安徽三联学院外语学院美国文学课件Chapter 7 Whitman and Dickinson.ppt

Walt Whitman and Emily Dickinson Content Walt Whitman Emily Dickinson Walt Whitman （1819—1892) Life Works Influence Life Born in 1819 on Long Island, New York; Poor Semiliterate parents, only 5-6 years formal education, self-educated; Worked as office boy, printing worker, school teacher, free-lance writer, carpentry, correspondent other odd jobs; Died in 1892, unmarried all his life. 1. Recognized as a father figure, mountain; 2. Leaves of Grass is an epoch-making work in content or in form: →Democratic content marked the shift from Romanticism to Realism; →Free-verse form broke from old poetic conventions, has worldwide influence over modern poetry. Influence Influences upon Him 1. From the Enlightenment: rights and dignity of the individual, humanitarianism（人道主义）, idealism 2. From Transcendentalism: insight and intuition 3. From Emerson: 1) The poet is a seer, universal man; 2) Poetry is organic, natural; 3) Both men believed in insight and intuition of man. 1. The Significance of the Title Where there is earth, where there is water, there is grass. Grass, the most common thing with the greatest vitality, is an image of the poet himself. a symbol of the rising American nation, and an embodiment of his ideals about democracy and freedom. Leaves of Grass —a collection of poems Works 2. Themes Transcendent power of love, brotherhood, and comradeship Imaginative projection into others’ lives Optimistic faith in democracy and equality Belief in regenerative and illustrative powers of nature and its value as a teacher Equivalence of body and soul and the unabashed exaltation of the body and sexuality 1）Poetic Style Most about man and nature, especially common people and ordinary Americans. Message was more important than form. Use of conventional image The use of a certain pronoun “I” to stress individualism, to acquire sympathy fr