Walt Whitman
Walt Whitman: Humble Upbringing to Hollywood Renaissance Man Walt Whitman was born on May 31, 1819, on the West Hills of Long Island, New York. ... Seeing how there were 9 Whitman children, 4 of which that were handicapped, Daddy Whitman needed someway to maintain order within the walls of his home. ... “Whitman left school in 1830, worked as a printer’s devil and later as a compositor. ... ”(The Columbia Encyclopedia) The fact that he left school at the young age of eleven, it is quite amazing that Walt acquired the education that he did. ... At the age of seventeen, Walt became a teacher in a one-room school in Long Island. ... Whitman. ... (Strassburg) I would have to say Walt was way ahead of his time. ... I might have actually enjoyed learning about Whitman in my junior year English class had my teacher known his views on education. ... In 1848, Whitman left the Brooklyn Daily Eagle to become editor of the New Orleans Crescent.” (The Columbia Encyclopedia) It amazes me that by the age of twenty-two, Whitman had worked in a print shop, been a teacher and wrote for a newspaper that he founded. ... ” (Introduction to Poetry Online) This was an issue that Whitman had very strong feeling about. “From 1846 to 1847 Whitman was the editor of the Brooklyn Daily Eagle. Whitman went to New Orleans in 1848, where he was editor for a brief time of the "New Orleans Crescent". ... Whitman was originally from the north. ... In 1848 Whitman started his second newspaper which he called the "Brooklyn Freeman". ... ’” (Strassburg) This was the first time that Emerson had been exposed to Whitman. Another “celebrity” of the time that Whitman called friend was Thomas Paine. Paine’s Common Sense was one of the few works to grace the shelves of the Whitman house library, small as it was. ... ” (Introduction to Poetry Online) Whitman died a happy man. ... (Introduction to Poetry Online) Walt Whitman was a poet who knew that poetry could not be defined: …. ... (Whitman) With this in mind, I feel that attempting to define his poetry may be quite difficult.