Walt Whitman: Sexual Preference and the Literary Canon

In many canonical works of today's literature in American society, sometimes the focus can get a little dim. People wonder whether they should appreciate the poet or writer for appreciation of literary skill or whether to question his personal life. I do not agree with the latter. Walt Whitman is one of the best-known poets and writers in American literature but it seems as though people spent more time arguing about his personal life and less concentrating on his craft. The tabloids would have loved him had he been alive today. With a brother who was mentally so unstable and violent that he had to be institutionalized, a sister who had an abusive husband, and another brother who was an alcoholic and married a prostitute, America was just waiting to pick on him.

He was accused of being gay because of the love of men in his poetry. He consistently talked about the male body in many different works but the one that stands out the most is Live Oak, with Moss. I was shocked that he made such a bold poem but it was interesting to read about one man's love for another man in a loving relationship. To sum up the poem in simple words, Whitman's got it bad. "It" means a yearning for love. A twig with a little moss on it reminds him of manly love somehow.

There is nothing abnormal about this relationship the way critics make it seem as though it is alien for one man to love another. It is no different than a woman loving a man. Whitman states that "each breath tasted sweeter-and all that day my food nourished me more" (Alan Helm's "Whitman's 'Live Oak with Moss'"). This is usually true when you are in love. Everything seems to be so much better than it usually is because you are happy and thinking about the one you want to be with. Whitman stated that when he ran down a beach naked, he thought of his love. He was so excited that he would get to see this man later.