Lecture 5
American Romanticism and New England Literature: Walt Whitman, Emily Dickinson and Edgar Allan Poe
ⅠT eaching Content
Walt Whitman; Emily Dickinson; Edgar Allan Poe
ⅡTime Allotment
2 periods
ⅢT eaching Objectives and Requirements
1 Help the students to know about Walt Whitman.
2 Help the students to know about Emily Dickinson.
3 Help the students to know about Edgar Allan Poe.
ⅣKey Points and Difficult Points in Teaching
1 Walt Whitman
2 Emily Dickinson
3 Edgar Allan Poe
ⅤT eaching Methods and Means
Lecture; Discussion; Multi-media
ⅥT eaching Process
1 General Introduction to W alt Whitman and Emily Dickinson
1.1 Sameness
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● Walt Whitman and Emily Dickinson were two major poets in late 19th century.
●Thematically, both extolled an emergent America, its expansion, its individualism,
and its Americanness, their poetry being part of “American Renaissance”.
● Technically, both added to the literary independence of the new nation by breaking
free of the convention of the iambic pentameter and exhibiting a freedom in form unknown before. They were both considered as the pioneers of modern American poetry.
1.2 Differences
●Thematically,Whitman keeps his eye on society, while Dickinson explores the
inner life of the individual
●In outlook, Whit man is “national” while Dickinson is “regional”.
●In form, Whitman’s endless, all-inclusive catalogs contrast with Dickinson’s
conci, direct, and simple diction and syntax
2 W alt Whitman (1819-1892)
2.1 Leaves of Grass
● Through out Whitman’s life, Leaves of Grass went through 9 editions: 1855, 1856,
1860, 1867, 1871, 1876, 1881, 1889, 1891-92.
●The first edition of Leaves of Grass contained 12 poems, not sold well but made a
stir on the American literary scene. Becau it broke with the poetic convention and expresd the pleasures of x and the nsuality of the body, it was criticized as “noxious weeds”, “poetry of barbarism”.
●In Leaves of Grass, Whitman extols the ideals of equality, democracy, the dignity,
the lf-reliant spirit, and the joy of the common man, the expansion of America with its dynamic creative fertility and its indomitable energy.
●Leaves of Grass is an Adamic song.
2.2 Poetics
● Whitman’s poetic style is marked, first of all, by the u of the poetic “I” (usually a
triangular relationship: “I” the poet, subject in the poem and “you” the reader.
● Whitman is also radically innovative in terms of the form of his poetry. What he
prefers is “free ver”, that is poetry without a fixed beat or regular rhyme scheme.
baplateA 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, undisturbed and parate. There are few compound ntences to draw objects and experiences into a system of hierarchy.
●There is a strong n of the poems being rhythmical.
●The rhetoric of Whitman’s poetry is relatively simple and even rather crude.
●He has a strong tendency to u oral English.
2.3 Contribution
●Whitman’s influence over modern poetry is great in the world as well as in
America.
● His best work has become part of the common property of Western culture. Many
poets in England, France, Italy and Latin America are in his debt.
● Modern American poets like T. S. Eliot and Ezra Pound would not have been what
they were without Whitman. Pound though called him a “pigheaded father”, recognized him as a father figure who led the break from the past.
● Whitman has been compared to a mountain in American literary history.
● His innovations in diction and versification, his frankness about x, his inclusion
of the commonplace and the ugly and his censure of the weakness of the American democratic practice—the paved his way to a share of immortality in American Literature.wog
2.4 Song of Mylf (For lf-study)
●Song of Mylf is a repertory of Whitman’s thought. From a blade of “curling
grass” Whitman es into the mystery of death and birth and concludes that “the smallest sprout shows there is really no death”(Section 6), and that “all goes onward and out ward, nothing collaps
” (Section 6). The “I”, prent everywhere in life, leaves one with the impression of a divine omniscience beholding nature and man alike. It is only natural that “I am deathless”(Section 20), “I exist as I am” (Section 20), and “One world is aware…and that is mylf” (Section 20), and that the whole poem ends on an extremely transcendental note: “I am large, I
contain multitudes.” (Section 51)
●Through his ns, through his uninhibited imagination, and through his ecstatic
joy in life and urge to creation, the experiences of American life are poured. He moves from himlf to “you” and to “others, to all humanity en mas about him, to the brave violence of his nation, to love and death, to the pantheistic God in every object, to the future and to eternity. Then: “I depart as air, I shake my white locks at the runaway sun…/I stop somewhere waiting for you.”(Section 52) Whitman’s thought moves often about the layers of friend, lover, the “en mas”, nation, humanity, to a kind of cosmic evolution or unity, a oneness with the univer. It comes from a form of Emersonian lf-reliance and moves to the cosmos. The most limited and personal of his poems becomes the largest and most nearly universal.
●Song of Mylf reveals a world of equality, without rank and hierarchy. “The
prostitute draggling her shawl, the President holding a cabinet council, the stately and friendly matrons on the piazza walk…”illustrate the principle of democracy and equality. The poet, “walking around, hears America singing. The mother is singing while tting food on the table. The carpenter is singing, planning his boards…”Long catalogs of different people and different occupations indicate that here the new children of Adam are being restored to the Garden of Eden, developing their potentiality to the fullest extent possible. In a general n Leaves of Grass is an Adamic song, and its author is an Adamic singer.
3 Emily Dickinson (1830-1886)
3.1 Themes of her poetry
●Dickinson’s poems are usually bad on her own experience, her sorrows and joys.
Dickinson address tho issues that concern the whole human beings, which include religion, death, immortality, love, and nature.
◆Some of her poems are about her doubt and belief about religious subjects (she
desired salvation and immortality, yet she denied the orthodox view of paradi;
she believed in God, while sometimes doubted his benevolence) P97-98.
◆Some of her poems concern death and immortality (themes lying at the center
of Dickinson’s world), ranging over the physical as well as the psychological and emotional aspects of death (she looked at death from the point of view of both the living and the dying; for her, death leads to immortality, death marks the beginning of a higher life)—”I heard a Fly buzz—when I died”(a poem universally considered one of her masterpieces) P98-99.
◆Some of her poems are about love, one group treating the suffering and
frustration love can cau, the clear reflection of her own unhappy experience (many of them are striking and original depictions of the longing for shared moments, the pain of paration, and the futility of finding happiness)—”If you were coming in the Fall”, “I can’t live with Y ou—”, the other group focusing on the physical aspect of desire, in which Dickinson dealt with allegorically the influence of the male authorities over the female, emphasizing the power of physical attraction and expressing a mixture of fear and fascination for the mysterious magnetism between xes.
安东尼沃克◆More than five hundred poems of Dickinson’s are about nature, in which her
general skepticism about the relationship between man and nature is well expresd (she saw nature both gaily benevolent and cruel: she on the one hand believed that a mythical bond between man and nature existed and nature revealed to man things about mankind and univer. On the other hand, she felt strongly about nature’s inscrutability and indifference to the life and interest of human beings).
● On the ethical level Dickinson emphasizes free will and human responsibility. She
believes that man is aided in his struggle by a resolute faith in immortality. She is absolutely convinced with soul’s sovereignty. She attacks over-emphasis on materialism and commercialism and respons to the expansion of America warmly. Dickinson admires the crusading liberal Republicanism. She has sympathy for the poor and the weak. She holds that beauty, truth and goodness are ultimately one.
3.2 Characteristics of her poetry
●Dickinson’s poetry is unique and unconventional in its own way. Her choice of
words, her verbal constructions, her images and even her spelling are unconventional.
◆Her poems have no titles, hence are always quoted by their first lines. In her
poetry, there is a particular stress pattern, in which dashes are ud as a musical device to create cadence and capitals as a means of emphasis.
◆The form of her poetry is more less like that of the hymns in community
churches, familiar, communal, and sometimes, irregular.
◆Her poetry abounds in telling images.初三家长会班主任发言稿
◆ A salient feature of her technique is her vere economy of expression. Her
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poetic idiom is noted for its laconic brevity, directness, and plainest words.
◆Her poems are usually short, tending to be personal and meditative due to her
deliberate clusion. Her poetry is remarkable for its variety, subtlety and richness. All the characteristics were to become popular through Stephen Crane with the Imagist such as Ezra Pound and Amy Lowell in the twe ntieth century. She became, with Stephen Crane, the precursor of the Imagist movement.
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(Compare Whitman and Dickinson)
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4 Edgar Allan Poe (1809-1849) (For lf-study)
4.1 Others’ comment on Allan Poe
●For a long time after his death, Poe remained the most controversial and most
misunderstood literary figure in the history of American literature.
◆Rufus Griswold painted him as a Bohemian, depraved and demonic, a villain
with no virtue at all.
◆Emerson described him in three words: “the jingle man.”
lofty◆Mark Twain declared his pro unreadable.
◆Henry James stated ruthlessly that “an enthusiasm for Poe is the mark of
decidedly primitive state of development.”
◆Whitman had mixed feelings about him: admitting Poe’s genius, but thinking
it was “its narrow range and unhealthy, lurid quality” that most impresd him.
◆T. S. Eliot proclaimed him a critic of the first rank, but charged him with
“slipshod writing”.
◆Yvor Winters regarded Poet’s literary merit as “a very frail delusion”.
●For a long time American literary criticism was reluctant to come to terms with
Poe and failed to do full justice to his genius
●Ironically, in Europe Poe enjoyed respect and welcome. Swinburne, Bernard Shaw,
D. H. Lawrence and W. H. Auden all admired and spoke highly of him.
◆Shaw said Poe was on the centenary of his birth, “the greatest journalistic
critic of his time; his poetry is “exquisitely refined”; and his tales are “complete works of art.”
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◆In Germany, writers such as R. M. Rilke indebted him.
◆In Russia, the works of Dostoevsky bear a visible imprint of Poe’s influence.
◆In France, Charles Baudelaire determined that “Edgar Poe…must become a
great man in France” and spent the beat of his mature time life translating Poe, elevating Poe to the status of a literary deity. (P106)
●Today, his works are read with appreciation and understanding. Critics regarded him as a great writer of fiction, a poet of the first rank, and a critic of insight.
4.2 Poe’s esthetics principles
●Poetic principle:
◆Poem should be short readable at one sitting.
◆Its chief aim is beauty, namely, to produce a feeling of beauty in the reader.
◆Poe is oppod to “the heresy of the didactic” and calls for “pure” poetry.
◆He stress rhythm, defines true poetry as “the rhythmical creation of beauty”,
and declares that “music is the perfection of the soul, or idea, of poetry.”
(P107) In addition, Poe insists on an even metrical flow in versification.
(P108)
●Theories for short stories:
◆The short story must be of such length as to be read at one sitting (brevity, so
as to ensure the totality of impression.
◆The very first ntence ought to help bring out the “single effect” of the story.
A tale should reveal some logical truth with “the fullest satisfaction,”and
should end with the last ntence, leaving a n of finality with the reader.
◆In theme Poe anticipates twentieth-century literature in his treatment of the
disintegration of the lf in a world of T. S. Eliot’s “nothingness”and Hemingway’s “nada”.
◆He was immenly interested in deduction and induction. (P110-114)
4.3 Poe’s style
●Traditional
●Much too rational, too ordinary to reflect the peculiarity of his theme
●Not easy to read
4.4 Poe’s position
●His influence is world-wide in modern literature.
●His aesthetics and conscious craftsmanship, his attack on “the heresy of the
