A path-breaker —Walt Whitman

A path-breaker—Walt Whitman 陈宇 09301092

His uniqueness Free verse Writing techniques Democratic ideas Frankness about sex Vernacular language

What is free verse? • Free verse is a form of poetry that refrains from consistent meter patterns, rhyme, or any other musical pattern. • He broke free of the convention of the iambic pentameter and exhibited a freedom in form unknown before.

iambic pentameter 五步抑扬格音步是诗行中按一定规律出现的轻音节和重音节的不同组合成的韵律最小单位。这五个音步是：抑扬格，扬抑格，抑抑扬格，扬抑抑格和扬扬格。如果一个音步中有两个音节，前者为轻，后者为重，则这种音步叫抑扬格音步，轻读是“抑”，重读是“扬”，一轻一重，故称抑扬格。例如：

Metre: Shall I compare thee to a sum mer’s day ?a Thou art more love ly and more tem perate.b Rough winds do shake the dar ling buds of may, a And sum mer’s lease hath all too short a date. b Iambus（抑扬格） Iambic Foot（抑扬音步） 5-foot Iambus(Iambic Pentametre) （五步抑扬格）

Parallelism and phonetic recurrence O Captain! my Captain! rise up and hear the bells; a Rise up—for you the flag is flung—for you the bugle trills; a For you bouquets and ribboned wreaths—for you the shores a-crowding; b For you they call, the swaying mass, their eager faces turning; b Here Captain! dear father! c This arm beneath your head; d It is some dream that on the deck, e You've fallen cold and dead. d

Equality and Democracy • “Song of Myself” reveals a world of equality, without rank and hierarchy. The prostitute(妓女) draggling her shawl, the President holding a cabinet council, the stately and friendly matrons（主妇） on the piazza（露天广场）walk, the Missourian（密苏里州人）crossing the plains and an infinite number of other things and people find their way into his poem and juxtapose with one another, illustrating the principle of democracy and equality.

Frankness about sex • Leaves of Grass came out in1855 but didn’t sell well. The Leaves were called “noxious weeds,”(邪恶的种子) its poetry “poetry of barbarism,’（野蛮的诗歌）and “a mass of stupid filth”.（一滩愚蠢的污秽物） • In his poems, he depicted vividly and openly the love between man and himself, man and woman, man and man, respectively in “Song of myself”(自我之歌), “Children of Adam”（亚当的子孙）, “Calamus”（芦笛集）.

I am he that aches with love I AM he that aches with amorous love; Does the earth gravitate? Does not all matter, aching, attract all matter? So the body of me to all I meet or know. 我是被情欲折磨的人我是被情欲折磨的人地球有吸引力吗? 任何个体在受折磨时不是都吸引任何个体吗？因此我的身体也吸引我所遇到的人或我认识的人

Vernacular language He preferred the use of the vernacular language of the common Americans over the complex and artificial one of the elite class. Adopting the colloquial style and deliberately avoiding complex Biblical and remote classical allusions, myths and parables, he brought the language of poetry closer to reality and made it easier comprehendible to even common readers of poetry.

Thank you for your attention 陈宇 09301092

A path-breaker —Walt Whitman