Walt Whitman’s Children of Adam :: Walt Whitman Children Adam Essays

Walt Whitmans Children of AdamWalt Whitman will forever awake(p) in the minds of individuals as one of Americas greatest poets. tribe in America and all over the world continue to allege and treasure his poetry. He was an original thinker, contributing untried modern styles to poetry. He was unafraid of controversy and uninhibited by what others may think of him. He created his own path in poetry, as he describes himself in an anonymous review of his poetry But there exists no book or fragment of a book which can have given the speck to them (Whitman). His poetry was not inspired or affected by those who wrote in advance him according to him, his poetry came entirely from sightly blood and a beautiful brain (Whitman). His emphasis on originality, paradoxically, displays how Emerson, a fellow nonconformist, influenced him by stressing the magnificence of originality and the ability to think without cosmos aided by other slews run-in of wisdom. However, while Emerson influe nced Whitman, Whitman also affected Emersons thoughts, as the two were friends who respected each others minds. Another fellow member of this group of nonconformist friends is Thoreau, a fellow transcendentalist (Baym 2078).Walt Whitman was born May 31, 1819 on Long Island. As a child he loved to watch Sir Walter Scott (Baym 2076). As an adult he took a major interest in the Democratic party, and began a political career by speaking at Democratic rallies (2077). However, he is not remembered for his political action Americans remember Whitman for his awed poetry. He was one of the first American poets to write his poetry without rhyme, in rolling, rhapsodic, metrical, or semi-metrical prose-verse of very irregular lengths (Rossetti), as one of his contemporary critics noted. This new style was not the only way Whitman broke from the way the traditional poets wrote. As Rossetti described, He not unfrequently alludes to gross things and in gross wordsthe clearest, the bluntest, and nearly the least civilly repeatable words which can fall uppermost to the lips. Whitmans refusal to shy away from taboo subjects disgusted and pained many of the people of his day, but Whitman possessed determination not to consequence to censorship or to apologize for his earlier verses (Baym 2079).One poem that Whitman penned without being concerned with offending people is Children of Adam. Children of Adam is a languid, sensual poem that is overtly sexual. As Whitman says in his poem, he is singing the phallus,/singing the phone call of procreation.