Whitman. Poetical works

When the Civil War between the North and the South broke out, Whitman was greatly inspired by the energy and boundless optimism of the people of the Northern states in their combat against the feudal institution of slavery no only because they wanted to do away with the cruel tyranny of the Southern planters but primarily to bring about a new brotherhood of the pooe folk, black and white, in order to secure future prosperity an happiness for the American people. Whitman not only continued to fight the Southern aristocracy and its rotten institutions with his pen as a journalist, but as soon as the war began, went to a New York hospital to help nurse the wounded. It was not an easy job: sitting all night at the bedside of wounded men listening to their delirium, trying to ease the horrible suffering of the: dying, aiding the surgeon at operations. But the daily contact with; the wounded soldiers of Lincoln's army — with the common folk of America— was a source of great poetic inspiration to Whitman. This might be the explanation of that colossal historical optimism and belief in the creative forces of the people that single Whitman out from among all other American poets not only of the 19th, but of the 20th century as well.
Even before the war broke out, Whitman had started to write excel lent poetical works criticizing the actions of Congress, which was thee under the influence of the planters and had passed the shameful fugitive law.
Somewhat later (in 1855) Whitman (then an unemployed journalist) himself printed the first edition of a collection of verses called "Leave of Grass". Later Whitman added to the collection till from a thin little volume it grew to a considerable size.
In this collection Whitman displayed his original style and poetic power. As a poet-democrat, he declared boundless love for the men of hard physical labour, for he considered them "the salt of the earth". B was fond of using folk-lore images; his poetry was meant not for fin* aristocratic drawing-rooms but for labourers in the field or in factories Whitman spoke for the masses; therefore Whitman rejected the elegant polished style of the "Boston School" of poets, who despised the life and he toil of workers and farmers as being unsuitable for poetry. He rejected outright conventional English rhymed verse and began to create a form f verse of his own; verse in which one finds no rhyme or conventional metre, but which has a beautiful fluid rhythm, and sparkles with brilliant mastery of blank verse. Whitman created a modern lyrical poetry in praise of the man of toil:
Where trip hammers crash, where the press is whirling its cylinders,
Where the human heart beats with a terrible throes under its ribs, [...]
Where the steamship trails hind-ways its long pennant of smoke,
Where the fin of the shark cuts like a black chip out of the water.
(From the "Song of Myself")

The novelty of his language is a direct result of novelty in subject-matter. The new words he introduced into poetic vocabulary were mostly words hitherto considered non-poetic:
I will make the poems of materials, for I think they
are to be the most spiritual poems;
And employments! I will put in my poems, that with you is
heroism, upon land and sea;
(From "Starting from Paumanok"!

Whitman also organically combined in his poetry all the features of American folk-lore and folk humour. Here one comes across the hyperbolism and cosmic scale of the humour of the West, and the sharp social criticism and anti-religious elements of the songs in the eastern part of America. All these folk-lore qualities Whitman uses in his poetry. They also are found in the "Song of Myself. In this poem the poet presents to us a generalized image of the people, for he considers the people immortal, their numbers countless, as are countless the leaves of grass. Thus Whitman sings of the American people as a whole and not of his own person: Whitman's'”I" is a personification of ail men; he puts himself in every man:
I celebrate myself;
And what I assume you shall assume;
For every atom belonging to me, as good belongs to you. (...)
A child said, What is grass? fetching it to me with full hands.