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Walt Whitman was born the second of nine in Huntington, New York in 1819.  During his 76 year life, he created some of the most original and outstanding literature. . He changed the way of poetry, breaking traditional styles, and opening the poetic world to change humanity. Not only was Whitman’s life as an author superb, his life as a man was different than most.


In 1855 he published his first book Leaves of Grass a collection of his poetry. Many did not accept the poetry for it did not rhyme like the poetry from the 1840’s and before. Whitman had to do much of the printing himself because none of the printers would take his book.


His book  Leaves of Grass was praised by Ralph Waldo Emerson. This made Whitman continue writing and he updated Leaves of Grass 6 times in his life. Whitman had a strong belief that nature was the root of all beautiful things, whether it was the smell of a flower, or the light of the moon anything that was natural had internal beauty and thereby had the possibility to make humanity beautiful.  In many of his poems Whitman depicts that nature is what depicts the true soul of a man and has the power to both display it and control it. These aspects of nature were large parts of the American Romantic movement.