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Click to edit Master title style,Click to edit Master text styles,Second level,Third level,Fourth level,Fifth level,11/7/2009,#,单击此处编辑母版标题样式,单击此处编辑母版文本样式,第二级,第三级,第四级,第五级,*,EDUCATION,POSITION,Report,Academic,SCHOOL,RESEARCH,Family,Culture,Whitman,Manhood,LITERATURE,Houses,Cities,Writing,DATA,Qualitative,Advanced,English,5,EDUCATIONPOSITIONReportAcademi,Unit 7,SUBJECT 3 Learning Literature,Study these topics in this unit.,American Poet Whitman,and his life,1,Elements of poetry,2,Analysis of poems,3,Unit 7SUBJECT 3 Learning L,Contents of this unit,Lecture about Whitman,Basic Issues,Studying Poems,Self study,1,2,3,4,Contents of this unitLecture a,Poem by Walt Whitman,Lecture about Whitman,Poem by Walt WhitmanLecture ab,Work on the table below in small groups, filling in the first two columns, and then read the lecture. After reading, return to this table to finish the last column.,Things I already known about Whitman:,Things Im not quite clear about him:,Things I learned after reading,about him:,Work on the table below in sma,A professor of American literature is giving a lecture to his students.,A Poetic Tramp: A Lecture about,Walt Whitman,1,My last lecture covered poets and their poems before the middle of the nineteenth century.,Today, we are going to study modern American poets and poems. We will start with Walt Whitman.,I will first talk briefly about his major contributions to modern American poetry, giving you a,short account of his life story. After that, we will read one of his most important poems.,When Walt Whitman began publishing his poems in the mid1800s, he forever changed peoples sense of what a poet could be, and what a poem could look and sound like.,1,2,A professor of American litera,For Whitman, poetry was no,schoolroom or parlor exercise,2,. It wasnt an “indoor” activity at all. Instead, poetry had to breathe the open air. It had to start in the earth, just as a tree sets its roots deep in the soil, and then take flight, just as the tree shoots its branches into the sky.,Sure, this is actually what I am going to talk about today. Whitman liked to think of the poet as a kind of tramp: someone who traveled far and wide, meeting new people along the way, constantly seeking out new experiences and new encounters. He also liked to think of himself as the poet of the common man and woman. He admired people who worked hard, especially people who worked with their hands, and he often even made them the subject of his poems. More than anything else, though,he loved,the diversity of life: so many different people, so,3,4,For Whitman, poetry was no sc,many different kinds of plants and animals, cities and farms, dreams and visions. As a kind of poetic tramp, Whitman set out to encounter all this variety of life and to make it all,hang together,3,in his poems. Nobody had ever before tried to put so much into a poem.,Take a quick look at any of his poems just look at it, without even reading it. Whitmans lines almost seem to run right off the page. Before Whitman, the true mark of a poem was its regular pattern of meter and rhyme: the poet sought to shape his emotions and ideas into an organized form. Whitmans long lines are not usually structured in this way. In fact, they often seem to flow across the page in what looks like an uncontrollable flood of words. This happens because he is always trying to get so much of the detail of his world into his poems.,5,many different kinds of plants,Read his poems aloud. Try to catch the sound of Whitmans voice in them. Whitman is said to have recited poetry aloud as he walked along the seashore, and you can sometimes almost hear the rhythm of the surf in his poems. You can also sometimes hear the voice of a prophet, as when he cries out, “Unscrew the locks from the doors! Unscrew the doors themselves from the,jambs,!”,4,Whitman loved the sound of the human voice, in speech and in song, and always imagined himself “singing” aloud in his poems.,Walt Whitman was born at West Hills, Long Island, in New York,n,on May 31, 1819. His father,Walter Whitman,5,was a carpent,er,an,d,a house builder, and a staunch supporter of the ideals of the American Revolution. Walt attributed his creativity to the influence of his mother,Louisa Van Velsor Whitman. Walt eventually had seven brothers and sisters, of which he was the second oldest.,6,7,Read his poems aloud. Try to,When Walt was not quite four years old, the Whitmans moved to Brooklyn, New York, where Walts father continued to build and sell houses. It was a difficult time economically, and,Whitmans father suffered many losses selling the houses he built. Walt managed to attend public schools for six years, until the age of eleven, but was forced to go to work as an office,boy,to,earn money for the family after that. This was all the formal education he ever received.,At the age of eleven, Whitman went to work at a law office where he learned writing from,work and a local lending library. This was the beginning of Walts lifelong love of literature.,Among his earliest favorites were the,Arabian Nights,the historical novels and poems,of Sir,Walter Scott,6, and the adventure novels of,8,9,When Walt was not quite four,of another,groundbreaking American writer,James Fenimore,Cooper,7,.,After working in several law offices, he worked as assistant in a physicians office. And finally, Walt went to work for a newspaper. He began as an apprentice,compositor,8, setting type for various local newspapers. Eventually, beginning in his midteens, he also began writing short pieces that appeared in the papers. Like many well-known authors, Whitman began his literary career as a journalist, reporting on a wide variety of topics. He was often asked to review books, operas, and plays during these years, a task that allowed him to indulge in his favorite pastimes: reading and attending the theater, especially opera.,Several years later, Whitman became a schoolteacher on Long Island. From his late teens into his twenties,Whitman alternated,11,12,1112,working as a teacher and as a compositor/journalist, depending,on the kind of work he could find. Whitman was not his average midnineteenthcentury,schoolteacher. For one thing, he refused to hit his students, which made many local residents,suspicious of his “lax” methods as a teacher!,By 1841, Whitman was back again in New York City, writing stories for the papers. It was at this time that he was assigned to cover the New York City lectures of a visiting New England speaker already famous throughout the country,Ralph Waldo,Emerson,9,. Emerson would have a tremendous impact on Whitmans sense of what he could do as a writer. Emerson encouraged his audience to follow their inner promptings in all things. In one of the talks Whitman heard, Emerson called for a new kind of poet, one who would set free the imagination and, by doing so, transform the world.,13,working as a teacher and as a,Around 1841, Whitman did a brief,stint,10,at a New Orleans paper, a period most notable for Whitmans journey to and from New Orleans. He traveled by train to Cumberland, then by,horse-drawn stage,11,to Wheeling, West Virginia, where he caught the steamboat that sailed the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers to New Orleans; he returned a little over two months later by steamboat up the Mississippi and across the Great Lakes, where, after taking the train to Niagara and Albany, he caught another steamboat that took him down the Hudson River to Manhattan. Whitmans fascination with American places was energized by these trips.,Whitman began to work on his first collection of poems, Leaves of Grass when he was 36 years old, in 1855. Whitman even assisted in typesetting the volume. Early responses to Whitmans first book were often very critical.,14,15,Around 1841, Whitman did a br,The,Boston Intelligencer,printed a,scathing,12,review, stating that Whitman “must be some escaped lunatic, raving in pitiable delirium.” This was not an uncommon attitude at the time. Whitman was writing an entirely new kind of poetry. Who had ever seen poems about runaway slaves or about the miracles of everyday life, or a poem that began so boldly as “I celebrate myself?” Many readers disapproved of Whitmans subject matter and his style, neither of which seemed to them “refined” or “lofty” enough.,But Whitman also had his supporters. One of them was none other than Ralph Waldo Emerson, who had done so much to inspire Whitman in the first place. Emerson wrote Whitman a letter calling the book “the most extraordinary piece of wit and wisdom that America has yet contributed.” “I greet you at the beginning of,16,17,The Boston Intelligencer prin,A great career,” Emerson wrote, perhaps recognizing in Whitman the very poet he had called for in his lecture “The Poet.”,Well, unfortunately, a little, not very much. His father died on July 11, 1855, just days after,Leaves of Grass,appeared, leaving Walt to provide for his mother and siblings. Whitman would suffer financial difficulties for much of the rest of his life. He borrowed money and worked when he could as a newspaper editor. In 1860, a Boston publisher offered to print a third edition of,Leaves of Grass,. Whitman earned an impressive $1,000 from this edition, but the publishers went bankrupt shortly after publishing the book, and once again Whitman was strapped for money.,Over the years, Whitman published several editions of,18,19,20,A great career,” Emerson wrot,Leaves of Grass,in his lifetime.,Soon after Whitman prepared the 1860 edition, his brother George was wounded fighting in the battle of Fredericksburg in,the Civil War,13,. Whitman went to Washington, D.C. to be with George, who was recovering in a field hospital from a wound to the cheek. In Washington, Whitman was drawn into the orbit of the war, not as a soldier, but as a volunteer nurse. He worked as a clerk at a government office in the morning and visited the wounded in the Washington hospitals in the afternoon. He assisted these soldiers in any way he could, bringing them small gifts, talking with them, and occasionally writing out letters to family members that the soldiers would dictate to him.,The Civil War from 1861 to 1865 proved to be a crucial period in Whitmans life. Long a vocal opponent of slavery, he was also,21,22,Leaves of Grass in his lifetim,like Abraham Lincoln, a determined supporter of the Union. Lincoln became another great hero to Whitman. He admired Lincolns force of character and his effort to bring an end to slavery and preserve the Union. Devastated when the President was assassinated in 1865 Whitman called it the “crowning crime of the Rebellion” he wrote some of his best poems to mourn the passing of Lincoln.,After working as an office clerk in Washington, D.C. for several years, Whitman suffered a stroke in 1873. He moved to Camden, New Jersey soon after the stroke, where his mother died within three days of his arrival. Whitman would spend the rest of his days, apart from occasional travel, in Camden, often receiving visitors, with whom he was always happy to pass an afternoon in conversation. He made an extraordinary impression on his visitors, confirming his informal title as “The Good Gray Poet.”,23,like Abraham Lincoln, a determ,Whitman did not marry. And he is generally believed never to have had any children. By the,time he died in 1892, he was widely regarded as one of the most important and accomplished, and one of the best-loved writers America had yet produced.,Whitman did not marry. And he,_,Comprehension tasks,Complete the tasks below.,Illustrate your knowledge about Walt Whitman and his life by completing the pre-reading task.,Report to the class about the following aspects of Whitman:,(1) Whitmans life,Birth and family:,Education:,Work:,?,_,_,_,did many jobs as office boy, teacher, compositor, journalist etc.,KEYS,born in a builders family with 7 brothers and sisters, living in poverty,6 years in elementary school,_,_Comprehe,(2) His major poetry collection Leaves of Grass:,(3) His final days:,?,KEYS,His most famous work, receiving scathing reviews at the beginning, but hailed as the work of a poet of the new generation by Emerson,_,_,_,living his final days alone, unmarried, but receiving friends and visitors, enjoying his days as being a respected, best-loved writer, nicknamed “Good Gray Poet”,_,_,_,_,(2) His major poetry collectio,Questions for discussion,1.,What are Whitmans major contributions to modern American poetry?,2.,His poetry collection Leaves of Grass was not well received at the beginning. Why?,3.,What makes Whitmans poems different from the poets before him?,?,He changed Americans sense of poem and poetry. That is, a poet does not need to be an especially talented person; anyone with rich experiences of life, with a passion for life and diversity of human beings and the world, with a desire to express his passions and emotions, can be a poet. Poems dont have to conform to the traditional requirements of meter and rhyme. Poems could be just the songs of life one wishes to sing. For this reason, Walt Whitman is often acclaimed as,father of free verse.,1,keys,When Whitman tried to write his poem in free verse, Americans were not ready yet to receive this new form. This is why critics gave a scathing review, calling it “raving in delirium” (talking nonsense in madness). This shows the fate of the first, creative person whose ideas were often turned down by the world at the beginning.,2,keys,He was an ordinary person, of poor family origin., He did not receive much education at school, but his education was given in the school of life., He did not follow the trodden route of writing poems. He dared to write them in new forms., He dared to argue for his new beliefs about poetry. It should be about “life, diversity of the world, active, lively”, not to be treated like “schoolroom or parlor exercise”., Encourage Ss to extend the list based on their understanding.,3,keys,Questions for discussion ?He c,Studying creative metaphors,In small groups, put a check mark in the small box before the statement if you think it is likely to be said by Walt Whitman. Explain why you think so.,1. Poetry is schoolwork and classroom activities.,2. Poetry is schoolwork and classroom activities.,3. Poetry is a flush of green shadows under huge trees.,4. Poetry is nonsense from a crazy person.,5. Poetry is breathing fresh air, drinking fresh water and enjoying bright sunshine.,6. Poetry is a painful deliberation of words and expressions.,boulder on the seashore.,?,Studying creative metaphors?,7. Poetry is bamboo shoots taking flight up after spring rain.,8. Poetry is ocean waves and flying foams flapping on the,9. Poetry is a board game.,10. Poetry is human beings of diverse colors and personalities.,11. Poetry is colorful pebbles and golden sand on the beach.,12. Poetry is sickness of thought in delirium.,What is poetry in your opinion? Try to write your version using a metaphor .,?,_,KEYS,7. Poetry is bamboo shoots tak,?,Encourage Ss to explain why certain metaphors are possibly or not possibly said by Whitman based on the evidence from the reading passage.,Answers for reference, Poetry is schoolwork and classroom activities.,Poetry is a flush of green shadows under huge trees., Poetry is nonsense from a crazy person.,Poetry is breathing fresh air, drinking fresh water and enjoying bright sunshine., Poetry is a painful deliberation of words and expressions.,Poetry is bamboo shoots taking flight up after spring rain.,?Encourage Ss to explain why c,?,Poetry is ocean waves and flying foams flapping on the boulder on the seashore., Poetry is a board game.,Poetry is human beings of diverse colors and personalities.,Poetry is colorful pebbles and golden sand on the beach., Poetry is sickness of thought in delirium.,? Poetry is ocean waves and f,Word,Tasks,Explain the words and phrases below according to the context in which they are used in the,lecture.,sets its roots deep in the soil:,take flight:,shoots its branches into sky:,1,2,3,4,5,Trees grow their roots deep in the ground.,(Trees/Grass etc.) grow up quickly,(Trees) grow up very quickly,run right off the page,:,travel far and wide:,and extend their branches into the air,travel extensively (when talking about a,widely-traveled person),(when talking about ones writing) active, vivid, interesting, attractive, full of life,KEYS,Word Taskssets its roots deep,6,7,8,9,10,open the locks,a determined person who holds an adamant faith or belief in support of something,unscrew the locks:,a staunch supporter:,attribute creativity to the influence:,a ground-breaking writer:,“lax” method:,owe ones creativity to the,influence of / claim that one is creative because of the influence of ,a creative, pioneering writer,“free-hand” method, not strict,KEYS,678910open the locksa determin,11,12,13,14,15,accomplished:,16,KEYS,successful,talking nonsense in a sorrowful state,raving in pitiable delirium:,scathing review:,provide for his mother and siblings:,be in financially difficult situations,be strapped for money:,crowning crime:,cutting remarks, opinions etc. that will hurt people,provide financial support for his mothers, brothers and sisters,a crime of the top degree, (crowning: to a highest degree, such as a crowning victory, etc.),1112131415accomplished: 16KEYS,Although he is never mentioned by name, Abraham Lincoln is the subject of this poem.,Lincoln was assassinated on April 14, 1865, less than a week after the war had ended. This poem is,one of Whitmans few poems written in meter and rhyme.,O Captain! My Captain!,O Captain! My Captain! Our fearful trip is done,The ship has weathered every,rack,14, the prize we sought is won,The port is near, the bells I hear, the people all exulting,While follow eyes the steady keel, the vessel grim and daring;,But O heart! heart! heart!,O the bleeding drops of red,Where on the deck my Captain lies,Although he is never mentione,Fallen cold and dead.,O Captain! My Captain! Rise up and hear the bells;,Rise up for you the flag is flung for you the bugle trills,For you bouquets and ribboned wreaths for you the shores a-crowding,For you they call, the swaying mass, their eager faces turning;,Here Captain! Dear father!,This arm beneath your head!,It is some dream that on the deck,Youve fallen cold and dead.,My Captain does not answer, his lips are pale and still,My father does not feel my arm, he has no pulse nor will,The ship is anchored safe and sound, its voyage closed and done,Fallen cold and dead.,From fearful trip, the victor ship, comes in with object won;,Exult, O shores, and ring, O bells!,But I, with mournful tread,Walk the deck my Captain lies,Fallen cold and dead.,Write a brief paraphrase for each stanza.,Stanza One,Stanza Two,Stanza Three,Teaching,Suggestions,From fearful trip, the victor,Questions for discussion,1. Interpret the poem and discuss the use of symbols in the poem.,2. What does the following quotation mean?,It is some dream that on the deck,Youve fallen cold and dead.,3. Is the poet singing a song (elegy) or telling a story?,4. Discuss the metric and rhyming patterns of this poem. You may find the slight differences,in the number of syllables and the rhyming patterns across three stanzas. What is the,advantage of the rhyming variation in this poem?,KEYS,Questions for discuss
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