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1、惠特曼 自我之歌本文由daeminem贡献一 Walt WhitmanWalter Walt Whitman (May 31, 1819 March 26, 1892) was an American poet, essayist and journalist. A humanist,(人道主义者) he was a part of the transition between transcendentalism and realism, incorporating both views in his works. Whitman is among the most influential p
2、oets in the American canon, often called the father of free verse.自由诗 His work was very controversial in its time, particularly his poetry collection Leaves of Grass, which was described as obscene for its overt sexuality. Born on Long Island, Whitman worked as a journalist, a teacher, a government
3、clerk, andin addition to publishing his poetrywas a volunteer nurse during the American Civil War. Whitmans major work, Leaves of Grass, was first published in 1855 with his own money. The work was an attempt at reaching out to the common person with an American epic. He continued expanding and revi
4、sing it until his death in 1892. After a stroke towards the end of his life, he moved to Camden, New Jersey, where his health further declined. He died at age 72 and his funeral became a public spectacle. spekt?k?l n. 景象, 场面, 奇观, 壮观, 公开展 Whitmans sexuality is often discussed alongside his poetry. Th
5、ough biographers continue to debate his sexuality, he is usually described as either homosexual or bisexual in his feelings and attractions. Whitman was concerned with politics throughout his life. He opposed the extension of slavery generally. His poetry presented an egalitarian view of the races,
6、and at one point he called for the abolition of slavery, but later he saw the abolitionist movement as a threat to democracy.6 Song of Myself is a poem by Walt Whitman that is included in his work Leaves of Grass.二 Publication historyThe poem was published first without sections and was the first of
7、 twelve untitled poems of the first (1855) edition of Leaves of Grass. Now it is one of the best-known poems of the publication. The first edition was published by Whitman at his own expense. In the edition of 1856, Whitman used the title Poem of Walt Whitman, an American, which was shortened to Son
8、g of Myself for the 1860 edition. The poem was divided into fifty-two numbered sections for the 1867 edition.三 Literary stylesCritics have noted a strong Transcendentalist 超验主义 influence on the poem, a theory somewhat validatedv?l?,det 使有效;使生效 2. 承认.为正当;确认;证实 by Ralph Waldo Emersons 拉尔夫沃尔多爱默生 enthus
9、iastic letter praising the first edition of Leaves of Grass.In addition to this romanticism, the poem seems to anticipate a kind of realism that would only become important in United States literature after the Civil War. In the following 1855 passage, for example, we can see Whitmans inclusion of t
10、he gritty 似沙砾 的 details of everyday life: The lunatic lun?,t?k疯子 is carried at last to the asylum ?sail?m 精神病院 a confirmed case, He will never sleep any more as he did it in the cot in his mothers bedroom; The dour 冷峻的 printer with gray head and gaunt jaws works at his case, He turns his quid of tob
11、acco, his eyes get blurred 模糊 with the manuscript 原稿 手抄本; The malformed limbs are tied to the anatomists table, What is removed drops horribly in a pail; The quadroon girl is sold at the stand . . . . the drunkard nods by the barroom stove . (section 15)四SelfThe self of the poems speaker - the I of
12、the poem - should not be limited to or confused with the person of the historical Walt Whitman. The persona described has transcended the conventional boundaries of self. I pass death with the dying, and birth with the new-washed babe . and am not contained between my hat and boots (section 7). Ther
13、e are several other quotes from the poem that make it apparent that Whitman does not consider the narrator to represent a single individual. Rather, he seems to be narrating for all:? ? ? ?“in all people I see myself, none more and not one a barleycorn less/and the good or bad I say of myself I say
14、of them” (Section 20) “it is you talking just as much as myselfI act as the tongue of you” (Section 47) “I am large, I contain multitudes.大众 平民” (Section 51) “For every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you.” (Section 1)五 CommentaryWhitmans grand poem is, in its way, an American epic. Beginnin
15、g in medias resin the middle of the poets lifeit loosely follows a quest pattern. “Missing me one place search another,” he tells his reader, “I stop somewhere waiting for you.” In its catalogues of American life and its constant search for the boundaries of the self “Song of Myself” has much in com
16、mon with classical epic. Since for Whitman the birthplace of poetry is in the self, the best way to learn about poetry is to relax and watch the workings of ones own mind. While “Song of Myself” is crammed 填塞 with significant detail, there are three key episodes that must be examined. The first of t
17、hese is found in the sixth section of the poem. A child asks the narrator “What is the grass?” and the narrator is forced to explore his own use of symbolism and his inability to break things down to essential principles. The bunches of grass in the childs handsbecome a symbol of the regeneration in
18、 nature. But they also signify a common material that links disparate people all over the United States together: grass, the ultimate symbol of democracy, grows everywhere. In the wake of the Civil War the grass reminds Whitman of graves: grass feeds on the bodies of the dead. Everyone must die even
19、tually, and so the natural roots of democracy are therefore in mortality, whether due to natural causes or to the bloodshed 流血 of internecine ,?nt?nisa?n warfare 自相残杀的战争. While Whitman normally revels in this kind of symbolic indeterminacy 犹豫不决, here it troubles him a bit. “I wish I could translate
20、the hints 暗 示提示,” he says, suggesting that the boundary between encompassing包含 everything and saying nothing is easily crossed. The second episode is more optimistic. The famous “twenty-ninth bather” can be found in the eleventh section of the poem. In this section a woman watches twenty-eight young
21、 m en bathing in the ocean. She fantasizes about joining them unseen, and describes their se mi-nude 半裸露的 bodies in some detail. The invisible twenty-ninth bather offers a model of being much like that of Emersons “transparent eyeball” : to truly experience the world one must be fully in it and of i
22、t, yet distinct enough from it to have some perspective, and invisible so as not to interfere with it unduly 过度地不适当地. This paradoxical set of conditions describes perfectly the poetic stance Whitman tries to assume. The lavish 大量的 eroticism ?r?t?,s?z?m1. 色情性 2. 性本能;性冲动 of this section reinforces thi
23、s idea: sexual contact allows two people to become one yet not oneit offers a moment of transcendence tr?ns?nd?ns 1. 超越;卓绝 2. (神的)超然存在. As the female spectator introduced in the beginning of the section fades away, and Whitmans voice takes over, the eroticism becomes homoeroticism. Again this is not
24、 so much the expression of a sexual preference as it is the longing for communion with every living being and a connection that makes use of both the body and the soul (although Whitman is certainly using the homoerotic sincerely, and in other ways too, particularly for shock value). Having worked t
25、hrough some of the conditions of perception and creation, Whitman arrives, in the third key episode, at a moment where speech becomes necessary. In the twenty-fifth section he notes that “Speech is the twin of my vision, it is unequal to measure itself, / It provokes me forever, it says sarcasticall
26、y, / Walt you contain enough, why dont you let it out then?” Having already established that he can have a sympathetic experience when he encounters others (“I donot ask the wounded person how he feels, I myself become the wounded person”), he must find a way to re-transmit that experience without f
27、alsifying or diminishing it. Resisting easy answers, he later vows he “will never translate himself at all.” Instead he takes a philosophically more rigorous r?g?r?s 严厉的 精确的 stance 站姿 态度: “What is known I strip 剥去 away.” Again Whitmans position is similar to that of Emerson, who says of himself, “I
28、am the unsettler.” Whitman, however, is a poet, and he must reassemble after unsettling: he must “let it out then.” Having catalogued a continent and encompassed its multitudes, he finally decides: “I too am not a bit tamed 驯服的, I too am untranslatable, / I sound my barbaric b?rb?r?k 1. 半开化的野蛮的 2. 粗
29、野的;不知节制的 yawpj?p 喊叫 over the roofs of the world.” “Song of Myself” thus ends with a sounda yawpthat could be described as either pre- or post-linguistic. Lacking any of the normal communicative properties of language, Whitmans yawp is the release of the “kosmos” 德语单词 宇宙 within him, a sound at the borderline 边界界线 between saying everything and saying nothing. More than anything, the yawp is an invitation to the next Walt Whitman, to read into the yawp, to have a sympathetic experience, to absorb it as part of a new multitude.
