Walt Whitman

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the highly influential American poet Walt Whitman. In 1855 Whitman was working as a printer, journalist and property developer when he published his first collection of poetry. It began: I celebrate myself, And what I assume you shall assume For every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you. The book was called Leaves of Grass. In it, Whitman set out to break away from European literary forms and traditions. Using long lines written in free verse, he developed a poetry meant to express a distinctively American outlook. Leaves of Grass is full of verse that celebrates both the sovereign individual, and the deep fellowship between individuals. Its optimism about the American experience was challenged by the Civil War and its aftermath, but Whitman emerged as a celebrity and a key figure in the development of American culture.

→ Listen on BBC Sounds website

Guests

• Sarah Churchwell 2 episodes
  Professor of American Literature and the Public Understanding of the Humanities at the University of London
• Peter Riley No other episodes
  Lecturer in 19th Century American Literature at the University of Exeter
• Mark Ford 4 episodes
  Professor of English and American Literature at University College London

Reading list

• Leaves of Grass: The Sesquicentennial Essays
  Susan Belasco, Ed Folsom, Kenneth M. Price (eds) (University of Nebraska Press, 2007) Google Books →
• The New Walt Whitman Studies
  Matt Cohen (ed.) (Cambridge University Press, 2020) Google Books →
• Whitman the Political Poet
  Betsy Erkkilla (Oxford University Press, 1989) Google Books →
• The Better Angel: Walt Whitman in the Civil War
  Roy Morris, Jr (Oxford University Press, 2000) Google Books →
• Walt Whitman's America: A Cultural Biography
  David S. Reynolds (Vintage, 1996) Google Books →
• Worshipping Walt: The Whitman Disciples
  Michael Robertson (Princeton University Press, 2008) Google Books →
• Walt Whitman: A Gay Life
  Gary Schmidgall (E P Dutton, 1997) Google Books →
• Whitman Noir: Black America and the Good Gray Poet
  Ivy G Wilson (University of Iowa Press, 2014) Google Books →
• Walt Whitman: The Making of the Poet
  Paul Zweig (Viking, 1985) Google Books →

Related episodes

• Thoreau and the American Idyll
  
  15 Jan, 2009 810 American literature in English
• Auden
  
  19 Dec, 2019 820 English and Old English literatures
• Dylan Thomas
  
  16 Jun, 2022 820 English and Old English literatures
• Emily Dickinson
  
  11 May, 2017 810 American literature in English
• Lyrical Ballads
  
  8 Mar, 2012 820 English and Old English literatures
• Robert Burns
  
  24 Oct, 2019 820 English and Old English literatures
• The Later Romantics
  
  15 Apr, 2004 820 English and Old English literatures
• The Prelude
  
  22 Nov, 2007 820 English and Old English literatures
• Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage
  
  6 Jan, 2011 820 English and Old English literatures
• The American Ideal
  
  1 Jun, 2000 320 Political science

Experimental. For more related episodes, visit the visual explorer.

---

Programme ID: m001l99w

Episode page: bbc.co.uk/programmes/m001l99w

Auto-category: 811.3 (American poetry)

Hello (First sentence from this episode)

Hello. In July 1855, a Brooklyn printer, journalist and property developer called Walt Whitman published his first collection of poetry.