"When I Read the Book" - Walt Whitman

In "When I Read the Book" by Walt Whitman, Whitman talks about boigraphies. He declares that he has read a biography. He wonders if when he dies, someone will write a book about him, and he wonders if that person will know anything about his life. He also says that sometimes he wonders how much he actually knows about his life, because he only catches hints of himself. He rarely sees his true self, and realizes that the few hints of his true self that he does see, he uses to their full extent to try to find the "Self" that everyone fits into. Whitman claims that if anyone wanted to write a good biography of him, it would be best for them to write their book from all of his poetry in "Leaves of Grass". He claims that people would find the best and most true part of him in his works, and most of his works were collected together to create "Leaves of Grass", which was revised a number of times and had many works added to it before its final completion. Whitman could have been thinking about a number of things when he was writing this poem, but it is most likely that he was thinking about all of the critiques that he had been getting. He had not been getting very good reviews, because most people either loved him or hated him, and he probably thought more about the bad reviews than he did the good ones. He was curious about what the people who had written the bad reviews of his works would say about him after he passed. He wanted to know what they would put in his biography, and he wondered if they would be nice about him and portray his life in a good light, or if they would hate him and be rude about him and portray his life as an awful thing that did not need to happen. Thought the reviews were mostly supposed to be about his works, many reviewers slammed him, as well as his works, which did not help his self-esteem at all. He may have felt really bad about himself because of all of the things that he had been hearing, but he did not let it get to him enough that he stopped writing. He persevered through many hard things in his life, and that can be reflected in some of his poetry, because he wrote about things that inspired him. He wrote many different poems that were very diverse in their inspirations and in their style. He talked about obituaries and the circle of life; he talked about ploughmen and the noises of America. Whitman was a very controversial author that got mixed reviews, but many authors now are influenced by his works, because he wrote in a style that was new at that time. His style blew minds at that time, because nothing had ever been done remotely life it before. People now do whatever they want in poetry, and that comes from Walt Whitman and his revolutionary changes to poetry.

Whitman, Walt. "WHEN I READ THE BOOK. (Leaves of Grass [1891-1892])." The Walt Whitman Archive. Web. 02 Mar. 2011. .

Oliver, Charles M. ""When I Read the Book"" Critical Companion to Walt Whitman: a Literary Reference to His Life and Work. By Walt Whitman. 235. Web. 2 Mar. 2011. .