Walt Whitman Walt Whitman was born in a rural village on Long Island N.Y. on May, 31 1819. He went to school to five to six years, although he received most of his education from the literature he read. His first jobs consisted of being a printer and a school teacher. At the age of 27 he became editor of the Brooklyn Daily Eagle, dismissed two years later because he had radically liberal views. In the early 1850’s he went back home to build houses with his father. Emerson believed Whitman wrote for the complete person, one that is willing to listen to one self. Whittier, however, judged Whitman’s work as “loose, lurid, and impiousâ€. In 1855 the First edition of “Leaves of Grassâ€, this was classified as “poetry of barbarism†because it was radical, talking about things like sexuality, and it used exotic and vulgar language. His songs were songs not only of occupations but of sex and the body.
