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.

→ Play 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)
• 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 →

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Programme ID: m001l99w

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

Auto-category: 811.3 (American poetry)