1 沃尔特 慧特曼

1 沃尔特. 惠特曼

Walt Whitman

Walt Whitman was born in Eighteen-Nineteen in New York City. During his long life, he watched America grow from a young nation to the strongest industrial power in the world. Whitman was influenced by events around him. But his poetry speaks of the inner self. He celebrated great people like President Abraham Lincoln. He also celebrated the common people.

As a young man, Whitman worked as a school teacher, a printer and a newspaper reporter. He was thirty-six years old when he published his first book of poetry in Eighteen-Fifty-Five. He called it Leaves of Grass. It had only twelve poems. The poems are written in free verse. The lines do not follow any set form. Some lines are short. Some lines are long. The words at the end of each line do not have a similar sound. They do not rhyme.

One of America ’s greatest thinkers and writers immediately recognized the importance of leaves of Grass. Ralph Waldo Emerson praised Whitman’s work. But most other poets and writers said nothing or denounced it.

Most readers also rejected Whitman ’s poems. The new form of his poetry surprised many people. His praise of the human body and sexual love shocked many people. Whitman was homesexual. He loved men. Some people disliked Whitman’s opinions of society. He rejected the desire for money and power.

Even his own brother told Whitman that he should stop writing poetry. But Whitman had many things to say. And he continued to say them. Readers began to understand that America had a great new poetic voice.

Experts today praise Leavers of Grass as a major literary work. In his time, Whitman thought of it as a work in progress. He re-published the book every few years for the rest of his life. Each time he added new poems. And he changed many of the old lines. The last version of the book contained more than four hundred poems. By then, Whitman’s fame had spread to many nations.

In Eighteen-Seventy-Three Walt Whitman suffered a stroke. He spent the last years of his life in Camden, New Jersey. He wrote more poems. He also wrote about political and democratic policies.

Whitman was poor and weak during the last years of his life. He died in Eighteen-Ninety-Two. But if we can believe his poetry, death held no terrors for him.

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沃尔特. 惠特曼于1819年出生于纽约。在他的一生中，他目睹了美国从一个年轻的国家成长为世界上最强大的工业国家的过程。惠特曼深受他周围事物的影响。但是他的诗歌却抒发了自己的内心世界。他歌颂像亚布拉罕．林肯总统那样伟大的人物，也歌颂贫民大众。

惠特曼年轻时曾经当过学校老师，印刷工和报社记者。他在1855年36岁时出版了第一部诗集，取名为[[草叶集]]。这部诗集只有12首诗，都是用自由体写成的。这些诗句不遵循任何一种固定形式。有些诗句很短，有些则长，每行最后一个词的音节也不相似。就是说这些诗句不押韵。

一位美国伟大的思想家兼作家立即意识到了[[草叶集]]的重要性。拉尔夫．沃尔多．爱默生十分欣赏惠特曼的作品。但是大多数诗人和作家要么不发表任何意见，要么对其公开进行谴责。大多数读者也抵制惠特曼的诗。他诗歌的新形式让很多人感到惊讶。他对人体和性爱的赞扬让很多人感到震惊。惠特曼是一个同性恋。他爱男人。一些人也不喜欢惠特曼对社会的看法。他排斥人对金钱和权力的欲望。

即使是惠特曼自己的兄弟也劝他不要再写诗歌。但是惠特曼有很多事情要说，因此他继续写。读者们开始意识到，美国有了一种伟大的新式诗体语言。

现今的学者们称赞[[草叶集]]是一部重要的文学作品。在惠特曼时代，他把它看成是一部尚在创作中的作品。在他生命余下的时间里，他每隔几年就把这本书重新出版一次，每次都在里面加几首新诗，同时也修改了很多老的诗句。这本书的最后一个版本包含400多首诗。而那时，惠特曼的名声已经传到了很多国家。

1873年，惠特曼中风了。他生命的最后一段时光是在新泽西的卡姆登度过的。他写了更多的诗，还对政治和民主政策进行评论。

惠特曼在他人生的最后几年里生活贫寒，而且体弱多病。他于1892年去世。但是, 只要我们相信他的诗歌，死亡就不曾吓倒他。