Take a photo of a barcode or cover
jeppelauridsen0703 's review for:
Leaves of Grass
by Walt Whitman
I read the 1855-version, which is only 12 poems including "Song of Myself". It is only around 140 pages. Thank God for that.
This "barbaric yawp" of a poem has not aged well. The I's presumption of being able to speak for everyone, of believing in the inner equality of all, to the point where all social, historical and material differences are wiped out, has, obviously, not turned out well for the American Dream. Whitman's "Open Road" goes, as the poet Louis Simpson has it, "to the used-car lot".
What infantile violence there is in a language that wishes every difference to be wiped out and replaced by some ineffable, universal, American soul, in order for the reality of the I to go unchallenged.
"Song of Myself" does have its moments of lyric quality, but without any recourse to actual social reality, the grand words of Whitman, such as "democracy", and his long listings of American entities fall flat on the page.
That this is the American poem is, sadly, rather fitting. Brutally innocent, proudly ignorant, and written by a Whit(e)man.
This "barbaric yawp" of a poem has not aged well. The I's presumption of being able to speak for everyone, of believing in the inner equality of all, to the point where all social, historical and material differences are wiped out, has, obviously, not turned out well for the American Dream. Whitman's "Open Road" goes, as the poet Louis Simpson has it, "to the used-car lot".
What infantile violence there is in a language that wishes every difference to be wiped out and replaced by some ineffable, universal, American soul, in order for the reality of the I to go unchallenged.
"Song of Myself" does have its moments of lyric quality, but without any recourse to actual social reality, the grand words of Whitman, such as "democracy", and his long listings of American entities fall flat on the page.
That this is the American poem is, sadly, rather fitting. Brutally innocent, proudly ignorant, and written by a Whit(e)man.