America

Walt Whitman, among the first generation of authentically American poets, that is, the first generation of poets born in the United States and hence not subjects of the British crown, spent most of his adult life—across more than six decades of remarkable productivity—wrestling with what the term “American poet” actually meant. By the time “America” appeared in the back pages of The New York Herald in 1888, Walt Whitman had grown into his self-appointed role as The Poet of Democracy, America’s Good Gray Poet. In declining health and only four years from his own death, Whitman used the brief poem to celebrate what he perceived as America’s triumphant vitality, its emergence from the long, dark shadow of the mid-century civil war that had nearly ended the American experiment. America had survived the kind of internecine war that routinely destroyed European countries. In the process, America had expunged after three centuries the deep national sin of slavery. For Whitman, America was now destined to be a towering and eternal exemplum built on the radical principles of individual freedom, universal equality, the rule of law, and the generous cooperation of community.

Poet Biography

Walter Elias Whitman was born on New York’s Long Island, May 31, 1819, just five short years after the Treaty of Ghent officially ended the War of 1812 and solidified American independence from Britain.