1、文檔來源為 :從網絡收集整理 .word 版本可編輯 .歡迎下載支持WaIt Whitman 1819-1892A Harold Bloom has Stated in The WeStern Canon (1994) that "no WeStern poet, in the PaSt Cen tury and half, not even Brow ning, or LeOPardi or Baudelaire, OVerShadOWSWalt Whitman or Emily DiCk in so n.""Swiftly arose and SPread a

2、round me the PeaCe and joy andkno WIedge that PaSS all the art and argume nt of the earth;And I know that the hand of God is the elderha nd of my own,And I know that the SPirit of God is the eldest brother of my own,And that all men ever born are also my brothers. and thewome n my SiSterS and lovers

3、."(from 'So ng of MySelf)Walt Whitma n WaS born in Long Isla nd, NeW York, the Son Of a QUaker CarPe nter.Whitman's mother WaS descended from DUtCh farmers. In Whitman's childhood there Were SIaVeS employed On the farm. Whitma n WaS early On filled With a love of n ature. Heread CIa

4、SSiCS in his youth and WaS inSPired by WriterS SUCh as Goethe, Hegel, Carlyle and Emerson. He left school early to become a Printer'sapprentice.He also in 1835WOrked as a teacher and journeyman Printer. After that he held a great Variety ofjobs while Writingand editing for SeVeraI PeriOdicals, T

5、he Brooklyn Eagle from 1846to 1848 and The Brookly n TimeS from 1857 to 1858. In betwee n he SPe nt three mon ths On a NeW Orlea ns paper, work ing for his father, and earning his Iiv ing fromUn disti nguished hack-work.In NeW York Whitman Witnessed the rapid growth of the City and Wanted to Write a

6、new kind of POetry in tune With mankind's new faith, hopeful expectatiOnS and energy of his days. Another theme in 'Song of MySelf is SUffering and death - he identified With JeSUS and his fate: "I n Vain Were n ails drive n through my han ds. / I remember my CrUCifiXion and bloody Coro

7、nation / I remember the mockers and the buffeting in sults / The SePUIChre and the White Iinen have yielded me UP / I am alive in NeWYork and San Francisco, / Again I tread the StreetS after two thousand years." (from an early draft) The first editi On OfLeaVeS of GraSS appeared in JUly 1855 at

8、Whitma n's OWn expe nse - he also PerS On ally had Set the type for it - and the poemWaS about the Writer himself. The third editi On OfLeaVeS WaS PUbIiShed duri ngWhitman's Wandering years in 1860. It WaS greeted With Warm appreciation,althoughat first his work WaS not hugely popular. Ralph

9、 Waldo EmerS On WaS among his early admirers and wrote in 1855: "I am Very happy in readi ng it, as great power makesUS happy."When Whitman wrote the first edition, he knew little or nothing about Indian philosophy, but later CritiCS have recogniZed Indian ideas expressed in the poems -wor

10、ds from the SanSkrit are USed COrreCtIy in some of the poems Written after 1858. LeaVeS of GraSS also inCIUdeS a group of poems entitled 'Calamus', WhiCh has been taken as reflection of the poet's homosexuality, although according to Whitman they celebrated the 'beautiful and sane af

11、fection of man for man'. According to some sources, Whitman had only one abortive attempt at a sexual relationship, presumably homosexual, in the winter of 1859-60.During the Civil War Whitman worked as a clerk in Washington. When his brother was wounded at Fredericksburg, Whitman went there to

12、care for him and also for other Union and Confederate soldiers. The Civil War had its effect on the writer, which is shown in his prose MEMORANDA DURING THE WAR (1875) and in the poems published under the title of DRUM-TAPSin 1865. In SEQUELTO DRUM.TAPS(1865-66) appeared the great elegy on President

13、 Abraham Lincoln, 'When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom'd'. Another famous poempublished about the death of Lincoln is 'O Captain! My Captain!'." Exult O shores, and ring O bells!But I with mournful tread,Walk the deck my Captain lies,Fallen cold and dead."(from '

14、O Captain, My Captain')On the basis of his services Whitman was given a clerkship in the Department of the Interior. He transferred then to the attorney general's office, when his chief labelled Leaves of Grass an indecent book. "I wear my hat as I please indoors or out. I find no sweet

15、er fat than sticks to my own bones. I am the man, I suffered, I was there. Do I contradict myself? Very well then I contradict myself. Passage to India. I sound my barbaric yawp over the roofs of the world. A woman waits forme. WhenI give I give myself. The long brown path before meleading wherever

16、I choose. The never-ending audacity of elected persons. Pioneers! o Pioneers!" In England Whitman's work was better received - among his admirers were Alfred Tennyson and Dante Gabriel Rossetti. A paralytic attack in 1873 forced Whitman to give up his work. At the age of sixty-four he settl

17、ed in a little house on Mickle Street in Camden, New Jersey, where he spent almost the rest of his life. He was taken care of by a widow he had befriended. His reputation, which was shadowed by his outspokenness on sexual matters, began to rise after recognition in England by Swinburne, Mrs.Gilchris

18、t, and E. Carpenter.A story of Whitman's later years, told by a publisher, reveals that the author didnot lose his self-esteem during his last years. Whitman had entered with his ruffled beard and sombrero the lobby of the Hotel Albert in New York and every man in it raised his newspaper to hide

19、 his face from the author. He turned and went out. The publisher, for some reason, followed him and asked who he was. The man said: "I am Walt Whitman. If you'll lend mea dollar, you will be helping immortality to stumble on." (from T he March of Literatureby Ford Madox Ford, 1938)Whit

20、man died on March 26, 1892, in Camden.Whitman's wavelike verse and his fresh use of language helped to liberate American poetry. He wanted to be a national bard, his prophetic note echoed, amongother books, the Bible, but his erotic candor separated him from conventionally romantic poets. He als

21、o boasted that he was 'non-literaryand non-decorous' - which perhaps was notreally true. When he urged the Muse to forget the matter of Troy and develop new themes, he knew what the matter of Troy was.Leaves of Grass was first presented as a group of 12 poems, and followed by five revised an

22、d three reissued editions during the author's lifetime. Whitman maintained that a poet's style should be simpleand natural, without orthodox meter or rhyme.The poems were written to be spoken, but they have great variety in rhythm and tonal volume. The central theme arises from Whitman's

23、 pantheistic view of life, from symbolic identification of regeneration in nature. - Whitman's use of free verse had a deep influence on poetry. He was a great inspiring example for the beat-generation (Ginsberg, Kerouac etc.) .In the introduction of the work Whitman wrote: "The art of art,

24、 the glory of expression and the sunshine of the light of letters is simplicity. Nothing is better than simplicity.nothing can make up forexcess or for the lack of definiteness. To carry on the heave of impulse and pierce intellectual depths and give all subjects their articulations are powers neith

25、er commonnor very uncommon. But to speak in literature with the perfect rectitude and insouciance of the movements of animals and the unimpeachableness of the sentiment of trees in the woods and grass by the roadside is the flawless triumph of art."AmericaCentre of equal daughters, equal sons,A

26、ll, all alike endear'd, grown, ungrown, young or old, Strong, ample, fair, enduring, capable, rich, Perennial with the Earth, with Freedom, Law and Love, A grand, sane, towering, seated Mother, Chair'd in the adamant of Time.Had I the ChoiceHad I the choice t otally greatest bards,To limn th

27、eirs portraits, stately, beautiful, and emulate at will, Homer with all his wars and warriors Hector, Achilles, Ajax, Or Shakespeare's woe-entangled Hamlet, Lear, Othello Tennyson's fair ladies,Meter ot wit the best, or choice conceit to wirld in perfect rhyme, delight of singers;These, thes

28、e, O sea, all theseI 'd gladly barter,Would you the undulation of one wave, its trick to me transfer,Or breathe one breath of yours upon my verse,And leave its odor there.From SONG OF MYSELF1I CELEBRATE myself, and sing myself, And what I assume you shall assume,For every atom belonging to me as

29、 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,I, now thirty-seven years old in perfe

30、ct 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.2Houses and rooms are full of perfumes, the shelv

31、es are crowded with perfumes,I breathe the fragrance myself and know it and like it,The distillation would intoxicate me also, but I shall not let it.The atmosphere is not a perfume, it has no taste of the distillation, it is odorless,It is for my mouth forever, I am in love with it,I will go to the

32、 bank by the wood and become undisguised and naked,I am mad for it to be in contact with me.The smoke of my own breath,Echoes, ripples, buzz'd whispers, love-root, silk-thread, crotch and vine,My respiration and inspiration, the beating of my heart, the passing of blood and air through my lungs,

33、The sniff of green leaves and dry leaves, and of the shore anddark-color'd sea-rocks, and of hay in the barn,The sound of the belch'd words of my voice loos'd to the eddies of the wind,A few light kisses, a few embraces, a reaching around of arms, The play of shine and shade on the trees

34、 as the supple boughs wag,The delight alone or in the rush of the streets, or along the fields and hill-sides,The feeling of health, the full-noon trill, the song of me rising from bed and meeting the sun.Have you reckon'd a thousand acres much? have you reckon'd the earth much?Have you prac

35、tis'd so long to learn to read?Have you felt so proud to get at the meaning of poems?Stop this day and night with me and you shall possess theorigin of all poems,You shall possess the good of the earth and sun, (there are millions of suns left,)You shall no longer take things at second or third

36、hand, nor look through the eyes of the dead, nor feed on the spectres in books,You shall not look through my eyes either, nor take thingsfrom me,You shall listen to all sides and filter them from your self.3I have heard what the talkers were talking, the talk of the beginning and the end,But I do no

37、t talk of the beginning or the end.There was never any more inception than there is now,Nor any more youth or age than there is now,And will never be any more perfection than there is now,Nor any more heaven or hell than there is now.Urge and urge and urge,Always the procreant urge of the world.Out

38、of the dimness opposite equals advance, alwayssubstance and increase, always sex,Always a knit of identity, always distinction, always a breed of life.To elaborate is no avail, learn'd and unlearn'd feel that it is so.Sure as the most certain sure, plumb in the uprights, well entretied, brac

39、ed in the beams,Stout as a horse, affectionate, haughty, electrical,I and this mystery here we stand.Clear and sweet is my soul, and clear and sweet is all that is not my soul.Lack one lacks both, and the unseen is proved by the seen, Till that becomes unseen and receives proof in its turn.Showing t

40、he best and dividing it from the worst age vexes age, Knowing the perfect fitness and equanimity of things, while they discuss I am silent, and go bathe and admire myself.Welcome is every organ and attribute of me, and of any man hearty and clean,Not an inch nor a particle of an inch is vile, and no

41、ne shall be less familiar than the rest.I am satisfied I see, dance, laugh, sing;As the hugging and loving bed-fellow sleeps at my side through the night, and withdraws at the peep of the day with stealthy tread,Leaving me baskets cover'd with white towels swelling the house with their plenty,Sh

42、all I postpone my acceptation and realization and scream at my eyes,That they turn from gazing after and down the road,And forthwith cipher and show me to a cent,Exactly the value of one and exactly the value of two, and which is ahead?4Trippers and askers surround me,People I meet, the effect upon

43、me of my early life or the ward and city I live in, or the nation,The latest dates, discoveries, inventions, societies, authors old and new,My dinner, dress, associates, looks, compliments, dues,The real or fancied indifference of some man or woman Ilove, The sickness of one of my folks or of myself

44、, or ill-doing or loss or lack of money, or depressions or exaltations, Battles, the horrors of fratricidal war, the fever of doubtful news, the fitful events;These come to me days and nights and go from me again, But they are not the Me myself.Apart from the pulling and hauling stands what I am,Sta

45、nds amused, complacent, compassionating, idle, unitary,Looks down, is erect, or bends an arm on an impalpable certain rest,Looking with side-curved head curious what will come next, Both in and out of the game and watching and wondering at it.Backward I see in my own days where I sweated through fog

46、 with linguists and contenders,I have no mockings or arguments, I witness and wait.5I believe in you my soul, the other I am must not abase itself to you,And you must not be abased to the other.Loafe with me on the grass, loose the stop from your throat, Not words, not music or rhyme I want, not cus

47、tom or lecture, not even the best,Only the lull I like, the hum of your valved voice.I mind how once we lay such a transparent summer morning,How you settled your head athwart my hips and gently turn'd over upon me,And parted the shirt from my bosom-bone, and plunged your tongue to my bare-strip

48、t heart,And reach'd till you felt my beard, and reach'd till you held my feet.Swiftly arose and spread around me the peace and knowledge that pass all the argument of the earth,And I know that the hand of God is the promise of my own,And I know that the spirit of God is the brother of my own

49、,And that all the men ever born are also my brothers, and the women my sisters and lovers,And that a kelson of the creation is love,And limitless are leaves stiff or drooping in the fields,And brown ants in the little wells beneath them,And mossy scabs of the worm fence, heap'd stones, elder, mu

50、llein and poke-weed.6A child said What is the grass? fetching it to me with full hands,How could I answer the child? I do not know what it is any more than he.I guess it must be the flag of my disposition, out of hopeful green stuff woven.Or I guess it is the handkerchief of the Lord,A scented gift

51、and remembrancer designedly dropt,Bearing the owner's name someway in the corners, that we may see and remark, and say Whose?Or I guess the grass is itself a child, the produced babe of the vegetation.Or I guess it is a uniform hieroglyphic,And it means, Sprouting alike in broad zones and narrow

52、 zones,Growing among black folks as among white,Kanuck, Tuckahoe, Congressman, Cuff, I give them the same,I receive them the same.And now it seems to me the beautiful uncut hair of graves.Tenderly will I use you curling grass,It may be you transpire from the breasts of young men,It may be if I had k

53、nown them I would have loved them,It may be you are from old people, or from offspring taken soon out of their mothers' laps,And here you are the mothers' laps.This grass is very dark to be from the white heads of old mothers,Darker than the colourless beards of old men, Dark to come from un

54、der the faint red roofs of mouths.O I perceive after all so many uttering tongues, And I perceive they do not come from the roofs of mouths for nothing.I wish I could translate the hints about the dead young men and women,And the hints about old men and mothers, and the offspring taken soon out of t

55、heir laps.What do you think has become of the young and old men?And what do you think has become of the women and children?They are alive and well somewhere,The smallest sprout shows there is really no death,And if ever there was it led forward life, and does not wait atthe end to arrest it,And ceas

56、'd the moment life appear'd.All goes onward and outward, nothing collapses,And to die is different from what any one supposed, and luckier.15The pure contralto sings in the organ loft,The carpenter dresses his plank, the tongue of his foreplane whistles its wild ascending lisp,The married an

57、d unmarried children ride home to their Thanksgiving dinner,The pilot seizes the king-pin, he heaves down with a strong arm,The mate stands braced in the whale-boat, lance and harpoon are ready,The duck-shooter walks by silent and cautious stretches,The deacons are ordain'd with cross'd hand

58、s at the altar,The spinning-girl retreats and advances to the hum of the big wheel,The farmer stops by the bars as he walks on a First-day loafe and looks at the oats and rye,The lunatic is carried at last to the asylum a confirm'd case,(He will never sleep any more as he did in the cot in his m

59、other's bedroom;)The jour printer with gray head and gaunt jaws works at his case,He turns his quid of tobacco while his eyes blurr with the manuscript;The malform'd limbs are tied to the surgeon's table,What is removed drops horribly in a pail;The quadroon girl is sold at the auction-stand, the drunkard nods by the bar-room stove,The machinist rolls up his sleeves, the policeman travels his beat, the gate-keeper marks who pass,The young fellow drives the express-wa