美国文学课件Whitman and his Poems

射出的一缕昏黄的灯光。 难道它已经找好了地方 在西山的一张席梦思上， 进入甜美的梦乡？

Please read and appreciate some ancient Chinese poems or lines describing “snow”:

梅花逊雪三分白，雪却输梅一段香。——卢梅坡

白雪纷纷何所似，撒盐空中差可似。

北风卷地百草折，胡天八月即飞雪。

忽如一夜楚风来，千树万户梨花开。——岑参

《雪--这个冬天不能承受之轻》 漫天飞舞的白色精灵， 亲吻着大地。

那是天使的眼泪坠落凡间， 带着沉淀的凄美。

明知道凡间是你生命的终点， 却飞蛾扑火般决绝， 铺天盖地， 无声无息， 将大地的阴霾涤清， 唤醒春心， 片片白雪，

你的生命是这个冬天不能承受。 II. An Introduction to Whitman

1. Whitman—Poet of the People The other major writer at mid-century, Walt Whitman, was unique. His Leaves of Grass (1855) was new in form and in content. Whitman wrote about his country in a way never done before. At first the little book of strange verse seemed a failure. Emerson, however, recognized its greatness, and now most people agree that it was the first book of truly American poetry. Here, at last, was the fresh, distinguished but destined to create an art wholly American. Through Whitman's poetry the new nation is caught in its largeness, its variety, and its great energy. One's-Self I Sing and his major poem, Song of Myself, are brilliant and complex

utterances of the human spirit freed in the New World.

Walt Whitman's poems are a love letter to his country. To accomplish his purpose of singing the praise of the untrammeled American spirit, Whitman forsook the confining poetic forms of his day. His poems are melodic chants, suited to the ear.

Readers around the world have turned to Whitman as the spokesman for the new democratic society. No poet has celebrated that society with more enthusiasm or more poetic genius than Walt Whitman. His verses are a striking contrast to the neat meters and rhymes of conventional poetry previously written. Since Whitman's death, his writing has influenced many other