Walt Whitman amp; Emily Dickson.ppt

Walt Whitman Emily Dickson --- American Poetry Walt Whitman (1819-1892) and Emily Dickson (1830-1886) were American poets in theme and technique. Thematically ,both extolled (v.赞美 )in their different ways , an emergent America, its expansion, its individualism and its Americanness. Their poetry belong to the part of “American Renaisance” in technical terms, 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. In fact, a handy way of seeing modern American poetry is to find its sources in the two founts. Walt Whitman (1819-1892) Life: Thirsting for experience and gregarious in habit, Whitman tried at a variety of jobs and picked up a first-hand knowledge of life and people in the new world. In 1848 he traveled to New Orleans and saw very much of the Mississippi heartlands, this experience with the people and the country furnished both materials and guiding spirit for his epic, Leaves of Grass. Leaves of Grass ＊ Leaves of Grass, the first edition of which came out in1855 with12 poems and it made a stir on the American literary scene. It broke with the poetic convention, its sexuality, exotic and vulgar language brought harsh criticism on it . The Leaves were called “noxious weeds”. ＊ Leaves of Grass went through 9 editions altogether : 1855, 1856, 1860 ,1867 ,1871, 1876,1881, 1889, 1891-92. Themes Idealism (insightintuition) The ideals of equality and democracy and celebrates the dignity , the self-spirit and the joy of the common man. the expansion of American The failure of democracy and the social and moral corruption in his later years (but they were curable). Techniques Parallelism or a rhythm of thought in which the line is the rhythmical unit, as in the poetry of the English Bible. Phonetic Recurrence i.e. the systematic repetition of words and phrase at the beginning of the line, in the middle or at the end. Free Ver