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John Milton Author Biography

John Milton Author Biography

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John Milton was born on 9 December 1608 and died on 8 November 1674. He was an English poet, debater, and civil servant. It addressed the fall of man, including the temptation of Adam and Eve by the fallen angel Satan and their expulsion by God from the Garden of Eden. Paradise Lost raised Milton’s reputation as one of history’s greatest poets. He also served as a civil servant under the Council of State of the Commonwealth of England and later under Oliver Cromwell.

Written in condemnation of pre-publication censorship, it is one of the most influential and impassioned defenses of freedom of speech and freedom of the press in history. His desire for freedom extended beyond his philosophy and was reflected in his style, which included his introduction of new words (derived from Latin and Ancient Greek) into the English language.

He was the first modern writer to use rhyming verse outside of theater or translation. Milton has been described by his biographer William Haley as “the greatest English writer, and is generally regarded as “one of the greatest writers in the English language”, although critical reception has fluctuated in the century since his death, often for this reason. His republic. The phases of Milton’s life parallel the major historical and political divisions in Stuart England at the time.

In his early years, Milton studied at Christ’s College, Cambridge, and then traveled, writing poetry mostly for private publicity, and began a career as a pamphleteer and preacher under Charles’s increasingly autocratic rule and Britain’s collapse into constitutional confusion and eventual civil war.

Although once considered dangerously radical and heretical, Milton contributed in his lifetime to a seismic shift in accepted public opinion that eventually elevated him to public office in England.

The Restoration of the 1660s and the loss of his sight deprived Milton of much of his public platform, but he used this period to develop many of his larger works.

John Milton’s early life and education

John Milton the Elder (1562–1647) moved to London around 1583 after being disinherited by his devout Catholic father, Richard “the Ranger” Milton, to convert to Protestantism. In London, John Milton Sr. married Sarah Jeffery (1572–1637) and found lasting financial success as a writer. He lived and worked in a cheap house on Bread Street, where the Mermaid Tavern was located.

The elder Milton was well known for his skill as a composer of music, and this talent left his son with a lifelong appreciation for music and friendships with musicians such as Henry Lawes. Milton’s father’s affluence allowed his eldest son to have a private tutor, Thomas Young, a Scottish Presbyterian with an MA from the University of St Andrews.

Young’s influence also serves as an introduction to the poet’s religious radicalism. After Young’s tutorship, Milton attended St. Paul’s School in London, where he began to study Latin and Greek; Classical languages ​​left an imprint on both his poetry and prose in English (he also wrote in Latin and Italian). Milton’s first recorded works are two hymns written at Long Bennington at the age of 15.

In 1625, Milton entered Christ’s College, Cambridge University, where he graduated with a BA in 1629, ranking fourth out of 24 honors graduates at Cambridge University that year.

At the time, preparing to become an Anglican priest, he stayed at Cambridge where he received his MA on 3 July 1632. Milton may have been rusticated (suspended) in his first year at Cambridge for quarreling with his tutor, Bishop William Chappell. He must have been at home in London in the Lent term of 1626; There he wrote his first Latin elegy, Elegia Prima, to Charles Diodati, a friend of St. Paul.

Based on John Aubrey’s comments, Chappell “whips” Milton. This story is now disputed, although certainly Milton disliked Chappell. Historian Christopher Hill notes that Milton was maligned and that the differences between Chappell and Milton may have been either religious or personal.

It is also possible that, like Isaac Newton, four decades later, Milton was sent home from Cambridge because of the plague, which struck Cambridge in 1625. At Cambridge Milton had a good relationship with Edward King; He later dedicated “Lycidus” to him.

Despite gaining a reputation for poetic skill and general erudition, Milton suffered isolation among his peers while at Cambridge. Once he saw his fellow students attempt comedy on the college stage, he later observed, “They thought themselves brave men and I thought them fools“.

Milton also hated the university curriculum, which consisted of formal debates fixed on abstract topics in Latin. His corpus is not devoid of humor, notably his epitaphs on the sixth prologue and the death of Thomas Hobson.

While at Cambridge, he wrote some of his best-known short English poems, including “On the Morning of Christ’s Nativity“, and “Epitaph on the Admired Dramatic Poet, W.

Study, poetry, and travel

After receiving his MA, Milton moved to Hammersmith, his father’s new home from the previous year. He also lived at Horton in Berkshire from 1635 and spent six years of self-directed private study. Hill argues that it did not recede into a rural idyll; Hammersmith was then a “suburban village” within the orbit of London, and even Horton suffered from deforestation and plague.

He read both ancient and modern works of theology, philosophy, history, politics, literature, and science in preparation for a possible poetic career. In addition to years of private study, Milton had Latin, Greek, Hebrew, French, Spanish, and Italian from his school and undergraduate days; He added Old English to his linguistic repertoire while researching the history of Britain in the 1650s, and probably acquired proficiency in Dutch soon after.

During this period of study, Milton continued to write poetry; Both his Arcade and Comus were commissioned masques for aristocratic patrons, connections to the Egerton family, and executed in 1632 and 1634 respectively.

Drafts of these poems are preserved in Milton’s poetry notebooks, known as the Trinity Manuscripts, as they are now housed at Trinity College, Cambridge. In May 1638, with a retinue, Milton embarked on a 15-month tour of France and Italy that lasted until July or August 1639.

His travels complemented his studies with new and direct experiences of artistic and religious traditions, particularly Roman Catholicism. He met famous theorists and intellectuals of the time and was able to demonstrate his poetic skills.

For the specifics of what happened during Milton’s “Grand Tour,” there seems to be only one primary source: Milton’s own Defensio Secunda.

His other prose tracts include some letters and other records with some references, but most of the information about the tour comes from a work that, according to Barbara Lewalski, was “designed not as autobiography but as rhetoric, to emphasize his reputation among scholars in Europe.”

John Milton poetry

Milton’s poetry was slow to see the light of day, at least in his name. Milton collected his work in Poems in 1645 amid the excitement of attending the prospect of establishing a new English government. The anonymous edition of Comus was published in 1637, and in 1638 the publication of Lycidas in Justa Edoardo king Naufrago was signed J. M. otherwise. The 1645 collection was his only poem to be printed until Paradise Lost was published in 1667.

John Milton and Paradise lost

Milton’s magnum opus, the blank-verse epic Paradise Lost, was composed by the blind and impoverished Milton from 1658 to 1664 (first edition), with minor but significant revisions published in 1674 (second edition). As a blind poet, Milton dictated his verse to a series of assistants in his recruitment. It has been argued that the poem reflects his despair at the failure of the revolution yet affirms the ultimate optimism of human potential.

On 27 April 1667, Milton sold the publishing rights to Paradise Lost to publisher Samuel Simmons for £5 (equivalent to about £770 in 2015 purchasing power), with a further £5 to be paid when each printing was sold. 1,300 and 1,500 copies. The first run was a quarto edition priced at three shillings (equivalent to about £23 in 2015 purchasing power) per copy, published in August 1667, and it sold out in eighteen months.

John Milton on his blindness

The restoration of the Stuart monarchy in 1660 ushered in a new phase of Milton’s work. Milton laments the end of the divine commonwealth in Paradise Lost, Paradise Regained, and Samson Agonistes. The Garden of Eden may allegorically reflect Milton’s view of England’s recent fall from grace, while Samson’s John Milton on his blindness and captivity—Milton’s lost sight—may be an allegory for England’s blind acceptance of Charles II as king. Illustrated by Paradise Lost is moralism, the belief that the soul remains dormant after the body dies.

Milton’s continued faith in the promise of Christian salvation through Jesus Christ. Although he maintained his faith after the defeat of his cause, the Dictionary of National Biography describes how he was excommunicated from the Church of England by Archbishop William Laud and then similarly turned away from the Dissenters, condemning religious toleration in England.

Milton came to stand apart from all sects, though the Quakers were considered the most natural. Later he never attended any religious services. When a servant brings back the details of a sermon from a nonconformist meeting, Milton becomes so sarcastic that the man finally leaves his place. On Milton’s mystical and often contradictory views on the Puritan era, David Dyches writes,

A fair theological summary might be that John Milton was a Puritan, although his tendency to press further for freedom of conscience, sometimes out of conviction and often out of mere intellectual curiosity, made this great man at least an indispensable if not uneasy ally. In the larger Puritan movement.

Robert Frost

Robert Frost author and biography

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Robert Frost was an American poet. The date of his born is March 26, 1874, and died on January 29, 1963. Known for his realistic depictions of rural life and his command of American conversation, wrote often about the settings of rural life in New England and was early 20th century. Using them to examine complex social and philosophical issues.

He was often honored during his lifetime. Frost is the only poet who won 4 of Pulitzer Prizes for poetry. He became one of America’s rare “folk literary figures who are an artistic institution”. Frost received the Congressional Gold Medal in 1960 and was named Poet Laureate of Vermont in 1961.

Randall Jarrell wrote: “Compared with Stevens and Eliot, Robert Frost seems to me the greatest of American poets of this century. Frost’s qualities are extraordinary.

His wonderful dramatic monologues or dramatic scenes emerge from a knowledge of the people that few poets possess and are composed in a verse that sometimes uses perfect skill and the rhythm of real speech”. In his 1939 essay “The Figure a Poem Makes,” Frost explained his poetics. The writer has no tears, the reader has no tears.

For me, the primary joy is the wonder of feeling something I didn’t know I knew must be a revelation or a series of revelations to the poet to the reader.

For this to happen the material must have the greatest freedom to move within it and to establish relations within it regardless of time and space, prior relations and kinship.”

Life Story of Robert Frost

Robert Frost was born in San Francisco to journalist William Prescott Frost Jr. and Isabel Moody. His father was a descendant of Nicholas Frost of Tiverton, Devon, England, who went to New Hampshire via Wolfrana in 1634, and his mother was a Scottish immigrant.

Frost was also a descendant of Samuel Appleton, one of the early English settlers of Ipswich, Massachusetts, and Reverend George Phillips, one of the early English settlers of Watertown, Massachusetts.

Frost’s father was a teacher and later editor of the San Francisco Evening Bulletin (which later merged with the San Francisco Examiner) and an unsuccessful candidate for city tax collector.

After his death on May 5, 1885, the family moved across the country to Lawrence, Massachusetts, sponsored by Robert’s grandfather, William Frost Sr., who was an overseer in a New England mill.

Frost returned home to teach and work at various jobs, helping his mother teach the unruly boys in her class, delivering newspapers, and working in a factory maintaining carbon arc lamps. He said he did not enjoy these jobs, feeling that his true calling was writing poetry.

Robert Frost’s Adult Life

Frost then went on a trip to the Great Dismal Swamp in Virginia and asked Elinor again upon his return. After graduation, she agreed and they were married on December 19, 1895, in Lawrence, Massachusetts.

Frost attended Harvard University from 1897 to 1899, but left voluntarily due to ill health.

Shortly before his death, Frost’s grandfather purchased a farm in Derry. New Hampshire for Robert and Eleanor. Frost worked on the farm for nine years while writing in the early hours and creating many of the poems that would later become famous.

His farming eventually proved unsuccessful. He returned to education as an English teacher at Pinkerton Academy in New Hampshire from 1906 to 1911. After then at the New Hampshire Normal School in Plymouth, New Hampshire (now Plymouth State University).

In 1912, Frost moved with his family to Great Britain, first settling in Beaconsfield, a small town in Buckinghamshire outside London. His first book of poetry, A Boy’s Will, was published the following year.

In England, he made some important contacts, including Edward Thomas (a member of the group known as the Dymock poets and Frost’s inspiration for “The Road Not Taken” T. E. Hulme and Ezra Pound. Although Pound became the first American to write a favorable. Frost’s Reviewing the work, Frost later resented Pound’s attempts to manipulate his American prosody.

Frost met or befriended many contemporary poets in England, especially after his first two volumes of poetry were published in London in 1913 (A Boy’s Will) and 1914 (An Answer to Boston).

Robert Frost’s Personal Life

Elinor and Robert Frost had six children. Son Elliot (1896-1900, died of cholera), daughter Leslie Frost Ballantine (1899-1983), son Carol (1902-1940), daughter Irma (1903-1967), daughter Marjorie (1905-1934, died) after childbirth puerperal fever), and daughter Elinor Bettina (died a day after her birth in 1907).

Only Leslie and Irma outlived their father. Frost’s wife, who had heart problems throughout her life, was diagnosed with breast cancer in 1937 and died of heart failure in 1938.

The Road Not Taken

The American poet Robert Frost”s narrative poem is “The Road Not Taken” and was first published in the August 1915 issue of The Atlantic Monthly and later as the first poem in the 1916 poetry anthology and Mountain Interval. Its main theme is the removal of paths, both literally and figuratively. Possible differences were noted although its interpretation was complex.

The first publication in 1915 differs from the 1916 republication in the Mountain Interval. In line 13, “marked” was replaced by “reserved” and in line 18 a comma was replaced by a dash.

Style and critical reception

A critic Harold Bloom argued that “Robert Frost was one of the “major American poets. Randall Jarrell’s influential essays on Frost include “Robert Frost’s ‘Home Burial'” (1962), an extended critical reading of that particular poem, and “To the Laodiceans”, (1952) in which Jarrell defends Frost against critics who accuse him of frost.

Very “traditional” and out of touch with modernist poetry. Jarrell writes “The regular ways of looking at Frost’s poetry are grotesque simplifications, distortions, falsehoods.

Knowing his poetry well should be enough in itself to eliminate any of them and make clear the need to find another way. Talking about his work.” A close reading of poems such as Jarrell’s “Neither Out Too Far Nor In Too Deep” has led readers and critics to better appreciate the complexities of Frost’s poetry.

Brad Leithauser noted that “the ‘other’ Frost that Jarrell realized was the genius, the homespun New England rustic ‘dark’ Frost who became the scared, desperate, and brave Frost we’ve all come to know. The familiar poems referred to form the centerpiece of the short Jarrell Frost canon. Most are found in anthologies”. Jarrell made a selection of Frost’s particular poems which he considered his most masterful, including

  • The Witch of Kos
  • A Servant to Servants
  • Home Funeral
  • Directive
  • Neither Out to Far Nor In
  • Too Deep
  • The Lovely Shall Be Choosers
  • Deliver
  • After Apple Picking
  • Design
  • Desert Place
  • Get to Know the Night
  • To Earthward
  • Mending Wall
  • The Most of It
  • An Old Man’s Winter Night
  • Stopping by Woods on a Snowy
  • Evening
  • Spring Pool

Awards and recognition

Although he never graduated from college. Frost received more than 40 honorary degrees, including from Princeton, Oxford, and Cambridge universities, and became the only person to receive two honorary degrees from Dartmouth College. During his lifetime, Robert Frost Middle School in Fairfax, Virginia, and Robert L. in Lawrence, Massachusetts. The Frost School and the main library at Amherst College were named after him.

In 1962. He was awarded the Edward McDowell Medal for Outstanding Contribution to the Arts by the McDowell Colony.

In June 1922, the Vermont State League of Women’s Clubs selected Frost as the Poet Laureate of Vermont. When a New York Times editorial strongly criticized the Women’s Club’s decision, Sarah Cleghorn and other women wrote in the newspaper defending Frost.

Frost was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1931 and to the American Philosophical Society in 1937.

Charles Dickens biography

Charles Dickens biography and life history

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How old is the charming boy with a cheeky face then? Ten-twelve years of Barajo. So many boys have to get down to work now! Tears were rolling down the boy’s eyes as he remembered the words again and again. He is repeatedly wiping tears with his right hand. Moments later, his father was dragged away in handcuffs by a policeman. He turned his eyes away from that direction. This scene is unbearable for him. One by one, mother, uncle, and other family members were also handcuffed. Only the second son of the family, Charles, and his sister were spared. Let’s start to learn about Charles Dickens biography and life history.

The police prison van ran towards the prison leaving these two behind. Charles and his sister Frances stared at it. As soon as the police cars were out of sight, the two entered the house together. Then suddenly Charles ran to his room. His eyes fell on the school bag placed beside the bed. Enraged, Charles took out one book from the bag pulled it with both hands, and started tearing it. From today he has no more school. So there is no need for these books.

The two remained hungry that day. But they were restless when they woke up the next morning. Stomach rumbling with hunger. If you don’t put something in your mouth, you will die. Finally, Charles stood up. He cleaned himself by splashing water on his face. This time he went out wearing the small coat that his father had given him on Christmas. He continued to roam the streets of dirty London. “Sir, I need a job,” pleads the destitute Charles as he goes to the store. I am willing to do whatever you say.” Many people drove him away.

Charles Dickens and his expectations

A new revolution in the literature of Europe in the Victorian era is the name of Charles Dickens. He was a novelist, journalist, editor, photojournalist and critic. But history will remember Charles Dickens for his extraordinary writing. The author of timeless novels like ‘Oliver Twist’, ‘A Christmas Carol’, ‘Nicholas Nickleby’, ‘David Copperfield’, ‘A Tale of Two Cities’ and ‘Great Expectations’, Dickens is recognized as the most popular writer of the 19th century.

Through his novel, the picture of poor people and social disharmony in the society of that time has emerged. But he was also everyone’s favorite writer for presenting breath-taking novels based on simple friendship or love incidents. He has gained equal popularity among people of all sections of the society. Even 21st-century libraries are overrun with Dickens lovers.

Famous writer Charles Dickens was born on February 7, 1812, in Portsmouth, England. Charles was the second child of eight children born to their father John Dickens and mother Elizabeth Baro. The Dickens family was poor. John Dickens worked hard to change the family’s fortunes, but in no way did their condition improve. The city of Portsmouth seems cursed to John. So the family moved to Chatham, Kent, hoping to change their fortunes. They started everything anew in a new city.

He used to walk freely in the streets of the city. Sometimes he visited the ancient palace of Rochester with his siblings. It seemed that Dickens’ luck had returned. But they could not settle in Chatham either. As a result, they moved to London in 1822. Charles Dickens spent his childhood in London. But in the new town, John Dickens got into bigger trouble. As a result, teenager Charles resigned to the joy of childhood and got involved in the battle of life.

Hard times of Charles Dickens

John Dickens settles in the poor countryside of London. Being financially helpless, he borrowed a lot of money from his neighbors. But he failed to pay the amount even after the deadline. Creditors were angry. How many days like this? This time they threw the case in John’s name. John and his entire family were named as defendants in the case. A few days later, the police appeared in front of Dickens’ house. Poor Dickens surrendered helplessly. In 1824, John Dickens and his adult family were arrested and sent to prison.

Charles, without parents, started looking for a job to earn a living. Eventually, he found work in a shoe ink factory on the banks of the River Thames. He earned six shillings a week. With this money, he started to survive by eating two meals a day. He also stopped going to school. Charles went to work early every morning. He used to return late. This childhood struggle had a significant impact on Charles’ psychological world. Charles Dickens commented on his childhood in his autobiography,

“It’s amazing to think how I managed to fight at such a young age. My parents used to cry seeing my condition. They were satisfied. But my whole world was shattered. Everyone looked at him with pity. Now I am very famous. Life is going well. I sometimes forget that I have a wife, I am a family man. Suddenly I am back to my childhood, to that miserable past!”

Prison Life

Charles Dickens visited his parents in prison once a week. Socially neglected, Charles quickly becomes familiar with the harsh realities and inconsistencies of society. He later incorporated this discrepancy into his novel. Through his writings, we repeatedly encounter the poor oppressed society.

Charles’s ordeal ended like a fairy tale. One day John Dickens learns that he has inherited a large sum of money from the village house. He paid off the debt with that money and was released. Charles also had the opportunity to quit his job at the ink factory and go to school again. But John Dickens spent that money very quickly. As a result, he again fell into debt. But Charles doesn’t want to lose his father again. Dickens ended his education at the age of 15. He started working again as an office peon. It was while working here that Dickens’s literary qualities developed.

Dickens the Journalist and the Hand of Writing

In 1832, Charles Dickens quit working as a peon and started working for various newspapers. He started sketching pictures in various newspapers in London. He kept writing two or four pages now and then. Most interestingly, Charles continued to sign the sketch under a pseudonym. All his sketches were signed with the name ‘Boz’ or ‘Boz’. In 1836, Charles Dickens collected his sketches and published them in a book called ‘The Sketches by Bowes’. Charles Dickens made a lot of money by selling books. His financial condition improved slightly.

Continuity of Success

He continued to gain fame from all sides. Charles Dickens began to dream anew with the success of the series. He also got a job as a newspaper editor. While editor of Bentley’s Miscellany, Charles Dickens began writing a new series of novels. He named the serial written about a starving orphan boy ‘Oliver Twist’. Never before in the history of the Victorian English novel had a boy been presented as the protagonist. The first episode of Oliver Twist was published in February 1837. A picture of Charles’s childhood misery emerges in teenage Oliver. The fame of this novel, published continuously for about two years, spread beyond England. “Oliver Twist” also gained popularity in the reading community of the distant United States. The novel was published in book form in 1838.

Charles did not stop after success in serial novels. Because he wants to tell more stories. He sat down to write anew for that purpose. One by one, he wrote three popular series of novels titled ‘Nicholas Nickleby (1838-39)’, ‘The Old Curiosity Shop (1840-41)’, ‘Barnaby Ridge (1841)’. The name of Charles Dickens, who made his debut in the world of writing, spread throughout Europe and America. A new experience awaits Charles in the next phase of his life, which is called the ‘United States’.

Vacationing in the United States

Charles Dickens and his wife visited America for five months in 1842. The reading community of the country received him with a grand reception. While traveling abroad for vacations, Charles held several lectures there. In a series of lectures held from Virginia to Missouri, he repeatedly called for awareness against slavery. His lectures were attended by such a large number of people that even the organizers had to stand outside the lecture hall to listen to the lectures. According to the famous author JB Priestley, “I do not know if anyone else in American history has been greeted with such reverence”.

Dickens himself was impressed. He admitted, “The way they surrounded me, I felt like a star.” Capitalizing on his travel experience on his return from America, he wrote two books – ‘American Notes’ and ‘Martin Chuzzlewit’. Back home, Charles Dickens was rekindled. After writing two new books, he wrote a new novel. The new novel titled ‘A Christmas Carol’ was Dickens’ gift to readers this Christmas. Charles later traveled to Italy. Returning to the country, he took up the task of writing full-length novels instead of serial novels.

Revolution in the world of novels

Charles Dickens could have maintained his popularity with readers for several centuries for his series of novels. Charles realized it himself. So this time he focused on writing a full-length novel. He first brought out a novel called ‘Dealings with the Firm of Dombey and Son’. Charles transforms a social story into a living anecdote with an artistic touch in the socio-economic context of London at that time. Pathak Samaj did not disappoint him this time either. Millions of copies of his books were sold at famous book fairs in the country.

Goodbye Charles

Charles Dickens was seriously injured in a railway accident in 1865. He survived for a bit of service. But Dickens never recovered from the accident. Writing stopped due to illness. But Dickens could not rest from writing for long. Due to the love of readers, he rushed to different parts of the country while ill. Read his novels. He even started writing novels anew. But he could not finish the novel called ‘The Mystery of Edwin Druid’. On June 9, 1870, the writer Charles Dickens left the world at the age of 58 due to a cerebral hemorrhage. In honor of the author, was buried with honors along with other famous writers in Westminster Abbey. His funeral was attended by lakhs of devotees. A national mourning was declared in England on the occasion of his death.

Charles Dickens, a struggling teenager who grew up in a hostile environment, conquered the world one day. Through perseverance and hard work, he has earned the love of millions of readers. Charles Dickens has been an inspiration to thousands of people. Even if he dies in the earthly world, he will live forever in his actions. He will return to us again and again in the path of that orphan Oliver in Oliver Twist.

Walt Whitman

Walt Whitman biogrphay and his life history

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Walt Whitman (English: Walter “Walt” Whitman) (May 31, 1819 – March 26, 1892) was an American poet, essayist, and journalist. Famous as a humanist, Whitman combined realism and realism in his works. Whitman is one of the most influential American poets. He is also called the father of free rhythm. His work created considerable controversy at the time. In particular, his poetry collection Leaves of Grass was criticized for excessive profanity.

 

Whitman was born in Long Island, New York, USA. Along with publishing her poetry, she also worked as a journalist, teacher, government clerk, and volunteer nurse in the American Civil War. Early in his career, he wrote a temperance novel called Franklin Evans (1842). In 1855 he published his seminal book Leaves of Grass. The poem was intended to be an American epic work readable by the common man. Before he died in 1892, he expanded and refined this poem in various ways. After suffering a heart attack towards the end of his life, he moved to Camden, New Jersey. He died there when he was 72 years old. His funeral was attended by many common people.

 

Along with Whitman’s poetry, his sexuality is also widely discussed. Although biographers debate his sexuality, he is generally described as homosexual or bisexual. Although Whitman had sexual experiences with men, his biographers disagree. Whitman was politically aware throughout his life. He was a supporter of the Wilmot Proviso and opposed the expansion of slavery. His poetry presents an egalitarian society’s view of ethnic groups.

Whitman’s Early life and education

On May 31, 1819, Walt Whitman was born in West Hills, Town of Huntington, Long Island. His parents were Walter and Lucia von Velsor Whitman. They were adherents of Quaker thought. Whitman was the second of his parents’ nine children. Soon after the christening, he was nicknamed “Walt” to distinguish his name from his father’s. Walter Whitman Sr. named three of his seven sons after US leaders Andrew Jackson, George Washington, and Thomas Jefferson.

 

Her eldest son was named Jess and one of her sons died at just six months old before being christened. His sixth and youngest son was named Edward. At the age of four, Whitman moved with his family from the West Hills to Brooklyn. Here they had to change their residence several times due to financial problems. Whitman also mentions in his memoirs a troubled and depressed childhood due to their poor financial situation. However, he also talked about a happy moment in his childhood. On July 4, 1825, in a ceremony in Brooklyn, she was once raised to zero, and the Marquis de Lafayette kissed her on the cheek.

Formal education of Whitman

Whitman ended his formal education at the age of eleven. After that, he started trying to work to help his family. At first, he worked as an office boy for two lawyers. Then Patriot named Samuel E. Apprenticed and worked on the Painter’s Devil, a Long Island weekly newspaper edited by Clements. It was here that Whitman learned how to operate a printing press and typesetting. He is believed to have composed “sentimental bits” at that time to fill the pages of some issues of this weekly. He, Clements, and two other friends became embroiled in controversy when they tried to dig up the grave of Quaker minister Elias Hicks and make a plaster mold of his head. Perhaps because of this controversy, Clements left the Patriot shortly thereafter.

Early career

The following summer Whitman began working for another coiner named Erastus Ordington in Brooklyn. His family moved back to West Hill that spring. But Whitman remained there and took a job in the shop of Alden Spooner, editor of the Long-Island Star, the leading weekly newspaper of the Whig Party at the time. While working here, Whitman became a regular patron of the local library. During this time he became a member of a debating organization in the city and started watching plays. At that time he also published some of his early poems anonymously in the New York Mirror.

 

In May 1835, at the age of sixteen, he left the Long Island Star and Brooklyn and moved to New York City. Here he started working as a typewriter. However, at the end of his life, he could not remember exactly where he used to do this work. Then he started looking for other work. But a terrible fire destroyed the area’s printing and publishing sector, making it difficult for him to find other work. Added to this was the economic distress caused by the Panic of 1837. He returned to his family in May 1836. His family was living in Hampstead, Long Island at the time. Until the spring of 1838, Whitman worked here and there as a school teacher. However, he did not find much satisfaction in teaching.

Walt Whitman grass

Walt Whitman was determined to become a poet. He was the first to experiment with various popular literary genres that reflected the cultural tastes of the time. In the early 1850s, he began writing what became a collection called Leaves of Grass. Later, he edited and revised this collection of poems until his death.

Whitman wanted to write a distinctly American epic and use free verse based on the Bible. In late June 1885, Whitman surprised his brothers by publishing the first printed edition of Leaves of Grass. His brother George then “thought it unreadable”.

Civil war years

The poem called for a “patriotic awakening”. Whitman’s brother George joined the 51st New York Infantry Regiment in the Union Army and wrote to Whitman detailing several incidents of the war.

A list of killed and wounded soldiers in the New York Tribune on December 16, 1862, included the name of “First Lieutenant GW Whitmore”, causing Whitman to worry for his brother George. He immediately heads south to find her, though his wallet is stolen along the way. He walks all day and night visiting big people trying to find out about his brother and finally, he finds George alive.

George was only slightly injured and only had a bruise on his cheek. Whitman left for Washington on December 28, 1862, deeply moved by the sight of the wounded soldiers and their piles of dismembered limbs, intending never to return to New York.

Literary work

Whitman’s works differed from the poetic structure in that they were more generally prose. His writing style deviated from the established conventions of his predecessors and included “varied treatment of body and soul as well as self and others”. His writing uses unusual imagery and symbols, including rotting leaves, pieces of hay, and debris.

Poetic theory

In the preface to the 1855 edition of Leaves of Grass, Whitman wrote: “The proof of a poet is that his country embraces him as lovingly as he embraces her.” He believed that there is an essential deep connection between the poet and the society. He refers to this relationship in the poem “Song of Myself” and here he uses a strong good person or “I”. Here the author deviates from the historical usage of a noble hero and adopts the identity of the common man. In Leaves of Grass also on the public in the United States, The effects of recent urbanization are described.

Health deterioration and death

After suffering a paralytic stroke in early 1873, Whitman was prompted to move from Washington to the home of his brother, engineer George Washington Whitman, at 431 Stevens Street in Camden, New Jersey. His ailing mother stayed there and died in May of that year.

Walt Whitman lived in his brother’s house until he bought his own house in 1884. Whitman spent most of his time living at his brother’s house on Stevens Street in Camden before buying his house. He was very productive while living there. During that time he published three editions of Leaves of Grass, among other works. His other brother, Edward, an “invalid” from birth, lived at home.

Inheritance and influence

Walt Whitman is claimed to be the first “poet of democracy” in the United States, reflecting his ability to write in a singularly American character. Mary Whittall Smith Costello, an American-British friend of Whitman’s, wrote: “You cannot understand America without Walt Whitman, without Leaves of Grass.

He expresses that civilization, is ‘up to date,’ as he says, and no student of the philosophy of history can complete a history lesson without him. Andrew Carnegie called him “the greatest American poet ever.” Whitman himself was a messiah in poetry,  Many believed that one of his admirers, William Sloan Kennedy, speculated that “people will celebrate the birth of Walt Whitman because they are now the creation of Christ”.

Whitman as a European writers

Many, including Oscar Wilde and Edward Carpenter, considered Whitman a prophet of a utopian future and homosexual desire. This attitude was also intertwined with their aspirations for a future of fraternal socialism. Whitman also influenced Dracula’s author Bram Stoker and was a model for the character Dracula. Stoker stated in his notes that Dracula represented the ideal man, which to Stoker was Whitman, with whom he corresponded until Whitman’s death.