Walt Whitman沃尔特·惠特曼 英美文学.ppt

Walt Whitman (1819-1892) Life Born: 31 May 1819 Birthplace: Long Island, New York. Died:26 March 1892 Born in a working-class family, son of a carpenter At four, family moved to Brooklyn, New York Attended public school Apprenticed to a printer Returned to Long Island in 1835 and taught in country schools Edited a newspaper, the Long-Islander, in Huntington Back to New York City to work as a printer and journalist Experienced various jobs Began writing a new kind of poetry (free verse) Whitmans democratic ideals individualism America’s first “poet of democracy” Whitmans democratic ideas govern his poetry-writing. In his famous poetry, openness, freedom, and above all, individualism (the belief that the rights and freedom of individual people are most important) are all that concerned him. Whitman brings the hard-working farmers and laborers into American literature ,attack the slavery system and racial discrimination. The themes in Whitmans poetry filled with optimistic expectation and enthusiasm about new things and new epoch. The whole hard-working people The burgeoning life of cities. The fast growth of industry and wealth in cities 2. Individual value Pursuit of love and happiness Sexual love The individual person and his desires must be respected. Influences the 20th century world literature: His works is part of western culture / many poets in France, Italy, England, and Latin America are in his debt. His poetry also influences modern American poets such as Pound, T.S. Eliot, Hart Crane, Carl Sandburg. Important Features in Whitman’s Poems The first person narrator: “I” the subject in the poem, “you” the reader Invites us to participate in the process of sympathetic identification. Style: free verse Rhyme a rhythm of thought cadences of his feeling Parallelism To repeat the idea in the lines with minor changes in wording (the line is the rhythmical unit) Phonetic recurrence Repetition