Peter Doyle was a romantic companion of
Whitman for an extended period of their lives. They met in D.C. when
Walt was in his forties and Peter was in his early twenties at his
work of conducting a street car, in which Walt was the sole occupant.
This selection of a mate embodies Whitman's preference to move among
the “uneducated” as Doyle was a simple, ordinary man; also
embodied is Whitman's internal contradictions as Doyle, an Irish
immigrant, fought on the confederate side of the war whose function
was to dissolve the Union, the preservation of which Walt had been
pining. Doyle is thought to have some effect on the arrangement of
the Calamus poems which extol manly love. Doyle provided a biographer
of Walt insights into Walt's romance and sexuality by allowing him to
publish love letters from Walt to himself and by agreeing to an
interview for the biography.
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