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

Walt Whitman’s "Children of Adam" Walt Whitman will forever live in the minds of individuals as one of America’s greatest poets. People in America and all over the world continue to read and treasure his poetry. He was an original thinker, contributing new 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 hint to them" (Whitman). His poetry was not inspired or affected by those who wrote before him; according to him, his poetry came entirely from "beautiful blood and a beautiful brain" (Whitman). His emphasis on originality, paradoxically, displays how Emerson, a fellow nonconformist, influenced him by stressing the importance of originality and the ability to think without being aided by other people’s words of wisdom. However, while Emerson influenced Whitman, Whitman also affecte d Emerson’s thoughts, as the two were friends who respected each other’s minds. Another 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 read 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 amazing 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 words—the clearest, the bluntest, and nearly the least civilly repeatable words which can come uppermost to the lips." Whitman’s refusal to shy away from taboo subjects disgusted and offended many of the people of his day, but Whitman possess ed "determination not to yield to censorship or to apologize for his earlier poems" (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 song of procreation.