Book 2.期末.docx

Book 2 Walt WhitmanOne of the great innovators in American literatureHe gave America its first genuine epic poem: Leaves of GrassWorksa. PoetryDrum Taps (1865)Good-Bye, My Fancy (1891)Leaves of Grass (1855)Leaves of Grass(1856)Leaves of Grass (1860)Leaves of Grass (1867)Leaves of Grass (1870)Leaves of Grass (1876)Leaves of Grass (1881)Leaves of Grass (1891)Passage to India (1870)Sequel to Drum Taps (1865)ProseComplete Prose Works (1892)Democratic Vistas (1871)Franklin Evans; or, The Inebriate (1842)Memoranda During the War (1875)November Boughs (1888)Specimen Days and Collect (1881)Poetic FeaturesWalt Whitman was one of the most important American poets in the nineteenth century and one of the great innovators in American literature. In the preface to his Leaves of Grass, he says that one of his focuses is on the sort of poet America required and the sort of poetry America needed. The great American poet would create both new forms and new subject matter for poetry.In terms of content, American poetry would not echo the sad complaints of the Graveyard school nor follow the moral preaching of didactic poets. As a matter of fact, Whitman himself was that poet and his Leaves of Grass is an example of that poetry. 3 ) Whitman’s poetry is typical of America’s. Leaves of Grass grew and changed as he and his nation, America, grew and changed. He saw reality as a continuous flow, without a beginning or end. He disliked the nineteenth-century poetic forms that are stiff and patterned. Most of the poems in Leaves of Grass are about man and nature, especially common people and ordinary Americans. He wanted his poetry to be for the common people. He was determined “to meet people and the States face to face, to confront them with an American rude tongue”. In the area of poetic form, Whitman made his great contributions. Through him, American poets finally freed themselves from the old English traditions. Throughout his life he advocated a completely new and completely American