Writing during an unparalleled period of immigration and expansion, Walt Whitman attempted to create a form of poetry that would reflect the diversity of people and vastness of land in the United States. This new poetry also would embody America’s democratic principles. In Whitman’s view, “The United States themselves are essentially the greatest poem.”

In 1855, Whitman achieved his goal with Leaves of Grass, a collection of 12 poems that symbolized the freedom of the new democracy. Considered the father of free verse in American literature, Whitman departed from the conventional poetic elements of rhyme and meter in Leaves of Grass. He also expounded upon topics thought to be taboo, declaring in his greatest poem, the then-untitled “Song of Myself,” “I am the poet of the Body and I am the poet of the Soul.” Whitman expanded the collection eight times before his death in 1892.

Whitman volunteered as a nurse during the Civil War and drew upon this experience in postwar editions of Leaves of Grass. These editions contain two famous works that lament the death of Abraham Lincoln: “O Captain! My Captain!,” which gained new popularity in the movie Dead Poets Society, and “When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom’d,” which generally is regarded as one of the world’s greatest elegies.

PostScript: The form and content of Leaves of Grass alarmed commercial publishers, forcing Whitman to initially publish the collection at his own expense. Now considered one of the major literary works in the world, Leaves of Grass at first shocked critics and was not well received.