Essay - Walt Whitman - Leaves of Grass Walt Whitman Was America...

Walt Whitman - Leaves of Grass

Walt Whitman was America personified. He was a man with a great deal of love for life and ***** his fellow man. T***** inner appreciation and joy about the world around him were first depicted in "Leaves of Grass" ***** its praise ***** nature and the self.

***** for his niche in ***** *****, Whit*****'s spent time in Wash*****gton, D.C., during the *****n Civil War as a nurse, finding that it fulfilled his b*****ic needs to love and nurture others by bringing joy ***** *****self and the wounded. Functioning as a nurse, he felt important ***** accepted.

***** years Whitman spent in Wash*****gton were the core of his *****est poetry after the first three editions of Leaves of Grass (1855-1860). Out of the experience of ***** Washington years came not only some of ********** greatest writing but his greatest, most democratic self.

Whitman sympathized ***** the efforts to end slavery and save the Union during the Civil War. He strongly believed in freedom for all races. President Abraham Lincoln's death was a tragic moment in our country's *************** and it came as a great shock to Wh*****man. He would *****ever refer to the assassination as Lincoln's "murder" in his speeches given in memory of Lincoln in the ***** to come.

Consider*****g the hope Whitman held concerning a unification ***** social class and geographies after ***** war, Lincoln's ***** shattered many of his expectations. Because of these events, much of Whitman's life and works focused on the terrors ***** hardships of war and the loss of President Lincoln.

The most famous of American elegies

Even though there is no record of their meeting in person, Whitman ***** Lincoln possessed ***** ***** the same qualities — a gentleness of spirit, working-class background and a burning love of America and democracy. The two held each other in the greatest respect. Whitman wrote of seeing Lincoln at ***** second inauguration and comments on "the old goodness, tenderness, sadness, and canny shrewdness, underneath the furrows" of his face. In turn, it's said ***** Lincoln read and enjoyed ***** *****. A story is told that Lincoln found a copy of "Le*****ves ***** Grass" in ***** law office and began to ***** aloud, praising Whitman's verses for.".. their virility, freshness, unconventional sentiments, ***** unique forms of expression..." (Price).

*****, one of ***** best poems, "When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom'd," was written after Lincoln's death in 1865. It's considered ***** be one of ***** most ***** of ***** elegies and serves as the opening poem of "Sequel To Drum-Taps." In this masterpiece, he paid tribute to the president ***** the causes he s*****od for, revealing his American democratic idealism.

***** preface to the "Leaves ***** Grass" also reveals ***** idealism:

They are the voice and exposition of liberty....The attitude of great poets is to cheer up slaves and horrify despots. The turn ***** their necks, the sound of ***** feet, ***** motions ***** their wrists, ***** full of hazard *****