Walt Whitman

1. Walt Whitman

2. Walt Whitman is no stranger to Chinese readers. His poetry made a huge impact on Chinese new poetry in the May Fourth Movement, especially Guo Moruo’s translations and Guo’s own early poetry that was modeled after Whitman, we will be able to feel, albeit vicariously, the sweeping power of Whitman’s rhythm and scope.

3. His poetry • Technically speaking, Whitman’s poetry is “free verse” in that the lack of meter and rhyme is known as his major technical innovation.

4. Song of Myself • Virtually all of Whitman’s poems are in Leaves of Grass, which was published in his lifetime in nine successively expanded and re-arranged edition (from 1855 to 1892). • “Song of Myself” (1855,7.4) is the longest and one of the best in Whitman’s canon. It begins with simple and bold statements.

5. Questions about Whitman • 1) Who is the poet celebrating? Whom do line 2-3 also in the celebration? • 2) what are the two principal beliefs that the poet set forth in this poem? • 3). Take the fifth line as a hint, can you write out the name of the poet’s completed collections of poems? • 4) What is hinted from these two lines? • 5) What does “soil” or “air” stand for? • 6). What is the idea expressed in the above four lines?

6. Song of Myself • Word devices in Song of Myself” • Language style

7. I Hear America Singing • In “I Hear America Singing” we see the poet listening to the concert of his fellow Americans. It reflects the poet’s faith in democracy and the people. The poet, walking around, hears America singing. The mother is singing while setting food on the table. The carpenter is singing, planning his boards. And the day is singing “What belongs to the day.”

8. Long catalogues of different people and different occupations indicate that here the new children of Adam are being restored to the Garden of Eden, developing their potentiality to the fullest extent possible.

9. Whitman was determined to be the poet of democracy. He put everybody in his poetry and tried to reach everybody. He wrote poems for the lowest as well as the highest American society. This poem was first published in 1860.

10. 1. How many different singers did Whitman hear • 2. What do these songs represent? • 3. Does the poem have anything to say about happiness? • 4. How does this poem reflect the poet’s faith in democracy? • 5. What other types of workers would you have to add to the picture to bring it up to date?