in American literature
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Whitman • Position
A part of the transition between transcendentalism and realism
He believed the American poets would create both new forms and new subject matter for poetry.
1848, traveled to New Orleans and saw much of the Mississippi heartlands.
1855, the first edition of Leaves of Grass came out (contained 12 poems).
During the Civil War, worked as a volunteer nurse, a "wound-dresser" in military hospitals.
1889, the eighth edition
1891-1892, the "Deathbed Edition", 400 poems —— his
lifetime endeavor
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Whitman • Works
“Song of Myself ”自我之歌——a good example of his thought “I Sing the Body Electric”我歌唱带电的肉体 “There Was a Child Went Forth ”有个小孩走过来 “O Captain, My Captain!”船长！我的船长！——homage to the
我赞美我自己，歌唱我自己， 我所讲的一切，将对你们也一样适合， 因为属于我的每一个原子，也同样属于你。 我闲游，邀请我的灵魂一起， 我俯首下视，悠闲地观察一片夏天的草叶。
—— Song of myself
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My tongue, every atom of my blood,
Form’d from this soil, this air,
He announced and instructed a complete new age.
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Life
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Whitman • Life Experience
Born on May 31, 1819, the second son of a house-builder.
Brought up in a working-class background on Long Island, New York.
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O Captain! My Captain! • Background
At the end of the Civil War in 1865, Abraham Lincoln, the symbol of democracy and progress, was assassinated by the obstinate slave owners of the south. Lincoln’s death shocked the whole country. The democratic poet Whitman wrote the poetry collection Elegy Collect (including O Captain! My Captain!) to eulogize the beloved president, to confide his own sorrow at the death of the president.
“Pound Music of the Storm ”骄傲的风暴之音乐 “篮O—u—t aofrethmeinCirsacdelnecEenodfleascshlyildRhoocokdinegxp”e走rie出nc永e不休止地摇动着的摇
“When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom'd ”当紫丁香上次在庭院中 开放的时候
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I celebrate myself, and sing myself, And what I assume you shall assume, For every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you. I loafe and invite my soul, I lean and loafe at my ease observing a spear of summer grass.
Born here of parents born here from parents the same,
and their parents the same,
I, now thirty seven years old in perfect health begin,
Hoping to cease not till death.
我的舌，我的血液中的每个原子，都是由这泥土这空气构成，
我生在这里，我的父母生在这里，
他们的父母也生在这里，
我如今三十七岁，身体完全健康，开始歌唱，
希望不停地唱下去，直到死亡。
—— Song of myself
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Creeds and schools in abeyance, Retiring back a while sufficed at what they are,but never forgotten. I harbor for good or bad,I permit to speak at every hazard. Nature without check with original energy.
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Whitman • Works Leaves of Grass《草叶集》
"Grass" means——
the image of the common people a symbol of rising America an enbodiment of his ideals about democracy
assassinated US President Abraham Lincoln
"Crossing Brooklyn Ferry"过布鲁克林渡口 “Passage to India ”向印度行进——extol the marriage of continents
and different races
Worked as an office boy, a printer's apprentice, schoolmaster, printer, editor (of eight successive newspapers ), and journalist.
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Whitman • Life Experience
He is thinking of self as a powerful and sensitive instrument for receiving and expressing. He moves from himself to you to others, to all humanity all together about him.
Had five years of schooling and a good deal of "loafing" and reading.
Tried at a various of jobs and picked up a first-hand knowledge of life and people in the new world.
教条和学派先不去管， 暂且退回来，满足于它们的现状，可是决不能忘了， 我一味怀抱自然，我允许无所顾忌的诉说自然， 以原始的活力，谁也不能阻挡。
—— Song of myself
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Song of Myself • Analysis
representing the core of Whitman's poetic vision
In this poem Whitman sets forth two principal beliefs:
the theory of universality, which is illustrated by lengthy cat alogues of people and things
the belief in the singularity and equality of all beings in valu e. He extols whole universe and the world.
a collection of poems written mainly in free verse
is noble for its frank delight in and praise of the senses
most of the poems are about man and nature,praise the nature and the individaul human's role therein
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Whitman • Life Experience
R eleased a second edition of the book in 1856, containing thirty-three poems, a letter from Emerson praising the first edition, and a long open letter by Whitman in response.