" Leaves of Grass

Author: Walt Whitman (USA)
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2004-06-01
Features: Whitman, one of the greatest romantic poets in American history, is represented by his collection of poems Leaves of Grass, which is profound and grand in scope. He pioneered a new style of poetry and had a significant impact on American and even world poetry. The translations by the renowned masters Chu Tunan and Li Yiguang are a perfect complement, making this classic translation worth collecting. Leaves of Grass includes four hundred and one of the poet's poems, recording his life's thoughts and explorations, and reflecting the face of his time and nation. Thus, it is not only his personal epic but also the epic of 19th-century America. This book develops from the twelve poems in the first edition of 1855 to the four hundred and one in 1882, presenting the most complete version. Leaves of Grass is a romantic poetry collection by the 19th-century American writer Walt Whitman, containing over three hundred poems. The name of the collection comes from a line in the poems: "Wherever there is soil, wherever there is water, there grows grass." Grass is the most ordinary and vibrant thing, symbolizing the burgeoning America of the time. The collection passionately celebrates the rising period of capitalism in the United States through the "self" experience and "self" image. Whitman loved democracy and freedom from a young age. He only received five or six years of education and went out to work in his teens. He worked as a typesetter, carpenter, mason, rural teacher, and editor. Whitman was diligent and spent his spare time reading a great deal of world literature. He began writing poems in the 1840s and published the first edition of Leaves of Grass in 1855. In a letter to a friend, he wrote: "Remember, this book came from the life I lived in Brooklyn from 1838 to 1853, absorbing millions of individuals and fifteen years of life; the intimacy, the passion, the intoxication—unparalleled." Leaves of Grass is a compilation of Whitman's life's work and a brilliant milestone in the history of American poetry. It contains rich and profound ideological content, fully reflecting the spirit of mid-19th-century America. The poet, from the standpoint of radical bourgeois democracy, celebrates this "land of democracy": there are no slaves or slave owners, where the people rise immediately against the endless recklessness of those elected, where men and women bravely rush to the call of death like the surging waves of the sea, where external rights always follow internal rights, where citizens are always minds and ideals, and presidents, mayors, and governors are merely paid employees, where children are educated to manage themselves and rely on themselves, where events are resolved peacefully, where the exploration of the soul is encouraged, where women march openly in the streets like men, and where they take their places at public gatherings like men. Leaves of Grass celebrates nature and the self with pantheism, which is the worship of nature, deeming all natural things as gods. The poems extol the magnificence, wonder, and greatness of nature: climbing mountains, I carefully ascend, holding onto thin branches to reach the branches, walking along long paths covered with grass, where the leaves gently brush by, where quail chirp between wheat fields and forests, where bats fly in the twilight of July, where giant golden beetles descend in the dark, where streams burst from old tree roots and flow into the grasslands. Leaves of Grass is the grass that grows on the land of America, forever vibrant and emitting an alluring fragrance. It is a world-famous masterpiece that ushered in a new era of American national poetry. The author made bold innovations in poetic form, creating the "free verse" style, breaking traditional poetic meter, basing rhythm on line breaks, with free, unrestrained, and effortless flow, possessing the momentum of a rushing river and the capacity to encompass all.