Walt Whitman

Whitman, Walt (1819–92), major U.S. poet. His Leaves of Grass (1855; expanded in successive editions), one of the most influential volumes of poetry in U.S. literary history, was praised by Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau, but did not achieve popular recognition at the time of its publication. Other works include Drum-Taps (1865), a collection of Civil War poems; Democratic Vistas (1871), prose studies of U.S. democracy; and the autobiographical Specimen Days (1882–83). Whitman rejected regular meter and rhyme in favor of flowing free verse and celebrated erotic love, rugged individualism, democracy, and equality.