WaltWhitman(美国文学史).pptVIP

Walt Whitman * Walter Whitman Born on May 31, 1819, in Long Island Die on March 26, 1892 An American poet, essayist, journalist, and humanist. Whitman is often called the father of free verse. Introduction Brought up in a family on Long Island, New York. Largely self-taught. He had little education, but read works of Shakespeare, Milton and Emerson. In 1836, at the age of 17, he began his career as teacher in the one-room school houses of Long Island. He continued to teach until 1841, when he turned to journalism as a full-time career. Worked as an office boy, a printer’s apprentice, schoolmaster, printer, and editor. In the fall of 1848, he founded a free soil newspaper, the Brooklyn Freeman, and continued to develop the unique style of poetry. Introduction In 1855, published the first edition of Leaves of Grass, marking the birth of truly American poetry, not well received by the general public because of its sexuality and exotic and vulgar language, but appreciated by Emerson. During the Civil War, worked as a volunteer nurse, an experience which further enriched his knowledge of life and the world. After his death on March 26, 1892, Whitman was buried in a tomb he designed and had built on a lot in Harleigh Cemetery. Introduction Leaves of Grass 《草叶集》 Walt Whitman’s major work Leaves of Grass is a poetry collection by Walt Whitman. 12 poems in the first version in 1855 401 poems in the dying version in 1891 and 1892 Poems :“ Song of Myself I Sing the Body Electric When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloomd.“ Whitman spent his entire life writing Leaves of Grass, revising it in several editions until his death. Walt Whitman’s major work “Leaves of Grass” recorded how Whitman think and quest during his life, reflected how the age and the country looked like at that time. This is the grass that grows wherever the land is and the water is, This the common air that bathes the globe. —