(section 1)
我赞美我自己，歌唱我自己， 我所讲的一切，将对你们也一样适用， 因为属于我的每一个原子，也同样属于你。
The Big "Myself"
I know I am august, I do not trouble my spirit to vindicate itself or be understood, I see that the elementary laws never apologize, I exist as I am, that is enough, If no other in the world be aware I sit content, And if each and all be aware I sit content. (section 20)
Friendship
Death Individualism
When lilacs last in the dooryard bloom'd
Lincoln
-- in memory of Abraham
When lilacs last in the dooryard bloom'd
• When lilacs last in the dooryard bloom'd, • And the great star early droop'd in the western sky in
译文
• • • • 通过我发出的被（世俗）禁止了的声音， 性和情欲的声音， 原来被遮掩着现在让我揭开了的声音， 由我澄清并转化了的声音。
• 我没有用手指堵住我的嘴， • 我对于腹部周围像对于头和心脏周围那样保持高洁， • 性交对于我来说并不比死亡更为淫邪。
Other Themes
Equality Love Patriotism etc.
Themes
• Acceptance of Death
• death ends suffering, only the living know misery • For life and joy, and for objects and knowledge curious • And for love, sweet love-- but praise! praise! praise! • For the sure- enwinding arms of cool- enfolding death!
Themes
• Grief
• intense grief at the loss of Abraham Lincoln • • • • • • • • O powerful western fallen star! O shades of night O moody, tearful night! O great star disappear'd O the black murk that hides the star! O cruel hands that hold me powerless O helpless soul of me! O harsh surrounding cloud that will not free my soul.
Leaves of Grass （草叶集）
"Where there is earth, where there is water, there is grass" —— Walt Whitman
Contents
• Walt Whitman • Leaves of Grass
• Poems:
– Song of myself – When lilacs last in the dooryard bloom'd
• 即使世界上再没有人意识到这一点，我仍满足地坐着，
• 即使世上所有的人都意识到，我也满足地坐着。
Nature
• I believe in those wing’d purposes, • And acknowledge red, yellow, white, playing within me, • And consider green and violet and the tufted crown intentional, • And do not call the tortoise unworthy because she is not something else, • And the jay in the woods never studied the gamut['gæmət] , yet trills pretty well to me, • And the look of the bay mare shames silliness out of me. (section 13)
• Through me forbidden voices, • Voices of sexes and lusts, voices veil’d and I remove the veil, • Voices indecent by me clarified and transfigur’d. • • • • I do not press my fingers across my mouth, I keep as delicate around the bowels as around the head and heart, Copulation is no more rank to me than death is. (section 24)
• Free verse
• Q&A
Walt Whitman
• 1819 born on Long Island, New York
• 1855 published 1st edition of Leaves of Grass on fourth of July, 12 poems
• 1861 brother George enlisted in the Union Army for Civil War • 1863 devoted himself to hospital work • 1892 published the 9th and final edition: "Death-bed Edition", 401 poems • 1892 died in New Jersey U.S.
当紫丁香最近在庭园中开放的时候
• • • • • • • 当紫丁香最近在庭园中开放的时候， 那颗硕大的星星在西方的夜空陨落了， 我哀悼着， 并将随着一年一度的春光永远地哀悼着。 一年一度的春光哟， 真的， 你带给我三件东西： 每年开放的紫丁香，那颗在西天陨 落了的星星， 和我对于我所敬爱的人的怀想。
the night,
• I mourn'd, and yet shall mourn with ever-returning
spring.
• Ever-returning spring, trinity sure to me you bring, Lilac blooming perennial and drooping star in the west, And thought of him I love.
Walt Whitman
• Early in his career, he also produced a temperance novel, Franklin Evans (1842). • Whitman's major work, Leaves of Grass, was an attempt at reaching out to the common person with an American epic.
Poem Appreciation
--- Song of Myself (1345 lines)
The Big "Myself"
I celebrate myself, and sing myself, And what I assume you shall assume. For every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you.
• Walt died at age 72 and his funeral became a public
spectacle.
The boobook is notable for praise of the senses during a time when such candid displays were immoral. • While much previous poetry relied on symbolism, allegory, and meditation on the religious and spiritual world, Leaves of Grass exalted the body and the material world. • Influenced by Ralph Waldo Emerson and the Transcendentalist movement, Whitman's poetry praises nature and the individual human's role in it. He elevates the human mind or the spirit, deeming both worthy of poetic praise.
august: profoundly honored vindicate: show to be right by providing proof
译文
• 我知道我是庄严的， • 我不想耗费精神去为自己申辩或求得人们的理解， • 我懂得根本的法则从来不为自己辩解， • 我就按照我自己的现状生存，这已经够了，