Parting Words for Walt

Since I don't have a time machine (yet), I cannot answer the question that intrigues me most about Whitman. Who is the real person behind the work? There is the egocentric, testosterone laden "I" that is the speaker in many poems. Biographers suggest that this was a persona that Whitman used to express himself through his writing. It was presented to us in class that Whitman was, in reality, not that "I." This is not uncommon in the world of literature, and I have no reason to challenge that perspective. What I really want to know is this: was he a jerk (for lack of a better term), who knew what he was, who kept that part of his personality at bay, and let it out in his poems? Or, was he introspective, and closed off emotionally; so he created the bravado persona to live a life that he wasn't living through the poet "I?" Reading the poems, one could argue either way. When I read "Song of Myself" or even the opening lines of "Crossing Brooklyn Ferry," I thought that no man could be so haughty (I am the water below, I am the sun), and not be that way every moment of the day. Then I look at "I Saw in Louisianna a Live-Oak Growing," and I see a man desperate in the thought of being alone. That lonliness does not jive with an arrogant egomaniac.
Our substitute Dr. Nicosia - Dr. Nicosia - said that Whitman never had a personal (physical) relationship with anyone, male or female. I vocalized my disagreement, again citing the poem "When I Heard at the Close of the Day." It is my contention that no poet, no matter how good he or she is, can write a poem like that without the personal experience. The first thing we're taught as writers is to "write what we know." For the sake of argument, let's say that Whitman based this poem on nothing more than fantasy. Possibly the pressure of society's norms was the impetus for this work. "This will make people think I've had close relatinships," might have been Whitman's thinking. If so, then why make his lover a man? It makes no sense, as that would invoke a worse reaction from "normal" society than not having a lover at all. Maybe for me, thinking that Whitman had a secret life that was opposite what he gave us in his poetry, makes his poetry that much more more interesting.