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Walt Whitman

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the innovative 19th-century poet, who broke away from European literary traditions to become a key figure in the development of American culture.

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the highly influential American poet Walt Whitman.

In 1855 Whitman was working as a printer, journalist and property developer when he published his first collection of poetry. It began:

I celebrate myself,
And what I assume you shall assume
For every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you.

The book was called Leaves of Grass. In it, Whitman set out to break away from European literary forms and traditions. Using long lines written in free verse, he developed a poetry meant to express a distinctively American outlook.

Leaves of Grass is full of verse that celebrates both the sovereign individual, and the deep fellowship between individuals. Its optimism about the American experience was challenged by the Civil War and its aftermath, but Whitman emerged as a celebrity and a key figure in the development of American culture.

With

Sarah Churchwell
Professor of American Literature and the Public Understanding of the Humanities at the University of London

Peter Riley
Lecturer in 19th Century American Literature at the University of Exeter

and

Mark Ford
Professor of English and American Literature at University College London

Producer Luke Mulhall

Available now

50 minutes

Last on

Thu 27 Apr 2023 21:30

Links and further reading

CONTRIBUTORS


READING LIST

Susan Belasco, Ed Folsom, Kenneth M. Price (eds), Leaves of Grass: The Sesquicentennial Essays (University of Nebraska Press, 2007)

Matt Cohen (ed.), The New Walt Whitman Studies (Cambridge University Press, 2020)

Betsy Erkkilla, Whitman the Political Poet (Oxford University Press, 1989)

Roy Morris, Jr, The Better Angel: Walt Whitman in the Civil War (Oxford University Press, 2000)

David S. Reynolds, Walt Whitman’s America: A Cultural Biography (Vintage, 1996)

Michael Robertson, Worshipping Walt: The Whitman Disciples (Princeton University Press, 2008)

Gary Schmidgall, Walt Whitman: A Gay Life (E P Dutton, 1997)

Ivy G Wilson, Whitman Noir: Black America and the Good Gray Poet (University of Iowa Press, 2014)

Paul Zweig, Walt Whitman: The Making of the Poet (Viking, 1985)


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Broadcasts

  • Thu 27 Apr 2023 09:00
  • Thu 27 Apr 2023 21:30

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