Few authors from the American canon have such a vivid — and surprisingly varied — presence in cinema and television as Walt Whitman and his masterpiece: Leaves of Grass, which celebrates its 170th anniversary in 2025.

Far beyond being cited as a literary reference, Whitman has become a kind of spiritual narrator of inner journeys: his verses appear not merely as epigraphs or quotations, but as compasses for characters in transformation. In Now, Voyager, Dead Poets Society, Breaking Bad, and Bull Durham, Leaves of Grass ceases to be just a book — it becomes a catalyst for narrative turning points, an instrument of subjective revolution, and a metaphor for the human condition itself.

Now, Voyager: The Untold Want

The title of the 1942 film starring Bette Davis — awkwardly retitled “Estranha Passageira” in Brazil — comes directly from one of Whitman’s most famous verses, from the poem “The Untold Want”:

“The untold want by life and land ne’er granted,
Now, voyager, sail thou forth to seek and find.”

It is an urgent call to personal journey — to that which society, birthplace, or biology has not offered. Charlotte Vale, the film’s heroine (and the protagonist of Olive Higgins Prouty’s novel), embodies this passage: she breaks free from an oppressive family circle, literally boards a ship, and symbolically embarks on a quest for selfhood. It is not an escape, but a reinvention. As the poem suggests, it is not enough to desire — one must sail. Charlotte does not attain traditional romantic love, but she finds her star: an autonomous life, with chosen affections and responsibility for another being.

The verse opens with absence: the want that was never spoken, articulated, or fulfilled. It could be suppressed dreams, stifled vocations, or simply the desire for individual freedom — all central elements in Charlotte Vale’s narrative. She represents precisely this “untold want”: for a full life, a free body, an affection that does not destroy but heals.

Whitman asserts that this desire was granted neither “by life nor land” — that is, by the nature of things or by social structures. This implies that the subject cannot passively wait for their deepest longings to be fulfilled: they must be conquered, uncovered.

Charlotte was never granted the love, respect, or freedom she longed for. Her hometown — Boston, in both book and film — symbolizes an oppressive, moralistic society, dominated by family and social conventions. The only way to break that chain is to leave.

The final line is the culmination of a vital impulse: to go forth and seek. It’s not enough to want — one must act, sail, risk the crossing. “Sail thou forth” has a biblical, solemn tone, but also a liberating one. Whitman, poet of the self and the body, urges the reader to live authentically, without intermediaries.

Charlotte, at the end of both film and novel, does exactly that: she does not get the conventional “happy ending,” but finds a new way to live — caring for Tina, fully aware of her own choices and limits. She doesn’t get the moon, but she accepts the stars.

By choosing that verse as her title, Olive Higgins Prouty inscribes her heroine in a deeper arc: one who breaks silence, confronts absence, and sets out in search of what can still be lived. The title is both poetic and philosophical. It suggests that transformation is not something one passively awaits — it demands action, courage, and a willingness to leave the safe harbor.

Whitman, with his transcendentalist optimism and love for the expanding individual, lends the novel (and the film) a spiritual dimension: to live fully, even in fragments, even off-script, is an act of heroism.

The excerpt by Whitman serves as an existential epigraph for Charlotte Vale and for all who, suffocated by their contexts, are forced to set out in search of themselves. Far from being a poem only about external travel, it speaks of the most difficult and liberating of journeys: the inward crossing toward authenticity. It is this spirit that pulses both in the pages of the novel and in Bette Davis’s unforgettable screen performance.

Dead Poets Society: Whitman as Ethos

In Dead Poets Society (1989), Whitman is more than quoted — he is embodied. Robin Williams, as Professor John Keating, transforms the poet into a living pedagogical philosophy. The iconic “O Captain! My Captain!” — written by Whitman in honor of Abraham Lincoln — becomes a symbol of the emotional bond between teacher and students, of the kind of inspiring leadership that liberates rather than imposes. When the students stand on their desks at the end and repeat the line, it is a ritualistic gesture of gratitude, rebellion, and affirmation of the self.

“O Captain! My Captain! our fearful trip is done,
The ship has weather’d every rack, the prize we sought is won…”

In the original poem, the “Captain” is Lincoln, an idealized and tragic figure of leadership. In the film, the metaphor is shifted to Keating: he has led the students on a journey of self-discovery and free thought — only to be “struck down” by the system. Standing on desks symbolizes autonomy, moral courage, and gratitude, even in the face of risk.

Another key line, taken from Song of Myself, resonates through the transformation of Todd. It’s one of Whitman’s longest and most essential poems. While not fully recited in the film, many of its lines are quoted or paraphrased in Keating’s lessons:

“I sound my barbaric yawp over the roofs of the world.”

That “yawp” — the primal cry — is used by Keating to push Todd to find his voice. The moment is cathartic: shyness gives way to poetic astonishment. The verse becomes a performance.

And also:

“That the powerful play goes on, and you may contribute a verse.”

This idea — life as a grand play, and each person with the right (or duty) to write a verse — underpins the film’s entire ethos. It’s not just about poetry: it’s about authorship of the self. Whitman here becomes an educational revolution, an expression of emotional autonomy, and a form of ethical insubordination.

Whitman is the spiritual godfather of the students’ journey. His poetry, in Keating’s hands, becomes the film’s mission. Each quotation serves as a rite of passage, transitioning from obedience to expression, from external expectation to internal identity-building.

Breaking Bad: The Inverted Poet

In Breaking Bad, Leaves of Grass reappears in a darker — and decisive — form. In one of the show’s most memorable moments, Hank Schrader discovers in Walter White’s bathroom a copy of the book with an incriminating inscription from Gale Boetticher, the former assistant and admirer of Walt, murdered by Jesse:

“To my other favorite W.W.
It’s an honor working with you.
Fondly, G.B.”

This quote serves as the trigger for revelation: through poetry, Hank links Walt to his criminal alter ego, Heisenberg. The episode is titled “Gliding Over All”, a line from a Leaves of Grass poem:

“Gliding o’er all, through all,
Through Nature, Time, and Space,
As a ship on the waters advancing,
The voyage of the soul — not life alone,
Death, many deaths I’ll sing.”
— Leaves of Grass, “Gliding Over All”

The use is ironic: Whitman speaks of the soul’s journey through existence, of expanded consciousness. Walter, on the other hand, is “gliding” over an empire of death. The series uses Whitman to show the perversion of American freedom: the ideal of the self-made man transformed into domination and vanity. The book, in this context, is both a symbol of pride and an instrument of downfall. Walt keeps Leaves of Grass as a trophy — and that trophy destroys him.

The episode’s title is taken directly from Section 271 of Leaves of Grass, which reflects Whitman’s transcendentalist vision: the soul as a ship observing life and death with serene awareness.

Walter is at the height of his power as a drug kingpin. He “glides over all” — controlling business, partners, even murders. But this “gliding” is darkly ironic: it is a journey into total corruption, with Walt believing himself above moral law. By quoting Whitman, the series exposes the corruption of the romantic-American ideal of liberty: Walt is not a “voyager” like Charlotte Vale in Now, Voyager, but a usurper of Whitman’s language.

The show also indirectly references, through Gale Boetticher’s blog (he was a fan of Whitman), another poem: “When I Heard the Learn’d Astronomer”:

“When I heard the learn’d astronomer;
When the proofs, the figures, were ranged in columns before me…”

In which Whitman contrasts scientific rational knowledge with intuitive, experiential wonder — praising silent contemplation as a deeper connection with the universe.

Gale personifies the romantic scientist — he sees chemistry with almost poetic reverence. For him, Whitman’s poetry represents the union of reason and spirit — the opposite of what Walt becomes.

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Bull Durham: Eroticism and Bodily Wisdom

In Bull Durham (1988), Whitman’s poetry is used in a more sensual and witty tone. Annie Savoy (Susan Sarandon), a kind of priestess of love and baseball, reads to the young player “Nuke” lines from I Sing the Body Electric:

“The armies of those I love engirth me and I engirth them…”

The poem celebrates the body as a temple and language. Annie uses Whitman as erotic prelude, but also as life doctrine: integrating body and mind, desire and intuition, sport and spirituality. In one of the film’s final moments, she says to the camera:

“Walt Whitman once said, ‘I see great things in baseball. It will repair our losses and be a blessing to us.’”

This phrase, though not in Leaves of Grass, is attributed to Whitman in interviews. Here, baseball—like poetry becomes healing, ritual, and cultural transcendence. Annie doesn’t just quote Whitman: she lives by his radically democratic, integrated vision of human experience.

Note that I Sing the Body Electric is also quoted in Fame (1980) and The Twilight Zone.

The Verse as Passage

The recurrence of Leaves of Grass in such diverse works — a classic melodrama, an educational drama, a crime epic, a romantic sports comedy — reveals something profound about Whitman’s work: its malleability and universality. His verses serve as oracles for different forms of quest and transformation. In all these cases, the poet’s presence is not decorative — it is structural.

Whitman celebrates the body, the voice, the present, freedom, and contradiction — core elements for characters facing ethical dilemmas, identity discoveries, or emotional rebirths. His poetry doesn’t offer a single path, but an invocation:

“Now, voyager…”

And cinema — as the art of moving images — listens, and answers.