the life of Christ Jesus, which is the alone atonement unto God, by which all his people are washed, sanctified, cleansed, and redeemed to God." Hicks rejected

26064-466: The sentimental genre, characterized by overindulgence in emotion, an invitation to listen to the voice of reason against misleading passions, as well as an optimistic overemphasis on the essential goodness of humanity. Sentimentalism is often thought to be a reaction against the Calvinistic belief in the depravity of human nature. While many of these novels were popular, the economic infrastructure of

26245-482: The service of pointing to the fountain of all naked theology, all religion, all worship, all the truth to which you are possibly eligible—namely in yourself and your inherent relations. Others talk of Bibles, saints, churches, exhortations, vicarious atonements—the canons outside of yourself and apart from man—Elias Hicks points to the religion inside of man's very own nature. This he incessantly labors to kindle, nourish, educate, bring forward and strengthen." Elias Hicks

26426-438: The sexual nature of some of his relationships. English poet and critic John Addington Symonds spent 20 years in correspondence trying to pry the answer from him. In 1890, Symonds wrote to Whitman: "In your conception of Comradeship, do you contemplate the possible intrusion of those semi-sexual emotions and actions which no doubt do occur between men?" In reply, Whitman denied that his work had any such implication, asserting "[T]hat

26607-797: The split in American Quakerism also spread to the Quaker community in Canada that had immigrated there from New York, the New England states and Pennsylvania in the 1790s. This resulted in a parallel system of Yearly Meetings in Upper Canada, as in the United States. The eventual division between Hicksites and the evangelical Orthodox Friends in the US was both deep and long-lasting. Full reconciliation between them took decades to achieve, from

26788-941: The time consisted of pamphlets and writings extolling the benefits of the colonies to both a European and colonial audience. Captain John Smith could be considered the first American author with his works A True Relation of Such Occurrences and Accidents of Noate as Hath Happened in Virginia ;... (1608) and The Generall Historie of Virginia, New England, and the Summer Isles (1624). Other writers of this genre included Daniel Denton , Thomas Ashe , William Penn , George Percy , William Strachey , Daniel Coxe , Gabriel Thomas, and John Lawson . The religious disputes that prompted settlement in America were important topics of early American literature. A journal written by John Winthrop , The History of New England , discussed

26969-430: The time did not allow these writers to make a living through their writing alone. Charles Brockden Brown is the earliest American novelist whose works are still commonly read. He published Wieland in 1798, and in 1799 published Ormond , Edgar Huntly , and Arthur Mervyn . These novels are of the Gothic genre. The first writer to be able to support himself through the income generated by his publications alone

27150-409: The title of Ferlinghetti's 1961 collection Starting from San Francisco is a reference to Whitman's Starting from Paumanok . June Jordan published a pivotal essay entitled "For the Sake of People's Poetry: Walt Whitman and the Rest of Us", praising Whitman as a democratic poet whose works speak to ethnic minorities from all backgrounds. United States poet laureate Joy Harjo , who is a Chancellor of

27331-453: The top", "a pseudoscientific tract", and "wacky". Whitman claimed that after years of competing for "the usual rewards", he determined to become a poet. He first experimented with a variety of popular literary genres that appealed to the cultural tastes of the period. As early as 1850, he began writing what would become Leaves of Grass , a collection of poetry that he would continue editing and revising until his death. Whitman intended to write

27512-459: The true expression of the legacy of the founder of the Friends, George Fox . The split was also based on marked socioeconomic factors with Hicksite Friends being mostly poor and rural and with Orthodox Friends being mostly urban and middle-class. Many of the rural country Friends kept to Quaker traditions of "plain speech" and " plain dress ", both long-abandoned by Quakers in the towns and cities. Both Orthodox and Hicksite factions were active in

27693-516: The veracity of Whitman's denial or the existence of the children he claimed. In a letter dated August 21, 1890, Whitman claimed: "I have had six children—two are dead." This claim has never been corroborated. Peter Doyle may be the most likely candidate for the love of Whitman's life. Doyle was a bus conductor whom Whitman met around 1866, and the two were inseparable for several years. Interviewed in 1895, Doyle said: "We were familiar at once—I put my hand on his knee—we understood. He did not get out at

27874-418: The widespread opinion that even free African-Americans should not vote and was concerned at the increasing number of African-Americans in the legislature; as David Reynolds notes, Whitman wrote in prejudiced terms of these new voters and politicians, calling them "blacks, with about as much intellect and calibre (in the mass) as so many baboons." George Hutchinson and David Drews have written that "what little

28055-422: The winter of 1840 to the spring of 1841. One story, possibly apocryphal , tells of Whitman's being chased away from a teaching job in Southold, New York , in 1840. After a local preacher called him a " Sodomite ", Whitman was allegedly tarred and feathered . Biographer Justin Kaplan notes that the story is likely untrue, because Whitman regularly vacationed in the town thereafter. Biographer Jerome Loving calls

28236-446: The works of Charles W. Chesnutt (writing about African Americans), of María Ruiz de Burton , one of the earliest Mexican-American novelists to write in English, and in the Yiddish -inflected works of Abraham Cahan . William Dean Howells also represented the realist tradition through his novels, including The Rise of Silas Lapham (1885) and his work as editor of The Atlantic Monthly . Henry James (1843–1916) confronted

28417-401: The young nation, making observations about the relations between American politics, individualism, and community. The political conflict surrounding abolitionism inspired the writings of William Lloyd Garrison and his paper The Liberator , along with poet John Greenleaf Whittier and Harriet Beecher Stowe in her world-famous Uncle Tom's Cabin (1852). These efforts were supported by

28598-442: Was Cadwallader Colden (1689–1776), whose book The History of the Five Indian Nations , published in 1727 was one of the first texts published on Iroquois history. Colden also wrote a book on botany, which attracted the attention of Carl Linnaeus , and he maintained a long term correspondence with Benjamin Franklin. In the post-war period, Thomas Jefferson established his place in American literature through his authorship of

28779-852: Was Washington Irving . He completed his first major book in 1809 titled A History of New-York from the Beginning of the World to the End of the Dutch Dynasty . Of the picaresque genre, Hugh Henry Brackenridge published Modern Chivalry in 1792–1815; Tabitha Gilman Tenney wrote Female Quixotism: Exhibited in the Romantic Opinions and Extravagant Adventure of Dorcasina Sheldon in 1801; Royall Tyler wrote The Algerine Captive in 1797. Other notable authors include William Gilmore Simms , who wrote Martin Faber in 1833, Guy Rivers in 1834, and The Yemassee in 1835. Lydia Maria Child wrote Hobomok in 1824 and The Rebels in 1825. John Neal wrote Keep Cool in 1817, Logan in 1822, Seventy-Six in 1823, Randolph in 1823, Errata in 1823, Brother Jonathan in 1825, and Rachel Dyer (earliest use of

28960-401: Was "the first Native American novel devoted to the subject of Indian life". A significant event in the development of Native American literature in English came with the awarding of the Pulitzer Prize in 1969 to N. Scott Momaday ( Kiowa tribe) for his novel House Made of Dawn (1968). The Thirteen Colonies have often been regarded as the center of early American literature. However,

29141-475: Was Harry Stafford, with whose family Whitman stayed when at Timber Creek, and whom he first met in 1876, when Stafford was 18. Whitman gave Stafford a ring, which was returned and re-given over the course of a stormy relationship lasting several years. Of that ring, Stafford wrote to Whitman: "You know when you put it on there was but one thing to part it from me, and that was death." There is also some evidence that Whitman had sexual relationships with women. He had

29322-417: Was Mather's The Christian Philosopher (1721). The enormous scientific, economic, social, and philosophical, changes of the 18th century, called the Enlightenment , impacted the authority of clergyman and scripture, making way for democratic principles. The increase in population helped account for the greater diversity of opinion in religious and political life, as seen in the literature of this time. In 1670,

29503-522: Was also last fully physically active in this house, receiving both Oscar Wilde and Thomas Eakins . His other brother, Edward, an "invalid" since birth, lived in the house. When his brother and sister-in-law were forced to move for business reasons, he bought his own house at 328 Mickle Street (now 330 Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard) . First taken care of by tenants, he was completely bedridden for most of his time in Mickle Street. During this time, he began socializing with Mary Oakes Davis—the widow of

29684-425: Was also there and died that same year in May. Both events were difficult for Whitman and left him depressed. He remained at his brother's home until buying his own in 1884. However, before purchasing his home, he spent the greatest period of his residence in Camden at his brother's home on Stevens Street. While in residence there he was very productive, publishing three versions of Leaves of Grass among other works. He

29865-404: Was an apprentice and printer's devil for the weekly Long Island newspaper the Patriot , edited by Samuel E. Clements. There, Whitman learned about the printing press and typesetting . He may have written "sentimental bits" of filler material for occasional issues. Clements aroused controversy when he and two friends attempted to dig up the corpse of the Quaker minister Elias Hicks to create

30046-475: Was an attempt to reach out to the common person with an American epic . Whitman continued expanding and revising Leaves of Grass until his death in 1892. During the American Civil War , he went to Washington, D.C. , and worked in hospitals caring for the wounded. His poetry often focused on both loss and healing. On the assassination of Abraham Lincoln , whom Whitman greatly admired , he authored two poems, " O Captain! My Captain! " and " When Lilacs Last in

30227-462: Was close, with the youth sharing Whitman's money when he had it. Whitman described their friendship as "thick". Though some biographers describe Duckett as a boarder, others identify him as a lover. Their photograph together is described as "modeled on the conventions of a marriage portrait", part of a series of portraits of the poet with his young male friends, and encrypting male–male desire. Another young man with whom Whitman had an intense relationship

30408-423: Was concerned with political and social issues. Elias Hicks Elias Hicks (March 19, 1748 – February 27, 1830) was a traveling Quaker minister from Long Island , New York . In his ministry he promoted doctrines deemed unorthodox by many which led to lasting controversy, and caused the second major schism within the Religious Society of Friends (the first caused by George Keith in 1691). Elias Hicks

30589-433: Was described by some as obscene for its overt sensuality. Whitman was born in Huntington on Long Island and lived in Brooklyn as a child and through much of his career. At age 11, he left formal schooling to go to work. He worked as a journalist, a teacher, and a government clerk. Whitman's major poetry collection, Leaves of Grass , first published in 1855, was financed with his own money and became well known. The work

30770-438: Was editor of the Aurora and from 1846 to 1848 he was editor of the Brooklyn Eagle . While working for the latter institution, many of his publications were in the area of music criticism, and it is during this time that he became a devoted lover of Italian opera through reviewing performances of works by Bellini , Donizetti , and Verdi . This new interest had an impact on his writing in free verse. He later said, "But for

30951-718: Was guilty of "that horrible sin not to be mentioned among Christians". The manuscript of his love poem "Once I Pass'd Through A Populous City", written when Whitman was 29, indicates it was originally about a man. Late in his life, when Whitman was asked outright whether his " Calamus " poems were homosexual— John Addington Symonds inquired about "athletic friendship", "the love of man for man", or "the Love of Friends"—he chose not to respond. Whitman had intense friendships with many men and boys throughout his life. Some biographers have suggested that he did not actually engage in sexual relationships with males, while others cite letters, journal entries, and other sources that they claim as proof of

31132-419: Was immediately nicknamed "Walt" to distinguish him from his father. At the age of four, Whitman moved with his family from Huntington to Brooklyn , living in a series of homes, in part due to bad investments. Whitman looked back on his childhood as generally restless and unhappy, given his family's difficult economic struggles. One happy moment that he later recalled was when he was lifted in the air and kissed on

31313-458: Was inspired by his work. Moby-Dick (1851) became not only an adventure tale about the pursuit of a white whale, but also an exploration of obsession, the nature of evil, and human struggle against the elements. It was a critical and commercial failure, as were his subsequent novels. He turned to poetry and did not return to fiction until the short novel Billy Budd , Sailor , which he left unfinished at his death in 1891. In it, Melville dramatizes

31494-464: Was larger than what was published in North America. However, printing was established in the American colonies before it was allowed in most of England. In England, restrictive laws had long confined printing to four locations, where the government could monitor what was published: London, York, Oxford, and Cambridge. Because of this, the colonies ventured into the modern world earlier than their provincial English counterparts. Some American literature of

31675-607: Was not entirely due to Hicks' ministry and internal divisions. It was, in part, also a response within Quakerism to the influences of the Second Great Awakening , the revival of Protestant evangelism that began in the 1790s as a reaction to religious skepticism , deism , and the liberal theology of Rational Christianity. However, doctrinal tensions among Friends due to Hicks' teachings had emerged as early as 1808 and as Hicks' influence grew, prominent visiting English evangelical public Friends, including William Forster and Anna Braithwaite , were prompted to travel to New York State in

31856-405: Was one of the early Quaker abolitionists . In 1778 on Long Island, he joined with fellow Quakers who had begun manumitting their slaves as early as March 1776 (James Titus and Phebe Willets Mott Dodge ). The Quakers at Westbury Meeting were amongst the first in New York to do so and, gradually following their example, all Westbury Quaker slaves were freed by 1799. In 1794, Hicks was a founder of

32037-403: Was persuaded by this exchange. In 1819, Hicks had devoted much energy into influencing the meeting houses in Philadelphia and this was followed by years of intense organizational turmoil. Eventually, due to both external influences and constant internal strife, matters came to a head there in 1826. After the 1826 Philadelphia Yearly Meeting, at which Hicks' sermon had stressed the importance of

32218-569: Was predominantly in the naturalist genre. His notable works include McTeague: A Story of San Francisco (1899), The Octopus: A Story of California (1901) and The Pit (1903). Norris along with Hamlin Garland (1860–1940) wrote about the problems of American farmers and other social issues from a naturalist perspective. Garland is best known for his fiction involving hard-working Midwestern farmers. ( Main-Travelled Roads (1891), Prairie Folks (1892), Jason Edwards (1892). ) Edward Bellamy 's utopian novel Looking Backward (1888)

32399-453: Was published in England thanks to the influence of William Michael Rossetti , with minor changes that Whitman reluctantly approved. The edition became popular in England, especially with endorsements from the highly respected writer Anne Gilchrist . Another edition of Leaves of Grass was issued in 1871, the same year it was mistakenly reported that its author died in a railroad accident. As Whitman's international fame increased, he remained at

32580-486: Was the older cousin of the painter Edward Hicks . Elias Hicks was born in Hempstead, New York , in 1748, the son of John Hicks (1711–1789) and Martha Hicks (née Smith; 1709–1759), who were farmers. He was a carpenter by trade and in his early twenties he became a Quaker like his father. On January 2, 1771, Hicks married a fellow Quaker, Jemima Seaman, at the Westbury Meeting House and they had eleven children, only five of whom reached adulthood. Hicks eventually became

32761-475: Was ultimately successful because male and female literacy rates were increasing at the time. Among the first American novels are Thomas Attwood Digges 's Adventures of Alonso , published in London in 1775 and William Hill Brown 's The Power of Sympathy published in 1789. Brown's novel depicts a tragic love story between siblings who fell in love without knowing they were related. In the next decade, important women writers also published novels. Susanna Rowson

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