IV. Walt Whitman
Whitman is a giant of American letters. His Leaves of Grass has always been considered a monumental work which commands great attention becau of its uniquely poetic embodiment of American democratic ideals. He is the poet of the common people and the prophet and singer of democracy.
⼀。⼀般识记
Whitman's life
He was born in 1819 into a working-c1ass family and grew up in Brook1yn， New York. Son of a carpenter， Whitman left his schooling for good at eleven， and became an office boy. Later on he changed veral jobs， one of which was in the printing office of a newspaper， which would be of great he1p in his literary career. By this early age he had a1ready shown his strong love for literature， reading a great deal on his own， especially the works of Shakespeare and Milton，and developed his potential for the writing career in the future. Before he was 17 years o1d he had already had his poems printed on a paper， although the early works were not comparable to his later and mature ones. However， Whitman did not become a professional writer directly henceforth， until an opportunity ca
me up which nt him back to New York City，where he formal1y took up journalism and indulged himlf in the excitement of the fast-growing metropolis. Feeling compe1led to speak up for something new and vital he found in the air of the nation， Whitman turned to the manual work of carpentry around 1851 or 1852， as an experiment to familiarize himlf with the reality and esnce of the life of the nation. At the same time， he widened his reading to a new scale and made it more systematic. After enriching himlf simultaneously by the two very different， approaches， Whitman was ab1e to put forward his own t of aesthetic princip1es. Leaves of Grass was just the expression of the principles.
lucas william till
⼆。识记
Whitman's democratic ideals
大写一怎么写 Whitman's democratic ideas govern his poetry-writing. In his famous poetry， openness， freedom， and above all，individua1ism （the belief that the rights and freedom of individual people are most important） are all that concerned him. Whitman brings the hard-working farmers and laborers into American literature ，attack the slavery system and racial discrimination. In this book he also extols nature ，democracy， labor and creation ，and sings of man's dignity and equality， and of the brightest future of mankind
Whitman believed that poetry could play a vita1 part in the process of creating a new nation. It could enab1e Americans to celebrate their relea from the Old World and the colonia1 rule. And it could also help them understand their new status and to define them1ves in the new wor1d of possibi1ities.
三。领会
唐老鸭和米老鼠动画片全集 1. The themes in Whitman's poetry：
His poetry is filled with optimistic expectation and enthusiasm about new things and new epoch.
Whitman believed that poetry could play a vita1 part in the process of creating a new nation. It could enab1e Americans to celebrate their relea from the Old World and the colonia1 rule. And it could also help them understand their new status and to define them1ves in the new wor1d of possibi1ities. Hence， the abundance of themes in his poetry voices freshness.
（1） He shows concern for the whole hard-working people and the burgeoning life of cities. To Whitman， the fast growth of industry and wealth in cities indicated a lively future of the nation， despite the crowded， noisy， and squalid conditions and the slackness in morality.
（2） He advocates the realization of the individua1 value. Most of the poems in Leaves of Grass sing of the "en-mas" and the lf as well.
mighty rivers run （3） Pursuit of love and happiness is approved of repeatedly and affectionately in his lines. Sexual 1ove， a rather taboo topic of the time， is displayed candidly as something adorable. The individual person and his desires must be respected.
chakra （4） Some of Whitman's poems are politically committed. Before and during the Civil War， Whitman expresd much mourning for the sufferings of the young lives in the battlefield and showed a determination to carry on the fighting dauntlessly until the final victory， as in poems like "Cavalry Crossing a Ford." Later， he wrote down a great many poems to air his sorrow over the death of Lincoln， and one of the famous is "When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom'd."
2.Leaves of Grass
the bell curve
Walt Whitman is a poet with a strong n of mission， having devoted all his life to the creation of the "single" poem，Leaves of Grass.
（1） the title ：It is significant that Whitman entitled his book Leaves of Grass . He said that wher
e there is earth，where there is water， there is grass. Grass， the most common thing with the greatest vitality， is an image of the poet himlf， a symbol of the then rising American nation and an embodiment of his ideals about democracy and freedom.
（2） theme and the poet's esntia1 purpo
（a） theme：
In this giant work， openness， freedom， and above all， individua1ism（the belief that the rights and freedom of individual people are most important） are all that concerned him.Whitman brings the hard-working farmers and laborers into American literature ，attack the slavery system and racial discrimination. In this book he also extols nature，democracy，labor and creation ，and sings of man's dignity and equality， and of the brightest future of mankind . Most of the poems in Leaves of Grass sing of the "en-mas" and the lf as well.
（b） the poet's esntia1 purpo
His aim was nothing less than to express some new poetica1 feelings and to initiate a poetic tradition in which difference shou1d be recognized. The genuine participation of a poet in a common
cultural effort was， according to Whitman， to behave as a supreme individualist； however， the poet's esntia1 purpo was to identify his ego with the world， and more specifically with the democratic "en-mas" of America， which is established in the opening lines of "Song of Mylf".
3.Whitman's poetic style and language
To dramatize the nature of the new poetical fee1ings， Whitman employed brand-new means in his poetry， which would first be discerned in his style and language.
da （1） Whitman's poetic style is marked， first of a1l， by the u of the poetic "I." Whitman becomes all tho people in his poems and yet still remains "Walt Whitman"， hence a discovery of the lf in the other with such an identification. In such a manner， Whitman invites his readers to participate in the process of sympathetic identification.
factory是什么意思 （2） Whitman is also radically innovative in terms of the form of his poetry. He adopted "free ver，" that is， poetry without a fixed beat or regular rhyme scheme. A loor and more open-ended syntactical structure is frequently favored. Lines and ntences of different lengths are left lying side by side just as things are， undisturbed and parate. There are few compound ntences to draw objects and experiences into a system of hierarchy. Whitman was the first Americ
deprecatedan to u free ver extensively. By means of "free ver，" Whitman turned the poem into an open field， an area of vital possibility where the reader can allow his own imagination to play.
（3） Whitman is conversational and casual， in the fluid， expansive， and unstructured style of talking. However，there is a strong n of the poems being rhythmical. The reader can feel the rhythm of Whitman's thought and cadences of his feeling. Parallelism and phonetic recurrence at the beginning of the lines also contribute to the musicality of his poems. （4） Whitman's language
Contrary to the rhetoric of traditional poetry， Whitman's is relatively simple and even rather crude.
鸟的英文 （a） Most of the pictures he painted with words are honest， undistorted images of different aspects of America of the day. The particularity about the images is that they are unconventional in the way they break down the social division bad on religion， gender， class， and race. One of the most often-ud methods in Whitman's poems is to make colors and images fleet past the mind's eye of the reader.
（b） Another characteristic in Whitman's language is his strong tendency to u oral English.
（c） Whitman's vocabulary is amazing. He would u powerfu1， colorful， as well as rarely-ud words， words of foreign origin and sometimes even wrong words.
Walt Whitman has proved a great figure in the literary history of the United States becau he embodies a new ideal， a new world and a new life-style， and his influence over the following generations is significant and incredible.
四。应⽤
Selected Readings：
1. There Was a Child Went Forth
This poem describes the growth of a child who learned about the world around him and improved himlf accordingly. In the poem Whitman's own early experience may well be identified with the childhood of a young， growing America. Young American nation were creating a new life with their own hands. We e Whitman in the process of absorbing the world into himlf .He shows concern for the whole hard-working people and the growing life of cities.
