Jennifer Wu's learning notes

American Literature Note 14

Walt Whitman

Walt Whitman was an American poet whose verse collection Leaves of Grass is a landmark in the history of American literature.

Video about him

- Poet and journalist Walt Whitman was born May 31, 1819 in West Hills, New York.

 Considered one of America's most influential poet Whitman aimed to transcend traditional epics, eschew normal aesthetic form, and reflect the nature of the American experience and its democracy. In 1855 he self-published the collection Leaves of Grass, now a landmark in American literature.

- He sang American with the passionate fervor of a Yankee mystic.

(For You, O Democracy)

Come, I will make the continent indissoluble,

I will make the most splendid race the sun ever shone upon,

I will make divine magnetic lands,

With the love of comrades,

With the life-long love of comrades.

I will plant companionship thick as trees along all the rivers of America,

and along the shores of the great lakes, and all over the prairies,

I will make inseparable cities with their arms about each other's necks,

By the love of comrades,

By the manly love of comrades.

For you these from me, O Democracy, to serve you ma femme!

For you, for you I am trilling these songs.

Transcendentalism

-Transcendentalism is a religious and philosophical movement that developed during the late 1820s and '30s in the Eastern region of the United States as a protest against the general state of spirituality.

-The transcendentalists desired to ground their religion and philosophy in transcendental principles: principles not based on, or falsifiable by, physical experience, but deriving from the inner spiritual or mental essence of the human.

The quote form William Wordsworth

“Though nothing can bring back the hour

Of splendor in the grass, of glory in the flower;

We will grieve not, rather find

Strength in what remains behind;

In the primal sympathy

Which having been must ever be...”

1. 浪漫時期常用” splendid”

2. The movie: Splendor in the Grass (1961) (trailer)

A fragile Kansas girl's unrequited and forbidden love for a handsome young man from the town's most powerful family drives her to heartbreak and madness.

O Captain! My Captain! (Full poem)

O Captain! my Captain! our fearful trip is done,

The ship has weather'd every rack, the prize we sought is won,

The port is near, the bells I hear, the people all exulting,

While follow eyes the steady keel, the vessel grim and daring;

But O heart! heart! heart!

O the bleeding drops of red,

Where on the deck my Captain lies,

Fallen cold and dead.

1. It is an extended metaphor poem written in 1865 by Walt Whitman, about the

death of American president Abraham Lincoln.

2. (a) free verse: is poetry that is based on the irregular rhythmic cadence recurring, with variations of phrases, images, and syntactical patterns rather than the conventional use of meter. In other words, free verse has no rhythm scheme or pattern. However, much poetic language and devices are found in free verse.

(b) blank verse: consists of unrhymed lines of iambic pentameter (ten syllables with the second, fourth, sixth, eighth, and tenth syllables accented). The form has generally been accepted as the best for dramatic verse in English and is commonly used for long poems whether dramatic, philosophical, or narrative.

Dead Poets Society 春風化雨  (trailer)

Dead Poets Society is a 1989 American drama film written by Tom Schulman,

directed by Peter Weir and starring Robin Williams. It’s a story that English teacher

John Keating inspires his students to a love of poetry and to seize the day.

When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom’d (full poem)

1. When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom'd is a long poem in the form of an elegy written by American poet Walt Whitman (1819–1892) in 1865. It is a 206-line poem written in free verse and employing many of the devices and conceits of the pastoral elegy. The poem was written in the Summer of 1865 during a period of profound national mourning in the aftermath of the assassination of President Abraham Lincoln on 14 April 1865.

2. Whitman uses a series of rural and natural imagery including the symbols of the lilacs, a drooping star in the western sky (Venus), and the hermit thrush, and employs the traditional progression of the pastoral elegy in moving from grief toward an acceptance and knowledge of death.

3. The poem also addresses the pity of war through imagery vaguely referencing the American Civil War (1861–1865) which ended only days before the assassination

A narrow fellow in the grass by Emily Dickinson (full poem)

A narrow fellow in the grass

Occasionally rides;

You may have met him—did you not

His notice sudden is,

The grass divides as with a comb,

A spotted shaft is seen,

And then it closes at your feet,

And opens further on.

1. phallic symbol (陽物崇拜): the snake

    (Rapunzel中的”高塔”也是一個例子)

2. The speaker recalls walking through some grass and scaring a snake away. The speaker describes this in vivid and strange ways, and develops it into an extended metaphor. The snake reminds the speaker of meeting certain people that take his breath away.