• 我赞美我自己， 我所采取的你也将采取， 因为属于我的每个原子也一样属于你。 • 我邀请我的灵魂和我一道闲游， 我悠闲的俯视……一片夏日的草叶。
• 我的舌，我血液的每个原子，是在这片 土壤、这个空气里形成的， 是这里的父 母生下的，父母的父母也是在这里生下 的，他们的父母也一样，
I, now thirty-seven years old in perfect health begin, Hoping to cease not till death. • 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.
• 3. Newspaperman years: • --- Editing his own weekly newspaper, The Long Islander in 1838 • --- Successively editing Aurora 《曙 光》, Evening Tatler; • --- Writing for Democratic Review, Brooklyn Evening Star, and Long Island Star. • --- Culmination of journalism: • the editor of the Brooklyn Eagle, one of the leading papers in the east.
B. The other belief is in the singularity and equality of all beings in values. • "Song of Myself" reveals a world of equality, without rank and hierarchy.
• 我，现在三十七岁，一生下身体就十分 健康， 希望永远如此，直到死去。 • 信条和学派暂时不论， 且后退一步，明了它们当前的情况已足， 但也决不是忘记， 不论我从善从恶，我允许随意发表意见， 顺乎自然，保持原始的活力。
2. Themes in “Leaves of Grass”
• In this giant work, openness, freedom, and above all, individualism are all that concerned him. • Most of the poems in Leaves of Grass sing of the “en-masse” (全体， 一起), ie. the great America and the self as well.
• 4. Devotion to his monumental poems: Leaves of Grass 1) First edition: 1855 --- Only 12 poems in it, but it marked the birth of truly American poetry; 2) Second edition: 1856, with 20 more poems; 3) Third edition: 1860, more than 100 poems added; 4) Fourth edition: 1867; 5) Fifth edition: 1871;
• 6) Sixth edition: 1875, Centennial edition (百年版) • 7) Seventh edition: 1881; • 8) Eighth edition: 1882; • 9) Last edition: 1892, signed on his deathbed; Also called Deathbed edition (临终版), with 400-odd poems.
• • • •
I. Life introduction II. Major works III. Appreciation of his poems IV. Evaluation of Whitman
• I. Life introduction
• 1. Family background: • --- Born on a farm in Long Island, New York; One of the nine children; his father was a carpenter and farmer; • 2. Early years: • --- Moving to Brooklyn at the age 4，where he received 5-year schooling (1825-1830) • --- Earning a living as office boy (勤杂员), printer’s devil(印刷所学徒), compositor (排 字工人)，and country schoolmaster （小学 教师）
• Geographical Notes: 1. Five districts of New York: Manhattan, Brooklyn, Bronx, Queens, and Richmond 2. Long Island: the long island on whose west end are located the Brooklyn and Queens
• 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. • My tongue, every atom of my blood, form'd from this soil, this air, Born here of parents born here from parents the same, and their parents the same,
2. Representative poems: • “Song of Myself” 《自我之歌》 • “O, Captain! My Captain!” 《啊！船长，我 的船长》: eulogizing President Lincoln • “When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom’d” 《当紫丁香上次在庭院中开放的时 候》memorizing President Lincoln • “I Hear America Singing” 《我听见美洲在歌
b. The use of free verse. Whitman broke free from the traditional iambic pentameter and wrote free verse. Free verse is poetry without a fixed beat or regular rhyme scheme. A looser and more open-ended syntactical structure is frequently favored. c. The use of parallelism and phonetic recurrence. d. The use of colorful words and vivid images.
• Part III The Romantic Period
• Walt Whitman (1819-1892)
• Whitman was one of the great innovators in American literature. • Leaves of Grass is called the first collection of truly modern poetry and America's first genuine epic poem • The poetic style he devised is now called free verse.
III. Appreciation of his poems
• 1. Principal beliefs
• 2. Themes in “Leaves of Grass”
• 1. Principal beliefs: • In "Song of Myself"《自我之歌》, Whitman sets forth two principal beliefs:
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--- presenting an image of America, proud and healthy individualists engaged in productive and happy labor.
• 3. Style • Whitman was a daring experimentalist. a. The use of the poetic "I". Speaking in the voice of "I", Whitman becomes all those people in his poems, and yet remains "Walt Whitman", hence a discovery of the self in the other with such identification.