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Walt Whitman (1819–1892)

Autor(a) de Leaves of Grass

537+ Works 27,566 Membros 241 Críticas 173 Favorited
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About the Author

Walt Whitman was born on Long Island and raised in Brooklyn, New York, the son of a carpenter. He left school when he was 11 years old to take a variety of jobs. By the time he was 15, Whitman was living on his own in New York City, working as a printer and writing short pieces for newspapers. He mostrar mais spent a few years teaching, but most of his work was either in journalism or politics. Gradually, Whitman became a regular contributor to a variety of Democratic Party newspapers and reviews, and early in his career established a rather eccentric way of life, spending a great deal of time walking the streets, absorbing life and talking with laborers. Extremely fond of the opera, he used his press pass to spend many evenings in the theater. In 1846, Whitman became editor of the Brooklyn Eagle, a leading Democratic newspaper. Two years later, he was fired for opposing the expansion of slavery into the west. Whitman's career as a poet began in 1885, with the publication of the first edition of his poetry collection, Leaves of Grass. The book was self-published (Whitman probably set some of the type himself), and despite his efforts to publicize it - including writing his own reviews - few people read it. One reader who did appreciate it was essayist Ralph Waldo Emerson, who wrote a letter greeting Whitman at "the beginning of a great career." Whitman's poetry was unlike any verse that had ever been seen. Written without rhyme, in long, loose lines, filled with poetic lists and exclamations taken from Whitman's reading of the Bible, Homer, and Asian poets, these poems were totally unlike conventional poetry. Their subject matter, too, was unusual - the celebration of a free-spirited individualist whose love for all things and people seemed at times disturbingly sensual. In 1860, with the publication of the third edition on Leaves of Grass, Whitman alienated conventional thinkers and writers even more. When he went to Boston to meet Emerson, poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, essayist Oliver Wendell Holmes, and poet James Russell Lowell, they all objected to the visit. With the outbreak of the Civil War, Whitman's attentions turned almost exclusively to that conflict. Some of the greatest poetry of his career, including Drum Taps (1865) and his magnificent elegy for President Abraham Lincoln, "When Last in the Dooryard Bloom'd" (1865), was written during this period. In 1862, his brother George was wounded in battle, and Whitman went to Washington to nurse him. He continued as a hospital volunteer throughout the war, nursing other wounded soldiers and acting as a benevolent father-figure and confidant. Parts of his memoir Specimen Days (1882) record this period. After the war, Whitman stayed on in Washington, working as a government clerk and continuing to write. In 1873 he suffered a stroke and retired to Camden, New Jersey, where he lived as an invalid for the rest of his life. Ironically, his reputation began to grow during this period, as the public became more receptive to his poetic and personal eccentricities. Whitman tried to capture the spirit of America in a new poetic form. His poetry is rough, colloquial, sweeping in its vistas - a poetic equivalent of the vast land and its varied peoples. Critic Louis Untermeyer has written, "In spite of Whitman's perplexing mannerisms, the poems justify their boundless contradictions. They shake themselves free from rant and bombastic audacities and rise into the clear air of major poetry. Such poetry is not large but self-assured; it knows, as Whitman asserted, the amplitude of time and laughs at dissolution. It contains continents; it unfolds the new heaven and new earth of the Western world." American poetry has never been the same since Whitman tore it away from its formal and thematic constraints, and he is considered by virtually all critics today to be one of the greatest poets the country has ever produced. (Bowker Author Biography) mostrar menos
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Obras por Walt Whitman

Leaves of Grass (1855) 10,199 exemplares
Leaves of Grass (1855 edition) (1855) 2,870 exemplares
The Complete Poems (1867) 1,348 exemplares
Whitman: Poetry and Prose (1982) 1,276 exemplares
Poetry for Young People: Walt Whitman (1997) 1,032 exemplares
Leaves of Grass (1891-92 Edition) (1892) 937 exemplares
Song of Myself (1984) 832 exemplares
Selected Poems [ed. Appelbaum] (1991) 532 exemplares
Leaves of Grass and Selected Prose (1949) 363 exemplares
Selections from Leaves of Grass (1961) 293 exemplares
On the Beach at Night Alone (2015) 204 exemplares
Selected Poems [ed. Washington] (1993) 196 exemplares
Specimen Days (1961) 169 exemplares
Poems By Walt Whitman (1911) 145 exemplares
The Essential Whitman (1987) 142 exemplares
Specimen Days & Collect (1995) 118 exemplares
Memoranda During the War (1876) 116 exemplares
Selected Poems [ed. Bloom] (2003) 104 exemplares
The Selected Poems of Walt Whitman (1892) 100 exemplares
Drum taps (1865) 96 exemplares
Selected Poems [ed. Crasnow] (1996) 93 exemplares
Whitman [ed. Fielder] (1959) 86 exemplares
O Captain! My Captain! (1970) 83 exemplares
Leaves of Grass (1860 edition) (1860) 75 exemplares
Three Great American Poets (1900) 73 exemplares
The Walt Whitman Reader (1993) 71 exemplares
Poetry for Kids: Walt Whitman (2017) 60 exemplares
The poetry of Walt Whitman (1997) 60 exemplares
Civil War Poems of Walt Whitman (1994) 60 exemplares
I Hear America Singing (1800) 52 exemplares
A Choice of Whitman's Verse (1973) 52 exemplares
Voyages (1988) 44 exemplares
Democratic Vistas (1871) 43 exemplares
Laws for Creations (2006) 43 exemplares
Selected Poems [ed. Lipkin] (2000) 40 exemplares
Live Oak, with Moss (2019) 40 exemplares
Walt Whitman's New York: From Manhattan to Montauk (1963) — Autor — 39 exemplares
Selected Poems [Penguin Popular] (1945) 37 exemplares
The Whitman Reader (1955) 35 exemplares
Leaves of Grass (Everyman) (1993) 32 exemplares
Miracles: the wonder of life (1969) 27 exemplares
An American Primer (1986) 24 exemplares
The Civil War Reader: Literature (1996) 20 exemplares
Nothing But Miracles (2003) 20 exemplares
Walt Whitman 20 exemplares
Walt Whitman: Selected Poems [Sweetwater Press] (2006) — Autor — 18 exemplares
The works of Walt Whitman (1968) 17 exemplares
Memories of President Lincoln (1923) 16 exemplares
Selected Letters of Walt Whitman (1990) 14 exemplares
Meditations Of Walt Whitman (Meditations (Wilderness)) (2004) — Autor — 12 exemplares
American Bard (1982) 11 exemplares
November Boughs (1889) 11 exemplares
Hojas de hierba- 2018 (2019) 11 exemplares
Cálamo (1993) 10 exemplares
The Norton Anthology - Walt Whitman & Emily Dickinson (1998) — Autor — 10 exemplares
Walt Whitman [ed. Moore] (1987) 10 exemplares
Whitman (1968) 9 exemplares
Selections: Whitman/Dickinson (1997) 8 exemplares
Overhead the Sun (1969) 8 exemplares
The gathering of the forces (1920) 7 exemplares
The correspondence (2004) 7 exemplares
Two prefaces 7 exemplares
Leaves of Grass a selection of Poems — Autor — 6 exemplares
Gresstrå 1 (2006) 6 exemplares
Obra escogida (Spanish Edition) (2017) 6 exemplares
Whitman: The Mystic Poets (2004) 5 exemplares
Whitman the Poet (1964) 5 exemplares
Digte 5 exemplares
Cimen Yapraklari (2015) 4 exemplares
Best-Loved Poems for Children (2011) 4 exemplares
City of orgies & other poems (1980) 4 exemplares
A Whitman Portrait (1960) 4 exemplares
Cimen Yapraklari - II (2020) 4 exemplares
Hymnen für die Erde (1958) 4 exemplares
Song of the Open Road (1990) 4 exemplares
Sequel to Drum-Taps (1959) 4 exemplares
The book of heavenly death (2009) 4 exemplares
Song of the Broad-Axe 3 exemplares
Hijos de Adán: Cálamo (1981) 3 exemplares
La quercia 3 exemplares
Canti d'addio 3 exemplares
Días memorables de América (2014) 3 exemplares
Obras completas. II (2005) 3 exemplares
There Was a Child Went Forth (2012) 3 exemplares
the early poems and the fiction (1963) 3 exemplares
La parola del corpo (2000) 3 exemplares
The Walt Whitman Megapack (2014) 3 exemplares
Complete Writings Vol. 3 (2018) 3 exemplares
The Pamphlet Poets (1926) 2 exemplares
Pictures : a poem 2 exemplares
Two Rivulets 2 exemplares
Leaves of Grass (Selection) II (2003) 2 exemplares
Rohulehed (2021) 2 exemplares
Slang in America 2 exemplares
Utvalda dagar (2016) 2 exemplares
The wisdom of Walt Whitman (1979) 2 exemplares
Selected Poems by Whitman (2006) 2 exemplares
Short Stories 2 exemplares
Leaves of Grass 2 exemplares
Prose Works (2016) 2 exemplares
The best of Whitman 2 exemplares
Collected writings 2 exemplares
Les fulles d'herba (1983) 2 exemplares
Two Rivulets 1 exemplar
CALAMO (2017) 1 exemplar
Visões Democráticas (2012) 1 exemplar
Poemas esenciales 1 exemplar
Walt Whitman's poetry : a study & a selection (1978) — Autor — 1 exemplar
Prosaschriften 1 exemplar
Días Ejemplares de América (1946) 1 exemplar
Vidas ejemplares 1 exemplar
Three Poems 1 exemplar
FIJE BARI 1 exemplar
SEÇME ŞİİRLER 1 exemplar
Miracles (excerpt) 1 exemplar
diVersi 1 exemplar
Sangen om migselv 1 exemplar
"The Sleepers" 1 exemplar
Leaves of Grass C3 1 exemplar
Drum Tabs (2021) 1 exemplar
Paroles du Nouveau Monde (1997) 1 exemplar
Habla Walt Whitman (2008) 1 exemplar
American poetry 1 exemplar
Manahatta 1 exemplar
Whitman's Poems 1 exemplar
Canti scelti 1 exemplar
Valitut runot (2007) 1 exemplar
Choix de poèmes 1 exemplar
Ruohonlehtiä 1 exemplar
Leaves of grass; Volume 1 (2013) 1 exemplar
collected prose 1 exemplar
Foglie D'erba 1855 1 exemplar
Fuldkomne Dage 1 exemplar
Collected Poetry (2003) 1 exemplar
City of Orgies (2012) 1 exemplar
new york dissected (1972) 1 exemplar
Jag hör Amerika sjunga (2019) 1 exemplar
Canto una vita immensa (2009) 1 exemplar
Lyrik und Prosa 1 exemplar
Opere alese 1 exemplar
Kosmos 1 exemplar
Lincoln (2016) 1 exemplar
Poesías 1 exemplar
Io canto me stesso 1 exemplar
Warble for Lilac-Time (2016) 1 exemplar
Eidolons 1 exemplar
The Poetry of Walt Whitman (1999) 1 exemplar
Poems and prose 1 exemplar
Werke 1 exemplar
Demokratski vidici 1 exemplar
Američke priče (2015) 1 exemplar

Associated Works

One Hundred and One Famous Poems (1916) — Contribuidor, algumas edições1,932 exemplares
The Making of a Poem: A Norton Anthology of Poetic Forms (2000) — Contribuidor — 1,254 exemplares
Literature: An Introduction to Fiction, Poetry, and Drama (1995) — Contribuidor, algumas edições915 exemplares
A Book of Luminous Things: An International Anthology of Poetry (1996) — Contribuidor — 829 exemplares
English Poetry, Volume III: From Tennyson to Whitman (1909) — Contribuidor — 607 exemplares
The Outlaw Bible of American Poetry (1999) — Contribuidor — 593 exemplares
The Best Loved Poems of Jacqueline Kennedy-Onassis (2001) — Contribuidor — 545 exemplares
A Treasury of the World's Best Loved Poems (1961) — Contribuidor — 524 exemplares
Prefaces and Prologues to Famous Books (1909) — Contribuidor — 516 exemplares
The Illustrated Treasury of Children's Literature, Volumes 1-2 (1955) — Contribuidor — 457 exemplares
World Poetry: An Anthology of Verse from Antiquity to Our Time (1998) — Contribuidor — 447 exemplares
A Pocket Book of Modern Verse (1954) — Contribuidor, algumas edições443 exemplares
American Earth: Environmental Writing Since Thoreau (2008) — Contribuidor — 414 exemplares
Walt Whitman's America: A Cultural Biography (1995) — Associated Name — 414 exemplares
The Rag and Bone Shop of the Heart: A Poetry Anthology (1992) — Contribuidor — 388 exemplares
Ten Poems to Change Your Life (2001) — Contribuidor — 352 exemplares
Our White House: Looking In, Looking Out (2008) — Contribuidor — 342 exemplares
Literature: The Human Experience (2006) — Contribuidor — 338 exemplares
Growing Up Gay/Growing Up Lesbian: A Literary Anthology (1993) — Contribuidor — 285 exemplares
Writing New York: A Literary Anthology (1998) — Contribuidor — 275 exemplares
The Heath Anthology of American Literature, Volume 1 (1990) — Contribuidor, algumas edições255 exemplares
The Civil War: The First Year Told By Those Who Lived It (2011) — Contribuidor — 241 exemplares
The Penguin Book of Homosexual Verse (1983) — Contribuidor — 236 exemplares
The Art of Fact: A Historical Anthology of Literary Journalism (1997) — Contribuidor — 214 exemplares
Teaching with Fire: Poetry That Sustains the Courage to Teach (2003) — Contribuidor — 201 exemplares
A Treasury of Poetry for Young People (2008) — Contribuidor — 198 exemplares
The Civil War: The Second Year Told By Those Who Lived It (2012) — Contribuidor — 172 exemplares
American Religious Poems: An Anthology (2006) — Contribuidor — 162 exemplares
The Columbia Anthology of Gay Literature (1998) — Contribuidor — 158 exemplares
Best Remembered Poems (1992) — Contribuidor — 157 exemplares
The Civil War: The Third Year Told by Those Who Lived It (2013) — Contribuidor — 145 exemplares
Life in the Iron Mills [Bedford Cultural Editions] (1997) — Contribuidor — 143 exemplares
The Faber Book of Beasts (1997) — Contribuidor — 140 exemplares
A Comprehensive Anthology of American Poetry (1929) — Contribuidor — 128 exemplares
American Antislavery Writings: Colonial Beginnings to Emancipation (2012) — Contribuidor — 122 exemplares
The Standard Book of British and American Verse (1932) — Contribuidor — 114 exemplares
The Norton Book of Travel (1987) — Contribuidor — 110 exemplares
Soul: An Archaeology--Readings from Socrates to Ray Charles (1994) — Contribuidor — 101 exemplares
Leading From Within: Poetry That Sustains the Courage to Lead (2007) — Contribuidor — 100 exemplares
The Norton Book of Friendship (1991) — Contribuidor — 95 exemplares
Do You Know What It Means to Miss New Orleans? (2006) — Contribuidor — 94 exemplares
Poets of the Civil War (2005) — Contribuidor — 93 exemplares
A Life in Medicine: A Literary Anthology (2002) — Contribuidor — 81 exemplares
The Everyman Anthology of Poetry for Children (1994) — Contribuidor — 72 exemplares
The Heath Anthology of American Literature, Concise Edition (2003) — Contribuidor — 68 exemplares
The Name of Love: Classic Gay Love Poems (1995) — Contribuidor — 51 exemplares
The Ecopoetry Anthology (2013) — Contribuidor — 48 exemplares
Poetry of Witness: The Tradition in English, 1500-2001 (2014) — Contribuidor — 41 exemplares
Summer: A Spiritual Biography of the Season (2005) — Contribuidor — 37 exemplares
LDS Women's Treasury: Insights and Inspiration for Today's Woman (1997) — Contribuidor — 28 exemplares
American Literature: The Makers and the Making (In Two Volumes) (1973) — Contribuidor — 25 exemplares
Strange Glory (1977) — Contribuidor — 22 exemplares
Racconti Gialli (1992) — Autor — 20 exemplares
Masquerade: Queer Poetry in America to the End of World War II (2004) — Contribuidor — 19 exemplares
AQA Anthology (2002) — Autor, algumas edições19 exemplares
Ellery Queen's Poetic Justice (1967) — Contribuidor, algumas edições18 exemplares
Constructing Nature: Readings from the American Experience (1996) — Contribuidor — 17 exemplares
The Mark of Zorro [1920 film] (1920) — Actor — 15 exemplares
Queer Nature: A Poetry Anthology (2022) — Contribuidor — 14 exemplares
Trees: A Celebration (1989) — Contribuidor — 13 exemplares
Great Writers and Poets in Ten Volumes (2007) — Autor — 13 exemplares
Love This Giant (2012) — Compositor — 11 exemplares
American Poems 1779-1900 (1922) — Contribuidor — 11 exemplares
Great Short Works of the American Renaissance (1967) — Contribuidor — 10 exemplares
Spring World, Awake: Stories, Poems, and Essays (1970) — Contribuidor — 9 exemplares
Mitt skattkammer. b.9 Gjennom tidene — Contribuidor — 9 exemplares
Men and Women: The Poetry of Love (1970) — Contribuidor — 8 exemplares
American Poetry from the Beginning to Whitman (1931) — Contribuidor — 7 exemplares
Onthebus No. 8 and 9 — Contribuidor — 6 exemplares
The Bitch-Goddess Success: Variations on an American Theme (1968) — Contribuidor — 6 exemplares
Toward the unknown region [score] — Lyricist — 5 exemplares
A Gathering of Ghosts: A Treasury (1970) — Contribuidor — 4 exemplares
La poesía inglesa románticos y victorianos — Contribuidor — 4 exemplares
Let Us Be Men (1969) — Contribuidor — 3 exemplares
Great Poems from Chaucer to Whitman — Contribuidor — 3 exemplares
The Best of American Poetry [Audio] (1997) — Contribuidor — 1 exemplar
The California quarterly — Contribuidor, algumas edições1 exemplar

Etiquetado

Conhecimento Comum

Nome canónico
Whitman, Walt
Nome legal
Whitman, Walter
Outros nomes
Whitman, Walt
Data de nascimento
1819-05-31
Data de falecimento
1892-03-26
Localização do túmulo
Harleigh Cemetery, Camden, New Jersey, USA
Sexo
male
Nacionalidade
USA
País (no mapa)
USA
Local de nascimento
West Hills, Huntington, Long Island, New York, USA
Local de falecimento
Camden, New Jersey, USA
Causa da morte
miliary tuberculosis and parenchymatous nephritis
Locais de residência
Washington, D.C., USA
Brooklyn, New York, USA
Georgetown, Colorado, USA
Laurel Springs, New Jersey, USA
New Orleans, Louisiana, USA
Educação
self-educated
Ocupações
poet
novelist
short-story writer
essayist
editor
teacher (mostrar todos 12)
nurse
typesetter
apprentice printer
convention delegate
journalist
clerk (Bureau of Indian Affairs ∙ U.S. Department of the Interior)
Organizações
The Patriot
Long Islander
Long Island Democrat
Brooklyn Eagle
Prémios e menções honrosas
The Hall of Fame for Great Americans (1930)
Gave Commencement Address at Dartmouth College (1872)
Walt Whitman Bridge

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Walter Whitman Jr. (May 31, 1819 – March 26, 1892) was an American poet, essayist and journalist. A humanist, he was a part of the transition between transcendentalism and realism, incorporating both views in his works. Whitman is among the most influential poets in the American canon, often called the father of free verse. His work was controversial in his time, particularly his 1855 poetry collection Leaves of Grass, which was described as obscene for its overt sensuality.

Born in Huntington on Long Island, Whitman resided in Brooklyn as a child and through much of his career. At the age of 11, he left formal schooling to go to work. Later, Whitman worked as a journalist, a teacher, and a government clerk. Whitman's major poetry collection, Leaves of Grass, was first published in 1855 with his own money and became well known. The work was an attempt at reaching out to the common person with an American epic. He continued expanding and revising it until his death in 1892. During the American Civil War, he went to Washington, D.C. and worked in hospitals caring for the wounded. His poetry often focused on both loss and healing. On the death of Abraham Lincoln, whom Whitman greatly admired, he wrote his well known poems, "O Captain! My Captain!" and "When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom'd", and gave a series of lectures. After a stroke towards the end of his life, Whitman moved to Camden, New Jersey, where his health further declined. When he died at the age of 72, his funeral was a public event.

Whitman's influence on poetry remains strong. Mary Whitall Smith Costelloe argued: "You cannot really understand America without Walt Whitman, without Leaves of Grass ... He has expressed that civilization, 'up to date,' as he would say, and no student of the philosophy of history can do without him." Modernist poet Ezra Pound called Whitman "America's poet ... He is America."

Membros

Discussions

Walt Whitman em Someone explain it to me... (Janeiro 23)
Arion Press "Leaves of Grass" on ABE em Fine Press Forum (Outubro 2022)

Críticas

Beautiful, well-made, so earnest it makes my heart hurt.
 
Assinalado
localgayangel | Mar 5, 2024 |
Slow work going through this for a slow reader anyway unaccustomed to poetry, as so many individual word choices and phrases demand consideration and thinking. Democratic, dynamic, egalitarian, self-confident, sensual, spiritual, provocative even today.
I celebrate myself, and sing myself,
And what I assume you shall assume,
For every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you.[1]
Self-assurance and self-belief ring out from the opening lines. Also a hint of the interconnectedness that will be developed plenty further.
I will go to the bank by the wood and become undisguised and naked,
I am mad for it to be in contact with me.[2]
Drop the mask worn on the stage of social interaction. And a note of physical sensuality.
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.[3]
Don't wait on the future. Live life in this moment.
Showing the 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 none shall be less familiar than the rest.[3]
We always work to present our best most perfect selves to others. But we're perfect and beautiful anyways, faults warts and all. Don't hide or repress any part of yourself.
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,
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, mullein and poke-weed.[5]
Or I guess it is a uniform hieroglyphic,
And it means, Sprouting alike in broad zones and narrow zones,
Growing among black folks as among white,
Kanuck, Tuckahoe, Congressman, Cuff, I give them the same, I receive them the same.[6]
An answer to a previously posed question, "What is the grass?" Out of many it is one, e pluribus unum, these lines arguing that all are equal.
I pass death with the dying and birth with the new-wash'd babe, and am not contain'd between my hat and boots,
And peruse manifold objects, no two alike and every one good,
The earth good and the stars good, and their adjuncts all good.[7]
All shall be well and all shall be well and all manner of thing shall be well.
The boatmen and clam-diggers arose early and stopt for me,
I tuck'd my trowser-ends in my boots and went and had a good time;
You should have been with us that day round the chowder-kettle.[10]
It's not just all Whitman lolling around in fields and nature. He loves the society of men and women close to the earth as well.
In me the caresser of life wherever moving, backward as well as forward sluing,
To niches aside and junior bending, not a person or object missing,
Absorbing all to myself and for this song.[13]
(The moth and the fish-eggs are in their place,
The bright suns I see and the dark suns I cannot see are in their place,
The palpable is in its place and the impalpable is in its place.)[16]
'Everything in its right place'
I play not marches for accepted victors only, I play marches for conquer'd and slain persons.
Have you heard that it was good to gain the day?
I also say it is good to fall, battles are lost in the same spirit in which they are won.[18]
The outcome is not important, it is the participation in the battle, in life.
Smile O voluptuous cool-breath'd earth!
Earth of the slumbering and liquid trees![21]
Liquid trees??? Fantastic.
Divine am I inside and out, and I make holy whatever I touch or am touch'd from,
The scent of these arm-pits aroma finer than prayer,
This head more than churches, bibles, and all the creeds.[24]
Whitman believes in God as revealed through nature, not through churches or theologies shaped by man, a recurring theme. 'arm-pits aroma finer than prayer'... provocative way for the poet to put it!
Trickling sap of maple, fibre of manly wheat, it shall be you!...
Winds whose soft-tickling genitals rub against me it shall be you![24]
Manly wheat and the wind as genitalia rubbing against you. Oh my.
Something I cannot see puts upward libidinous prongs,
Seas of bright juice suffuse heaven.[24]
Very nice description of a sunrise.
I believe a leaf of grass is no less than the journey-work of the stars,
And the pismire is equally perfect, and a grain of sand, and the egg of the wren,
And the tree-toad is a chef-d'oeuvre for the highest,
And the running blackberry would adorn the parlors of heaven,
And the narrowest hinge in my hand puts to scorn all machinery,
And the cow crunching with depress'd head surpasses any statue,
And a mouse is miracle enough to stagger sextillions of infidels.[31]
Taking myself the exact dimensions of Jehovah,
Lithographing Kronos, Zeus his son, and Hercules his grandson,
Buying drafts of Osiris, Isis, Belus, Brahma, Buddha,
In my portfolio placing Manito loose, Allah on a leaf, the crucifix engraved,
With Odin and the hideous-faced Mexitli and every idol and image,
Taking them all for what they are worth and not a cent more,
Admitting they were alive and did the work of their days,
(They bore mites as for unfledg'd birds who have now to rise and fly and sing for themselves,)
Accepting the rough deific sketches to fill out better in myself, bestowing them freely on each man and woman I see[41]
Old conceptions of the divine have outlived their usefulness to a growing/evolving humanity, which now needs something new.
Here and there with dimes on the eyes walking,
To feed the greed of the belly the brains liberally spooning,
Tickets buying, taking, selling, but in to the feast never once going.
Many sweating, ploughing, thrashing, and the chaff for payment receiving,
A few idly owning, and they the wheat continually claiming.[42]
The greedy rich, busy with commerce, exploiting their workers, miss out on the real stuff of life.
Be at peace bloody flukes of doubters and sullen mopers,
I take my place among you as much as among any,
The past is the push of you, me, all, precisely the same,
And what is yet untried and afterward is for you, me, all, precisely the same.
I do not know what is untried and afterward,
But I know it will in its turn prove sufficient, and cannot fail.[43]
Addressing the 'unbelievers', who thrash about in the sea of doubt and unbelief a few lines earlier. Don't worry about death, what comes afterward comes for all alike, and it will be sufficient.
Every condition promulges not only itself, it promulges what grows after and out of itself,
And the dark hush promulges as much as any.[45]
Reminds me of Rilke.
This day before dawn I ascended a hill and look'd at the crowded heaven,
And I said to my spirit When we become the enfolders of those orbs, and the pleasure and knowledge of every thing in them, shall we be fill'd and satisfied then?
And my spirit said No, we but level that lift to pass and continue beyond.
Our souls will penetrate unimaginably far after death.
I do not say these things for a dollar or to fill up the time while I wait for a boat[47]
A joke? Ha!
Why should I wish to see God better than this day?
I see something of God each hour of the twenty-four, and each moment then,
In the faces of men and women I see God, and in my own face in the glass,
I find letters from God dropt in the street, and every one is sign'd by God's name,
And I leave them where they are, for I know that wheresoe'er I go,
Others will punctually come for ever and ever.[48]
I too am not a bit tamed, I too am untranslatable,
I sound my barbaric yawp over the roofs of the world.[52]
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/2d/Whitman-leavesofgrass.gif
If high school students were presented with this image of Whitman instead of one of him as an old man with a long white beard, he would surely strike more interest.
… (mais)
 
Assinalado
lelandleslie | 19 outras críticas | Feb 24, 2024 |
This is a book that has been neglected on my bookshelves for WAY too long. I have been circling ever closer to it since starting the Less Stupid Civil War Reading Group years ago, and all the reading on the war and the Reconstruction period after, including a collection of some of Whitman’s poems and some of his Civil War writings.

I will not lie, there were sections I had to drag myself through here with a brain full of mush. But like I could give up on Walt “I contain multitudes” Whitman? Walt “This is What You Shall Do” Whitman? Clearly, no. Because when this poetry caught wind — the heights that it soared to!

This edition contained some reflections by Whitman at the end, on what he had attempted to do with this verse, on how it had been received, trying to place it in context of the poetry before. This is poetry that celebrates America, from Coast to Coast, from destitution to riches, man and woman, Black, white, and Native, and every kind of labor. From this point in history, parts of that celebration leave a bitter taste, but the celebration of humanity itself, and especially the humble, is remarkable.

What it captures of its time and place — the years of war, the explosion into the West, in so few pages is something only poetry can do.

I am glad to have finally gotten to this one!
… (mais)
1 vote
Assinalado
greeniezona | 15 outras críticas | Feb 4, 2024 |
Back in the 1870s, this was hot stuff. But to me, it is like a bunch of entries in the World's Longest Run-on Sentence contest. Jesus, Walt! Were you too poor to afford some periods?!?
Oh, and the self-glorification.
It was all too much. I just shelved the thing and moved on.
 
Assinalado
Treebeard_404 | 84 outras críticas | Jan 23, 2024 |

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Frank Yamrus Photographer
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