Whitman gay
Celebrating the Legacy of Poet Walt Whitman This LGBTQ History Month
“Clear and sweet is my soul, and clear and sweet is all that is not my soul.” -- Walt Whitman
For LGBTQ History Month, HRC is remembering Walt Whitman, an LGBTQ poet whose works celebrate democracy, love and the rich diversity of the American experience.
This year, we mark Whitman’s th birthday. To honor him, cities, libraries and communities across the country are sharing Whitman’s story and work, and lifting up how his messages of love and unity still resonate today.
In May, city-wide celebrations of Whitman in Washington, D.C., commemorated the poet’s time and legacy in our nation’s capital. As part of the D.C. bicentennial celebration, the Library of Congress -- which has the most extensive array of Whitman and Whitman-related collections in the world -- held a series of exhibits and public programs, as well as a digital crowdsourcing campaign, to showcase the trove. The exhibits highlighted aspects of Whitman’s life and poetry, including his time in D.C.
Whi
How Gay Was Walt Whitman?
ByDan ColellaonOctober 21, in
Source: Shelf Actualization
In his essay, &#;How Gay Was Walt Whitman?,&#; Arnie Kantrowitz analyzes the multitude of evidence brought forth in both Whitman&#;s writing and that of same-sex attracted critics to settle if the grey poet was a homosexual. Kantrowitz writes how &#;it is difficult for modem gay readers to imagine Whitman as anything other than one of us since his voice seems so clearly to resonate with our own feelings and interests,&#; as seen in poems such as &#;Starting from Paumanok&#; or &#;Over the Carnage Rose Prophetic a Voice&#;. In these poems, Whitman idealizes a future society where the basis of Democracy would be founded on the principles of male comradeship. Although Whitman&#;s era was not as linear as our possess now, Kantrowitz mirrors Whitman with that of Oscar Wilde, claiming that &#;Whitman seems the prototype of the up-to-date gay man.&#;
Even during the 19th century, gay critics were &#;[casting Whitman] in their own idealized image.&#; However, it is interesting to note that when scholar, John Addingt
Was Walt Whitman 'gay'? New textbook rules spark LGBTQ history debate
Walt Whitman never publicly addressed his sexual orientation in his poems, essays or lectures. He lived from to , a hour when “gay” meant little more than “happy.”
Biographical materials, however, record he was involved for decades with a man named Peter Doyle. And in works enjoy the "Calamus" poems in his "Leaves of Grass" collection, Whitman discusses romantic and sexual relationships between men.
As California looks to implement the country’s first LGBTQ-inclusive curriculum, state education officials and textbook publishers are grappling with how to refer to figures like Whitman, who were believed to have been gay, bi-curious or transgender but never came out: Should we label them as such?
While advocates have argued for the importance of stressing the historical contributions of LGBTQ people, others have objected to imposing contemporary terms on people who lived long before they were introduced.
The outcome of the debate stands to potentially alter the education of millions of children in Cal
Themes of sex and sexuality have dominated Leaves of Grass from the very beginning and have shaped the course of the book's reception. The first edition in contained what were to be called "Song of Myself," "The Sleepers," and "I Warble the Body Electric," which are "about" sexuality (though of course not exclusively) throughout. From the very beginning, Whitman wove together themes of "manly love" and "sexual love," with great emphasis on intensely passionate attraction and interaction, as well as bodily contact (touch, embrace) in both. Simultaneously in sounding these themes, he equated the body with the soul, and defined sexual experience as essentially spiritual experience. He very premature adopted two phrenological terms to discriminate between the two relationships: "amativeness" for man-woman love and "adhesiveness" for "manly love." Although Whitman did not in the Preface call straightforward attention to this element in his work, in one of his anonymous reviews of his novel ("Walt Whitman and His Poems," ) he wrote of himself and the Leaves : "The body, he teaches, is gorgeous. Sex is