Specimen Days

My First Reading--- Lafayette


This entry in Specimen days talks about Whitman's family moving to Brooklyn and his experiences with reading novels and poetry.  I'm so used to reading about an artists or writer's adversities that he/she must overcome that by reading this particular entry it's nice to know that his childhood was rather pleasant despite the housing incident.  He spent many days reading, working and visiting the library, which is something I'm sure all of us can relate to.  But then thinking of about Leaves of Grass in relation to this entry makes me inquire about just to what extent, if any, his childhood influenced his adulthood in writing Leaves of Grass.  As opposed to loafing on the grass, as a boy Whitman did contribute to being productive.  Obviously as a child one doesn't have much control over the choices he/she makes and that's just part of growing up.  But some of the choices he did make like the desire to read literature easily influenced his to aspire to be a writer.  It seems like a very rare thing for a young child to be reading novels and poetry let alone Arabian Nights and Walter Scott's novels as Whitman claims to have done and also noble just because he read these texts in his leisure.