A painting by Ming Dynasty artist Chen Hongshou showing a scholar-gentleman (literai) with a Guqin, a Chinese musical instrument.

Ezekiel, from Michelangelo's Sistine Chapel ceiling; in an old joke, "very high culture".

The Parthenon.

High culture is a term, now used in a number of different ways in academic discourse, whose most common meaning is the set of cultural products, mainly in the arts, held in the highest esteem by a culture. In more popular terms, it is the culture of an elite such as the aristocracy or intelligentsia, but also defined as a repository of a broad cultural knowledge, as a way of transcending the class system. It is contrasted with the low culture or popular culture of, variously, the less well-educated, barbarians, Philistines, or the masses.^[1]

Concept[link]

Although it has a longer history in Continental Europe, the term was introduced into English largely with the publication in 1869 of Culture and Anarchy by Matthew Arnold, although he most often uses just "culture". Arnold defined culture as "the disinterested endeavour after man's perfection" (Preface) and most famously wrote that having culture meant to "know the best that has been said and thought in the world"—a specifically literary definition, also embracing Philosophy, which is now rather less likely to be considered an essential component of High Culture, at least in the English-speaking cultures. Arnold saw high culture as a force for moral and political good, and in various forms this view remains widespread, though far from uncontested. The term is contrasted with popular culture or mass culture and also with folk culture, but by no means implies hostility to these.

T. S. Eliot's Notes Towards the Definition of Culture (1948) was an influential work which saw high culture and popular culture as necessary parts of a complete culture. The Uses of Literacy by Richard Hoggart (1957) was an influential work along somewhat the same lines, concerned with the cultural experience of those, like himself, who had come from a working-class background before university. In America, Harold Bloom has taken a more exclusive line in a number of works, as did F. R. Leavis earlier—both, like Arnold, being mainly concerned with literature, and unafraid to champion vociferously the literature of the Western canon.

In both the Western and some East Asian traditions, art that demonstrates the imagination of the artist has been accorded the highest status. In the West this tradition goes back to the Ancient Greeks, and was reinforced in the Renaissance and by Romanticism, although the latter also did away with the hierarchy of genres within the fine arts established in the Renaissance. In China there was a distinction between the amateur literati painting of the scholar-officials, which had a higher status than the work produced by professional artists, working in largely different styles, or the decorative arts such as Chinese porcelain which were produced by unknown craftsmen working in large factories. In both China and the West the distinction was especially clear in landscape painting, where for centuries imaginary views, produced from the imagination of the artist, were considered superior to works reproducing an actual view.

High art[link]

Much of high culture consists of the appreciation of what is sometimes called "High Art". This term is rather broader than Arnold's definition and besides literature includes music, visual arts (especially painting), and traditional forms of the performing arts (including some cinema). The decorative arts would not generally be considered^{[by whom?]} High Art.

The cultural products most often regarded as forming part of high culture are most likely to have been produced during periods of High civilization, for which a large, sophisticated and wealthy urban-based society provides a coherent and conscious aesthetic framework, and a large-scale milieu of training, and, for the visual arts, sourcing materials and financing work. Such an environment enables artists, as near as possible, to realize their creative potential with as few as possible practical and technical constraints. Although the Western concept of high culture naturally concentrates on the Graeco-Roman tradition, and its resumption from the Renaissance onwards, such conditions existed in other places at other times. A tentative list of high cultures, or cultures producing High Art, might therefore include:

• Ancient Greece
• Ancient Rome
• Ancient China
• Ancient India
• Byzantium
• Ancient Egypt
• Persia
• Several cultures of the Middle East at various periods
• Europe from the 14th century

Art music[link]

Art music (or serious music^[2] or erudite music) is an umbrella term used to refer to musical traditions implying advanced structural and theoretical considerations and a written musical tradition.^[3] The notion of art music is a frequent and well defined musicological distinction, e.g., referred to by musicologist Philip Tagg as one of an "axiomatic triangle consisting of 'folk', 'art' and 'popular' musics." He explains that each of these three is distinguishable from the others according to certain criteria.^[4] In this regard, it is frequently used as a contrasting term to popular music and traditional or folk music.^[5][6][7]

Promotion of high culture[link]

The term has always been susceptible to attack for elitism, and, in response, many proponents of the concept devoted great efforts to promoting high culture among a wider public than the highly educated bourgeoisie whose natural territory it was supposed to be. There was a drive, beginning in the 19th century, to open museums and concert halls to give the general public access to high culture. Figures such as John Ruskin and Lord Reith of the BBC in Britain, Leon Trotsky and others in Communist Russia, and many others in America and throughout the western world have worked to widen the appeal of elements of high culture such as Classical music, Art by old masters and the literary classics.

With the widening of access to university education, the effort spread there, and all aspects of high culture became the objects of academic study, which with the exception of the classics had not often been the case until the late 19th century. University liberal arts courses still play an important role in the promotion of the concept of high culture, though often now avoiding the term itself.

Especially in Europe, governments have been prepared to subsidize high culture through the funding of museums, opera and ballet companies, orchestras, cinema, public broadcasting stations such as BBC Radio 3, ARTE and in other ways. Organisations such as the Arts Council in Britain, and in most European countries, whole ministries administer these programmes. This includes the subsidy of new works by composers, writers and artists. There are also many private philanthropic sources of funding, which are especially important in the US, where the federally-funded Corporation for Public Broadcasting also funds broadcasting. These may be seen as part of the broader concept of official culture, although often a mass audience is not the intended market.

Theoreticians[link]

High culture and its relation to mass culture have been, in different ways, a central concern of much theoretical work in cultural studies, critical theory, media studies and sociology, as well as in postmodernism and in many strands of Marxist thought. It was especially central to the concerns of Walter Benjamin, whose 1935/36 essay The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction has been highly influential, as has the work of Theodor Adorno.Gramscianism can see elite culture as "an instrument of social control".^[8]

High culture also became an important concept in political theory on nationalism for writers such as Ernest Renan and Ernest Gellner, who saw it as a necessary component of a healthy national identity. Gellner's concept of a high culture extended beyond the arts; he defined it in Nations and Nationalism (1983) as: "...a literate codified culture which permits context-free communication". This is a distinction between different cultures, rather than within a culture, contrasting high with simpler, agrarian low cultures.

Pierre Bourdieu's book: La Distinction (English translation: Distinction - A Social Critique of the Judgement of Taste) (1979) is a study influential in sociology of another much broader, class-based, definition of high culture, or "taste", which includes etiquette, appreciation of fine food and wine, and even military service, but also references different social codes supposedly observed in the dominant class, and that are not accessible to the lower classes. This partly reflects a French conception of the term which is different from the more serious-minded Anglo-German concept of Arnold, Benjamin, Leavis or Bloom. Bourdieu introduced the concept of cultural capital, knowledge and habits acquired by a dominant class upbringing that his surveys in post-war France found led to increased relative social and economic success despite a supposedly egalitarian educational system.

See also[link]

Notes[link]

References[link]

• Bakhtin, M. M. (1981) The Dialogic Imagination: Four Essays. Ed. Michael Holquist. Trans. Caryl Emerson and Michael Holquist. Austin and London: University of Texas Press.

External links[link]

• Full text of Matthew Arnold's Culture and Anarchy online
• Memory and modernity:reflections on Ernest Gellner's theory of nationalism - Lecture text by Anthony D Smith

Walt Whitman
Walt Whitman, 1887
Born	(1819-05-31)May 31, 1819 West Hills, Town of Huntington, Long Island, New York, U.S.
Died	March 26, 1892(1892-03-26) (aged 72) Camden, New Jersey, U.S.
Signature

Walter "Walt" Whitman (May 31, 1819 – March 26, 1892) was an American poet, essayist and journalist. A humanist, he was a part of the transition between transcendentalism and realism, incorporating both views in his works. Whitman is among the most influential poets in the American canon, often called the father of free verse.^[1] His work was very controversial in its time, particularly his poetry collection Leaves of Grass, which was described as obscene for its overt sexuality.

Born on Long Island, Whitman worked as a journalist, a teacher, a government clerk, and – in addition to publishing his poetry – was a volunteer nurse during the American Civil War. Early in his career, he also produced a temperance novel, Franklin Evans (1842). Whitman's major work, Leaves of Grass, was first published in 1855 with his own money. The work was an attempt at reaching out to the common person with an American epic. He continued expanding and revising it until his death in 1892. After a stroke towards the end of his life, he moved to Camden, New Jersey, where his health further declined. He died at age 72 and his funeral became a public spectacle.^[2][3]

Whitman's sexuality is often discussed alongside his poetry. Though biographers continue to debate his sexuality, he is usually described as either homosexual or bisexual in his feelings and attractions.^[4] However, there is disagreement among biographers as to whether Whitman had actual sexual experiences with men.^[5] Whitman was concerned with politics throughout his life. He supported the Wilmot Proviso and opposed the extension of slavery generally. His poetry presented an egalitarian view of the races, and at one point he called for the abolition of slavery, but later he saw the abolitionist movement as a threat to democracy.^[6]

Life and work[link]

Early life[link]

Walter Whitman was born on May 31, 1819, in West Hills, Town of Huntington, Long Island, to parents with interests in Quaker thought, Walter and Louisa Van Velsor Whitman. The second of nine children,^[7] he was immediately nicknamed "Walt" to distinguish him from his father.^[8] Walter Whitman Sr. named three of his seven sons after American leaders: Andrew Jackson, George Washington, and Thomas Jefferson. The oldest was named Jesse and another boy died unnamed at the age of six months. The couple's sixth son, the youngest, was named Edward.^[8] At age four, Whitman moved with his family from West Hills to Brooklyn, living in a series of homes, in part due to bad investments.^[9] Whitman looked back on his childhood as generally restless and unhappy, given his family's difficult economic status.^[10] One happy moment that he later recalled was when he was lifted in the air and kissed on the cheek by the Marquis de Lafayette during a celebration in Brooklyn on July 4, 1825.^[11]

At age eleven Whitman concluded formal schooling.^[12] He then sought employment for further income for his family; he was an office boy for two lawyers and later was an apprentice and printer's devil for the weekly Long Island newspaper the Patriot, edited by Samuel E. Clements.^[13] There, Whitman learned about the printing press and typesetting.^[14] He may have written "sentimental bits" of filler material for occasional issues.^[15] Clements aroused controversy when he and two friends attempted to dig up the corpse of Elias Hicks to create a plaster mold of his head.^[16] Clements left the Patriot shortly after, possibly as a result of the controversy.^[17]

Early career[link]

Whitman, age 28

The following summer Whitman worked for another printer, Erastus Worthington, in Brooklyn.^[18] His family moved back to West Hills in the spring, but Whitman remained and took a job at the shop of Alden Spooner, editor of the leading Whig weekly newspaper the Long-Island Star.^[18] While at the Star, Whitman became a regular patron of the local library, joined a town debating society, began attending theater performances,^[19] and anonymously published some of his earliest poetry in the New York Mirror.^[20] At age 16 in May 1835, Whitman left the Star and Brooklyn.^[21] He moved to New York City to work as a compositor^[22] though, in later years, Whitman could not remember where.^[23] He attempted to find further work but had difficulty in part due to a severe fire in the printing and publishing district^[23] and in part due to a general collapse in the economy leading up to the Panic of 1837.^[24] In May 1836, he rejoined his family, now living in Hempstead, Long Island.^[25] Whitman taught intermittently at various schools until the spring of 1838, though he was not satisfied as a teacher.^[26]

After his teaching attempts, Whitman went back to Huntington, New York to found his own newspaper, the Long Islander. Whitman served as publisher, editor, pressman, and distributor and even provided home delivery. After ten months, he sold the publication to E. O. Crowell, whose first issue appeared on July 12, 1839.^[27] No copies of the Long-Islander published under Whitman survive.^[28] By the summer of 1839, he found a job as a typesetter in Jamaica, Queens with the Long Island Democrat, edited by James J. Brenton.^[27] He left shortly thereafter, and made another attempt at teaching from the winter of 1840 to the spring of 1841.^[29] One story, possibly apocryphal, tells of Whitman being chased away from a teaching job in Southold, New York in 1840. After a local preacher called him a "Sodomite", Whitman was allegedly tarred and feathered. Biographer Justin Kaplan notes that the story is likely untrue because Whitman regularly vacationed in the town thereafter.^[30] Biographer Jerome Loving calls the incident a "myth".^[31] During this time, Whitman published a series of ten editorials called "Sun-Down Papers—From the Desk of a Schoolmaster" in three newspapers between the winter of 1840 and July 1841. In these essays, he adopted a constructed persona, a technique he would employ throughout his career.^[32]

Whitman moved to New York City in May, initially working a low-level job at the New World, working under Park Benjamin, Sr. and Rufus Wilmot Griswold.^[33] He continued working for short periods of time for various newspapers; in 1842 he was editor of the Aurora and from 1846 to 1848 he was editor of the Brooklyn Eagle.^[34] He also contributed freelance fiction and poetry throughout the 1840s.^[35] Whitman lost his position at the Brooklyn Eagle in 1848 after siding with the free-soil "Barnburner" wing of the Democratic party against the newspaper's owner, Isaac Van Anden, who belonged to the conservative, or "Hunker", wing of the party.^[36] Whitman was a delegate to the 1848 founding convention of the Free Soil Party.

[edit] Leaves of Grass

Whitman claimed that after years of competing for "the usual rewards", he determined to become a poet.^[37] He first experimented with a variety of popular literary genres which appealed to the cultural tastes of the period.^[38] As early as 1850, he began writing what would become Leaves of Grass,^[39] a collection of poetry which he would continue editing and revising until his death.^[40] Whitman intended to write a distinctly American epic^[41] and used free verse with a cadence based on the Bible.^[42] At the end of June 1855, Whitman surprised his brothers with the already-printed first edition of Leaves of Grass. George "didn't think it worth reading".^[43]

Walt Whitman, age 37, frontispiece to Leaves of Grass, Fulton St., Brooklyn, N.Y., steel engraving by Samuel Hollyer from a lost daguerreotype by Gabriel Harrison.

Whitman paid for the publication of the first edition of Leaves of Grass himself^[43] and had it printed at a local print shop during their breaks from commercial jobs.^[44] A total of 795 copies were printed.^[45] No name is given as author; instead, facing the title page was an engraved portrait done by Samuel Hollyer,^[46] but 500 lines into the body of the text he calls himself "Walt Whitman, an American, one of the roughs, a kosmos, disorderly, fleshly, and sensual, no sentimentalist, no stander above men or women or apart from them, no more modest than immodest".^[47] The inaugural volume of poetry was preceded by a prose preface of 827 lines. The succeeding untitled twelve poems totaled 2315 lines—1336 lines belonging to the first untitled poem, later called "Song of Myself". The book received its strongest praise from Ralph Waldo Emerson, who wrote a flattering five page letter to Whitman and spoke highly of the book to friends.^[48] The first edition of Leaves of Grass was widely distributed and stirred up significant interest,^[49] in part due to Emerson's approval,^[50] but was occasionally criticized for the seemingly "obscene" nature of the poetry.^[51] Geologist John Peter Lesley wrote to Emerson, calling the book "trashy, profane & obscene" and the author "a pretentious ass".^[52] On July 11, 1855, a few days after Leaves of Grass was published, Whitman's father died at the age of 65.^[53]

In the months following the first edition of Leaves of Grass, critical responses began focusing more on the potentially offensive sexual themes. Though the second edition was already printed and bound, the publisher almost did not release it.^[54] In the end, the edition went to retail, with 20 additional poems,^[55] in August 1856.^[56] Leaves of Grass was revised and re-released in 1860^[57] again in 1867, and several more times throughout the remainder of Whitman's life. Several well-known writers admired the work enough to visit Whitman, including Bronson Alcott and Henry David Thoreau.^[58]

During the first publications of Leaves of Grass, Whitman had financial difficulties and was forced to work as a journalist again, specifically with Brooklyn's Daily Times starting in May 1857.^[59] As an editor, he oversaw the paper's contents, contributed book reviews, and wrote editorials.^[60] He left the job in 1859, though it is unclear if he was fired or chose to leave.^[61] Whitman, who typically kept detailed notebooks and journals, left very little information about himself in the late 1850s.^[62]

Civil War years[link]

Walt Whitman as photographed by Mathew Brady

Walt Whitman's handwritten manuscript for "Broadway, 1861".

As the American Civil War was beginning, Whitman published his poem "Beat! Beat! Drums!" as a patriotic rally call for the North.^[63] Whitman's brother George had joined the Union army and began sending Whitman several vividly detailed letters of the battle front.^[64] On December 16, 1862, a listing of fallen and wounded soldiers in the New York Tribune included "First Lieutenant G. W. Whitmore", which Whitman worried was a reference to his brother George.^[65] He made his way south immediately to find him, though his wallet was stolen on the way.^[66] "Walking all day and night, unable to ride, trying to get information, trying to get access to big people", Whitman later wrote,^[67] he eventually found George alive, with only a superficial wound on his cheek.^[65] Whitman, profoundly affected by seeing the wounded soldiers and the heaps of their amputated limbs, left for Washington on December 28, 1862 with the intention of never returning to New York.^[66]

In Washington, D.C., Whitman's friend Charley Eldridge helped him obtain part-time work in the army paymaster's office, leaving time for Whitman to volunteer as a nurse in the army hospitals.^[68] He would write of this experience in "The Great Army of the Sick", published in a New York newspaper in 1863^[69] and, 12 years later, in a book called Memoranda During the War.^[70] He then contacted Emerson, this time to ask for help in obtaining a government post.^[66] Another friend, John Trowbridge, passed on a letter of recommendation from Emerson to Salmon P. Chase, Secretary of the Treasury, hoping he would grant Whitman a position in that department. Chase, however, did not want to hire the author of such a disreputable book as Leaves of Grass.^[71]

The Whitman family had a difficult end to 1864. On September 30, 1864, Whitman's brother George was captured by Confederates in Virginia,^[72] and another brother, Andrew Jackson, died of tuberculosis compounded by alcoholism on December 3.^[73] That month, Whitman committed his brother Jesse to the Kings County Lunatic Asylum.^[74] Whitman's spirits were raised, however, when he finally got a better-paying government post as a low-grade clerk in the Bureau of Indian Affairs in the Department of the Interior, thanks to his friend William Douglas O'Connor. O'Connor, a poet, daguerreotypist and an editor at the Saturday Evening Post, had written to William Tod Otto, Assistant Secretary of the Interior, on Whitman's behalf.^[75] Whitman began the new appointment on January 24, 1865, with a yearly salary of $1,200.^[76] A month later, on February 24, 1865, George was released from capture and granted a furlough because of his poor health.^[75] By May 1, Whitman received a promotion to a slightly higher clerkship^[76] and published Drum-Taps.^[77]

Effective June 30, 1865, however, Whitman was fired from his job.^[77] His dismissal came from the new Secretary of the Interior, former Iowa Senator James Harlan.^[76] Though Harlan dismissed several clerks who "were seldom at their respective desks", he may have fired Whitman on moral grounds after finding an 1860 edition of Leaves of Grass.^[78] O'Connor protested until J. Hubley Ashton had Whitman transferred to the Attorney General's office on July 1.^[79] O'Connor, though, was still upset and vindicated Whitman by publishing a biased and exaggerated biographical study, The Good Gray Poet, in January 1866. The fifty-cent pamphlet defended Whitman as a wholesome patriot, established the poet's nickname and increased his popularity.^[80] Also aiding in his popularity was the publication of "O Captain! My Captain!", a relatively conventional poem on the death of Abraham Lincoln, the only poem to appear in anthologies during Whitman's lifetime.^[81]

Part of Whitman's role at the Attorney General's office was interviewing former Confederate soldiers for Presidential pardons. "There are real characters among them", he later wrote, "and you know I have a fancy for anything out of the ordinary."^[82] In August 1866, he took a month off in order to prepare a new edition of Leaves of Grass which would not be published until 1867 after difficulty in finding a publisher.^[83] He hoped it would be its last edition.^[84] In February 1868 Poems of Walt Whitman was published in England thanks to the influence of William Michael Rossetti,^[85] with minor changes that Whitman reluctantly approved.^[86] The edition became popular in England, especially with endorsements from the highly respected writer Anne Gilchrist.^[87] Another edition of Leaves of Grass was issued in 1871, the same year it was mistakenly reported that its author died in a railroad accident.^[88] As Whitman's international fame increased, he remained at the attorney general's office until January 1872.^[89] He spent much of 1872 caring for his mother who was now nearly eighty and struggling with arthritis.^[90] He also traveled and was invited to Dartmouth College to give the commencement address on June 26, 1872.^[91]

Health decline and death[link]

Walt Whitman spent his last years at his home in Camden, New Jersey. Today, it is open to the public as the Walt Whitman House.

After suffering a paralytic stroke in early 1873, Whitman was induced to move from Washington to the home of his brother - George Washington Whitman, an Engineer — at 431 Stevens Street in Camden, New Jersey. His mother, having fallen ill, was also there and died that same year in May. Both events were difficult for Whitman and left him depressed and he would remain at his brothers home until buying his own in 1884.^[92] However, before purchasing his own home, he spent the greatest period of his residence in Camden at his brother's home in Stevens Street. While in residence he was very productive publishing three version of Leaves of Grass among other works. He was also last fully physically active in this house, receiving both Oscar Wilde and Thomas Eakins. His other brother, Edward, an "invalid" since birth, also lived in the house.

When his brother and sister-in-law were forced to move for business reasons, he bought his own house at 328 Mickle Street (now 330 Mickle Street).^[93] First taken care of by tenants, he was completely bed ridden for most of his time in Mickle Street. During this time, he began socializing with Mary Oakes Davis – the widow of a sea captain. She was a neighbor to him boarding with a family in Bridge Avenue just a few blocks from Mickle Street.^[94] She moved in with Whitman on February 24, 1885, to serve as his housekeeper in exchange for free rent. She brought with her a cat, a dog, two turtledoves, a canary, and other assorted animals.^[95] During this time, Whitman produced further editions of Leaves of Grass in 1876, 1881, and 1889.

As the end of 1891 approached, he prepared a final edition of Leaves of Grass, an edition which has been nicknamed the "Deathbed Edition". He wrote, "L. of G. at last complete—after 33 y'rs of hackling at it, all times & moods of my life, fair weather & foul, all parts of the land, and peace & war, young & old".^[96] Preparing for death, Whitman commissioned a granite mausoleum shaped like a house for $4,000^[97] and visited it often during construction.^[98] In the last week of his life, he was too weak to lift a knife or fork and wrote: "I suffer all the time: I have no relief, no escape: it is monotony — monotony — monotony — in pain."^[99]

	"America" An 1890 recording thought to be Walt Whitman reading the opening four lines of his poem "America".
Problems listening to this file? See media help.

Whitman died on March 26, 1892.^[100] An autopsy revealed his lungs had diminished to one-eighth their normal breathing capacity, a result of bronchial pneumonia,^[97] and that an egg-sized abscess on his chest had eroded one of his ribs. The cause of death was officially listed as "pleurisy of the left side, consumption of the right lung, general miliary tuberculosis and parenchymatous nephritis."^[101] A public viewing of his body was held at his Camden home; over one thousand people visited in three hours^[2] and Whitman's oak coffin was barely visible because of all the flowers and wreaths left for him.^[101] Four days after his death, he was buried in his tomb at Harleigh Cemetery in Camden .^[2] Another public ceremony was held at the cemetery, with friends giving speeches, live music, and refreshments.^[3] Whitman's friend, the orator Robert Ingersoll, delivered the eulogy.^[102] Later, the remains of Whitman's parents and two of his brothers and their families were moved to the mausoleum.^[103]

Writing[link]

Portrait of Whitman by Thomas Eakins, 1887-88

Whitman's work breaks the boundaries of poetic form and is generally prose-like.^[1] He also used unusual images and symbols in his poetry, including rotting leaves, tufts of straw, and debris.^[104] He also openly wrote about death and sexuality, including prostitution.^[84] He is often labeled as the father of free verse, though he did not invent it.^[1]

Poetic theory[link]

Whitman wrote in the preface to the 1855 edition of Leaves of Grass, "The proof of a poet is that his country absorbs him as affectionately as he has absorbed it." He believed there was a vital, symbiotic relationship between the poet and society.^[105] This connection was emphasized especially in "Song of Myself" by using an all-powerful first-person narration.^[106] As an American epic, it deviated from the historic use of an elevated hero and instead assumed the identity of the common people.^[107] Leaves of Grass also responded to the impact that recent urbanization in the United States had on the masses.^[108]

Lifestyle and beliefs[link]

Alcohol[link]

Whitman was a vocal proponent of temperance and in his youth rarely drank alcohol. He once claimed he did not taste "strong liquor" until he was thirty^[109] and occasionally argued for prohibition.^[110] One of his earliest long fiction works, the novel Franklin Evans; or, The Inebriate, first published November 23, 1842, is a temperance novel.^[111] Whitman wrote the novel at the height of popularity of the Washingtonian movement though the movement itself was plagued with contradictions, as was Franklin Evans.^[112] Years later Whitman claimed he was embarrassed by the book^[113] and called it a "damned rot".^[114] He dismissed it by saying he wrote the novel in three days solely for money while he was under the influence of alcohol himself.^[115] Even so, he wrote other pieces recommending temperance, including The Madman and a short story "Reuben's Last Wish".^[116] Later in life he was more liberal with alcohol, enjoying local wines and champagne.^[117]

Religion[link]

Whitman was deeply influenced by deism. He denied any one faith was more important than another, and embraced all religions equally.^[118] In "Song of Myself", he gave an inventory of major religions and indicated he respected and accepted all of them – a sentiment he further emphasized in his poem "With Antecedents", affirming: "I adopt each theory, myth, god, and demi-god, / I see that the old accounts, bibles, genealogies, are true, without exception".^[118] In 1874, he was invited to write a poem about the Spiritualism movement, to which he responded, "It seems to me nearly altogether a poor, cheap, crude humbug."^[119] Whitman was a religious skeptic: though he accepted all churches, he believed in none.^[118] God, to Whitman, was both immanent and transcendent and the human soul was immortal and in a state of progressive development.^[120]

Sexuality[link]

Whitman and Peter Doyle, one of the men with whom Whitman was believed to have had an intimate relationship

Whitman's sexuality is generally assumed to be homosexual or bisexual based on his poetry, though that has been at times disputed.^[4] His poetry depicts love and sexuality in a more earthy, individualistic way common in American culture before the medicalization of sexuality in the late 19th century.^[121] Though Leaves of Grass was often labeled pornographic or obscene, only one critic remarked on its author's presumed sexual activity: in a November 1855 review, Rufus Wilmot Griswold suggested Whitman was guilty of "that horrible sin not to be mentioned among Christians".^[122] Whitman had intense friendships with many men and boys throughout his life. Some biographers have claimed that he may not have actually engaged in sexual relationships with males,^[5] while others cite letters, journal entries and other sources which they claim as proof of the sexual nature of some of his relationships.^[123]

Peter Doyle may be the most likely candidate for the love of Whitman's life, according to biographer David S. Reynolds.^[124] Doyle was a bus conductor whom Whitman met around 1866 and the two were inseparable for several years. Interviewed in 1895, Doyle said: "We were familiar at once — I put my hand on his knee — we understood. He did not get out at the end of the trip — in fact went all the way back with me."^[125] In his notebooks, Whitman disguised Doyle's initials using the code "16.4".^[126] A more direct second-hand account comes from Oscar Wilde. Wilde met Whitman in America in 1882 and wrote to the homosexual rights activist George Cecil Ives that there was "no doubt" about the great American poet's sexual orientation — "I have the kiss of Walt Whitman still on my lips," he boasted.^[127] The only explicit description of Whitman's sexual activities is second hand. In 1924 Edward Carpenter, then an old man, described an erotic encounter he had had in his youth with Whitman to Gavin Arthur, who recorded it in detail in his journal.^[128][129] Late in his life, when Whitman was asked outright if his series of "Calamus" poems were homosexual, he chose not to respond.^[130]

Walt Whitman and Bill Duckett

Another possible lover was Bill Duckett. As a young teenage boy he lived in on the same street in Camden and moved in with Whitman, living with him a number of years and serving him in various roles. Duckett was fifteen when Whitman bought his house at 328 Mickle Street. Since, at least 1880, Duckett and his grandmother, Lydia Watson, were boarders subletting space from another family at 334 Mickle Street. Due to this close proximity it is obvious that Duckett and Whitman met as neighbors. Their relationship was close, with the youth sharing Whitman's money when he had it. Whitman described their friendship as "thick." Though some biographers describe him as a boarder, others identify him as a lover.^[131] Their photograph [pictured] is described as "modeled on the conventions of a marriage portrait," part of a series of portraits of the poet with his young male friends, and encrypting male-male desire.^[132] Yet another intense relationship with a young man was the one with Harry Stafford, with whose family he stayed when at Timber Creek, and whom he first met when the young man was 18, in 1876. Whitman gave young Stafford a ring, which was returned and given back over the course of a stormy relationship lasting a number of years. Of that ring Stafford wrote to Whitman, "You know when you put it on there was but one thing to part it from me, and that was death."^[133]

There is also some evidence that Whitman may have had sexual relationships with women. He had a romantic friendship with a New York actress named Ellen Grey in the spring of 1862, but it is not known if it was also sexual. He still had a photo of her decades later when he moved to Camden and referred to her as "an old sweetheart of mine".^[134] In a letter dated August 21, 1890 he claimed, "I have had six children — two are dead". This claim has never been corroborated.^[135] Toward the end of his life, he often told stories of previous girlfriends and sweethearts and denied an allegation from the New York Herald that he had "never had a love affair".^[136] As Whitman biographer Jerome Loving wrote, "the discussion of Whitman's sexual orientation will probably continue in spite of whatever evidence emerges."^[5]

Shakespeare authorship[link]

Whitman was an adherent of the Shakespeare authorship question, refusing to believe in the historic attribution of the works to William Shakespeare of Stratford-upon-Avon. Whitman comments in his November Boughs (1888) regarding Shakespeare's historical plays:

Conceiv'd out of the fullest heat and pulse of European feudalism—personifying in unparalleled ways the medieval aristocracy, its towering spirit of ruthless and gigantic caste, with its own peculiar air and arrogance (no mere imitation)—only one of the "wolfish earls" so plenteous in the plays themselves, or some born descendant and knower, might seem to be the true author of those amazing works—works in some respects greater than anything else in recorded literature.^[137]

Slavery[link]

Whitman opposed the extension of slavery in the United States and supported the Wilmot Proviso.^[138] At first he was opposed to abolitionism, believing the movement did more harm than good. In 1846, he wrote that the abolitionists had, in fact, slowed the advancement of their cause by their "ultraism and officiousness".^[139] His main concern was that their methods disrupted the democratic process, as did the refusal of the Southern states to put the interests of the nation as a whole above their own.^[138] In 1856, in his unpublished The Eighteenth Presidency, addressing the men of the South, he wrote "you are either to abolish slavery or it will abolish you". Whitman also subscribed to the widespread opinion that even free African-Americans should not vote^[140] and was concerned at the increasing number of African-Americans in the legislature.^[141]

Legacy and influence[link]

Whitman was honored on a 'Famous Americans Series' Postal issue, in 1940.

Walt Whitman has been claimed as America's first "poet of democracy", a title meant to reflect his ability to write in a singularly American character. A British friend of Walt Whitman, Mary Smith Whitall Costelloe, wrote: "You cannot really understand America without Walt Whitman, without Leaves of Grass... He has expressed that civilization, 'up to date,' as he would say, and no student of the philosophy of history can do without him."^[142] Modernist poet Ezra Pound called Whitman "America's poet... He is America."^[143] Andrew Carnegie called him "the great poet of America so far".^[144] Whitman considered himself a messiah-like figure in poetry.^[145] Others agreed: one of his admirers, William Sloane Kennedy, speculated that "people will be celebrating the birth of Walt Whitman as they are now the birth of Christ".^[146]

The literary critic, Harold Bloom wrote, as the introduction for the 150th anniversary of Leaves of Grass:

If you are American, then Walt Whitman is your imaginative father and mother, even if, like myself, you have never composed a line of verse. You can nominate a fair number of literary works as candidates for the secular Scripture of the United States. They might include Melville's Moby-Dick, Twain's Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, and Emerson's two series of Essays and The Conduct of Life. None of those, not even Emerson's, are as central as the first edition of Leaves of Grass.^[147]

Whitman's vagabond lifestyle was adopted by the Beat movement and its leaders such as Allen Ginsberg and Jack Kerouac in the 1950s and 1960s as well as anti-war poets like Adrienne Rich and Gary Snyder.^[148] Lawrence Ferlinghetti numbered himself among Whitman's "wild children", and the title of his 1961 collection Starting from San Francisco is a deliberate reference to Whitman's Starting from Paumanok.^[149] Whitman also influenced Bram Stoker, author of Dracula, and was the model for the character of Dracula. Stoker said in his notes that Dracula represented the quintessential male which, to Stoker, was Whitman, with whom he corresponded until Whitman's death.^[150] Other admirers included the Eagle Street College, an informal group established in 1885 at the home of James William Wallace in Eagle Street, Bolton, to read and discuss the poetry of Whitman. The group subsequently became known as the Bolton Whitman Fellowship or Whitmanites. Its members held an annual 'Whitman Day' celebration around the poet's birthday.^[151]

Whitman's poetry has been set to music by a large number of composers; indeed it has been suggested his poetry has been set to music more than any other American poet except for Emily Dickinson and Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.^[152] Those who have set his poems to music have included Kurt Weill, Ralph Vaughan Williams, Frederick Delius, Paul Hindemith, Karl Amadeus Hartmann, Benjamin Britten, Leonard Bernstein, Ned Rorem, Ronald Corp, George Crumb, Roger Sessions and John Adams.

Whitman is a 2009 inductee of the New Jersey Hall of Fame.^[153] The Walt Whitman Bridge crosses the Delaware River near his home in Camden.

Works[link]

• Franklin Evans (1842)
• Leaves of Grass (1855)
• Drum-Taps (1865)
• Memoranda During the War
• Specimen Days
• Democratic Vistas (1871)

See also[link]

Poetry portal

• American philosophy
• Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman
• Walt Whitman Bridge, connecting Philadelphia to Gloucester City, New Jersey, is named for Walt Whitman.
• Walt Whitman High School in Bethesda, Maryland
• Walt Whitman High School in Huntington, New York
• Walt Whitman Shops in Huntington Station, New York

Notes[link]

References[link]

• Callow, Philip. From Noon to Starry Night: A Life of Walt Whitman. Chicago: Ivan R. Dee, 1992. ISBN 0-929587-95-2
• Kaplan, Justin. Walt Whitman: A Life. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1979. ISBN 0-671-22542-1
• Loving, Jerome. Walt Whitman: The Song of Himself. University of California Press, 1999. ISBN 0-520-22687-9
• Miller, James E., Jr. Walt Whitman. New York: Twayne Publishers, Inc. 1962
• Reynolds, David S. Walt Whitman's America: A Cultural Biography. New York: Vintage Books, 1995. ISBN 0-679-76709-6
• Stacy, Jason. Walt Whitman's Multitudes: Labor Reform and Persona in Whitman's Journalism and the First Leaves of Grass, 1840-1855. New York: Peter Lang Publishing, 2008. ISBN 978-1-4331-0383-4

External links[link]

Wikisource has original works written by or about: Walt Whitman

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Walt Whitman

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Walt Whitman

• Walt Whitman: Online Resources at the Library of Congress
• The Walt Whitman Archive includes all editions of "Leaves of Grass" in page-images and transcription, as well as manuscripts, criticism, and biography
• Walt Whitman Page by Camden County, New Jersey Historical Society
• Works by or about Walt Whitman in libraries (WorldCat catalog)
• Walt Whitman household in NJ in 1880 census
• Walt Whitman letters from the Civil War - taken from the 'Wound Dresser'
• Poems by Walt Whitman An extensive collection of Whitman's poetry
• Poets.org – Biography, related essays, poems, and reading guides from the Academy of American Poets
• MS Lowell 15. Whitman, Walt, 1819-1892. Passage to India : autograph manuscript; Washington, 1870. 21s. (21p.) Houghton Library, Harvard University.
• New York Times, January 22, 1882 WHITMAN, POET AND SEER; A REVIEW OF HIS LITERARY SCHEME, WORK, AND METHOD This is made available online for free in the pre-1922 NYT archives.
• Booknotes interview with David S. Reynolds on Walt Whitman's America: A Cultural Biography, April 28, 1996.

Sites

• Walt Whitman Birthplace State Historic Site
• Walt Whitman Camden Home Historic Site
• Walt Whitman's grave site at Find A Grave.com

Paul Potts
Background information
Birth name	Paul Robert Potts
Born	(1970-10-13) 13 October 1970 (age 41) Kingswood, South Gloucestershire, England,[1] United Kingdom
Genres	Classical, pop opera
Occupations	Tenor musician (Formerly employed by Carphone Warehouse)
Years active	2007–present
Labels	Syco, Columbia (2007–2010)
Website	www.paulpottsofficial.com

Paul Robert Potts (born 13 October 1970)^{[citation needed]} is an English tenor. In 2007, he won the first series of ITV's Britain's Got Talent with his performance of "Nessun dorma", an aria from Puccini's opera Turandot. As a singer of operatic music, Potts recorded the album One Chance, which topped sales charts in nine countries. Prior to winning Britain's Got Talent, Potts was a manager at The Carphone Warehouse. He had served as Bristol city councillor from 1996 until 2003, and also had performed in amateur opera from 1999 to 2003. Potts's net worth was estimated at £6 million in April 2012.^[2]

Early life[link]

Potts was born in Kingswood, South Gloucestershire, England and raised in Fishponds, Bristol, by his father Roland, a bus driver, and mother, Yvonne (née Higgins), a supermarket cashier.^[3] He has two brothers and one sister. Potts attended St Mary Redcliffe and Temple School, where he developed his love of singing.^[4] He also sang with the choir at Chester Park Junior School and with the choirs at several Bristol churches, including Christ Church. Potts said in interviews that he had been bullied in school, and that experience may have made him lack self-confidence. He has also said that his voice had always been a source of solace in the past when he was bullied.^[5]

He earned an Honours degree in 1993 from University College Plymouth St Mark & St John, majoring in Humanities.^[6] In 1996, Potts was elected the youngest member of Bristol City Council; a Liberal Democrat, he served until 2003.^[4][7] Potts was a manager at mobile phone store Carphone Warehouse in Bridgend and lived in Port Talbot. After winning Britain's Got Talent, Potts took a six-month sabbatical from his job and resigned on 5 March 2008.^[8]

Singing career[link]

Potts first sang opera in the minor roles of The Prince of Persia and the Herald in Puccini's Turandot for the Bath Opera, an amateur company, in 1999. He then performed leading roles on four occasions: Don Basilio in Mozart's Marriage of Figaro in 2000; Don Carlos in Verdi's Don Carlos in 2001; Don Ottavio in Mozart's Don Giovanni in 2003; and Radames in Verdi's Aida in 2003.^[5][9][10] He also performed the role of the Chevalier des Grieux in Puccini's Manon Lescaut for the Southgate Opera Company in London, an amateur company, in May 2003. Additionally, he sang with a small ensemble from the Royal Philharmonic in front of an audience of 15,000 and toured northern Italy as a soloist as part of his music classes there.^[9]