Walt Whitman (In Our Time)
1855 · Resource
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the highly influential American poet Walt Whitman. In 1855 Whitman was working as a printer, journalist and property developer when he published his first collection of poetry. It began: I celebrate myself, And what I assume you shall assume For every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you. The book was called Leaves of Grass. In it, Whitman set out to break away from European literary forms and traditions.
On these timelines: In Our Time (BBC podcast), Resources: Combined
Around 1855
- Great Famine of Ireland (1845)
- Crimean War (1853)
- Indian Rebellion of 1857 (1857)
- American Civil War (1861)
- Taiping Rebellion (1851)
- Italian unification (Risorgimento) (1859)
- Wars of German Unification (1864)
- Revolutions of 1848 (1848)
- On the Origin of Species (1859)
- Pasteur develops germ theory of disease (1861)