I Sing the Body Electric

Walt Whitman is often credited as the father of free verse and sometimes the father of American poetry. Prior to Whitman, European poetry was formal, usually depicting high-ranking persons and referencing ancient Greek and Roman myths or histories. It was assumed poetry would be read by an educated and elite audience. Instead, Whitman created a form that was distinctly American to document the American experience. His work gave voice to a new philosophy of the country and its people.

In the age of Romanticism, poets such as Wordsworth, Coleridge, and others celebrated ordinary citizens, writing poetry that was accessible to the general public. These poets, and Romanticism literature generally, held that emotions were as important, if not more important, than logic and believed that people could expand their consciousness and their emotions through connecting with nature. Their poems, while expressing these more democratic beliefs, still adhered to a formal style at times. Wordsworth himself often wrote sonnets—a poem of 14 lines with a regular pattern of rhyme.

Whitman, meanwhile, wrote wildly untamed poems. His ideas and attitudes were similar to those of his Romantic counterparts in Europe, but his style pioneered the use of long lines, irregular