美国文学 9课件.ppt

Walt Whitman(1819~1892) Walt Whitman’s Life Born on May 31, 1819, in the village of West Hills, Suffolk County, Long Island the second son of a house-builder Largely self-taught, acquainted with the works of Homer(荷马), Dante(但丁), Shakespeare, and the Bible. In 1836, as a teacher in the one-room school houses of Long Island. Continuing to teach until 1841, then turning to journalism as a full-time career. In 1855, Whitman took out a copyright on the first edition of Leaves of Grass, which consisted of twelve untitled poems and a preface. Whitman released a second edition of the book in 1856, containing thirty-three poems, a letter from Ralph Waldo Emerson praising the first edition, and a long open letter by Whitman in response. After his death on March 26, 1892, Whitman was buried in Harleigh Cemetery（公墓). WALT WHITMANS CRYPT IN HARLEIGH CEMETERY A democrat 民主主义者 An individualist 个人主义者 A nationalist 民族主义者 A pantheist 泛神论者 An American free verse poet Major Works Leaves of Grass 草叶集1855 Drum-Taps 桴鼓集1865 Democratic Vistas 民主远景1871 Song of Myself 自我之歌 I Sit and Look Out 坐观世间 O Captain, My Captain! 船长，我的船长 When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom’d 最近紫丁香在庭院里开放的时候 I hear America Singing 我听见美国在歌唱 Special Features Themes Transcendent power of love, brotherhood, and comradeship（同志关系） 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 Special Features Sexuality He is bold enough to break the taboo in poetry writing. Because he celebrates the self, Whitman considers the human body as sacred and innocent. He infuses the abstractions of democracy with the intensity of erotic passion, giving literature some of its first and most potent images of democratic breaking of bounds. He presents one of