Beruflich Dokumente
Kultur Dokumente
Chapter Two The Pool of Tears: Chapter Two opens with Alice
growing to such a tremendous size that her head hits the ceiling.
Alice is unhappy and, as she cries, her tears flood the hallway.
After shrinking down again due to a fan she had picked up, Alice
swims through her own tears and meets a Mouse, who is
swimming as well. She tries to make small talk with him in
elementary French (thinking he may be a French mouse) but her
opening gambit "O est ma chatte?" ("Where is my cat?") offends
the mouse and he tries to escape her.
Chapter Three The Caucus Race and a Long Tale: The sea
of tears becomes crowded with other animals and birds that have
been swept away by the rising waters. Alice and the other
animals convene on the bank and the question among them is
how to get dry again. The Mouse gives them a very dry lecture
on William the Conqueror. A Dodo decides that the best thing to
dry them off would be a Caucus-Race, which consists of everyone
running in a circle with no clear winner. Alice eventually frightens
all the animals away, unwittingly, by talking about her
(moderately ferocious) cat.
Chapter Four The Rabbit Sends a Little Bill: The White
Rabbit appears again in search of the Duchess's gloves and fan.
Mistaking her for his maidservant, Mary Ann, he orders Alice to go
into the house and retrieve them, but once she gets inside she
starts growing. The horrified Rabbit orders his gardener, Bill the
Lizard, to climb on the roof and go down the chimney. Outside,
Alice hears the voices of animals that have gathered to gawk at
her giant arm. The crowd hurls pebbles at her, which turn into
little cakes. Alice eats them, and make her smaller again.
Chapter Five Advice from a Caterpillar: Alice comes upon a
mushroom; sitting on it is a blue Caterpillar smoking a hookah.
The Caterpillar questions Alice and she admits to her current
identity crisis, compounded by her inability to remember a poem.
Before crawling away, the caterpillar tells Alice that one side of
the mushroom will make her taller and the other side will make
her shorter. She breaks off two pieces from the mushroom. One
side makes her shrink smaller than ever, while another causes her
neck to grow high into the trees, where a pigeon mistakes her for
a serpent. With some effort, Alice brings herself back to her
normal height. She stumbles upon a small estate and uses the
mushroom to reach a more appropriate height.
Chapter Six Pig and Pepper: A Fish-Footman has an invitation
for the Duchess of the house, which he delivers to a Frog-
Footman. Alice observes this transaction and, after a perplexing
conversation with the frog, lets herself into the house. The
Duchess's Cook is throwing dishes and making a soup that has
too much pepper, which causes Alice, the Duchess, and her baby
(but not the cook or grinning Cheshire Cat) to sneeze violently.
Alice is given the baby by the Duchess and to her surprise, the
baby turns into a pig. The Cheshire Cat appears in a tree,
directing her to the March Hare's house. He disappears, but his
grin remains behind to float on its own in the air, prompting Alice
to remark that she has often seen a cat without a grin but never a
grin without a cat.
Chapter Seven A Mad Tea-Party: Alice becomes a guest at a
"mad" tea party along with the March Hare, the Hatter, and a very
tired Dormouse who falls asleep frequently, only to be violently
woken up moments later by the March Hare and the Hatter. The
characters give Alice many riddles and stories, including the
famous "Why is a raven like a writing desk?". The Hatter reveals
that they have tea all day because Time has punished him by
eternally standing still at 6 pm (tea time). Alice becomes insulted
and tired of being bombarded with riddles and she leaves,
claiming that it was the stupidest tea party that she had ever
been to.
Chapter Eight The Queen's Croquet Ground: Alice leaves
the tea party and enters the garden, where she comes upon three
living playing cards painting the white roses on a rose tree red
because The Queen of Hearts hates white roses. A procession of
more cards, kings and queens and even the White Rabbit enters
the garden. Alice then meets the King and Queen. The Queen, a
figure difficult to please, introduces her trademark phrase "Off
with his head!", which she utters at the slightest dissatisfaction
with a subject. Alice is invited (or some might say ordered) to play
a game of croquet with the Queen and the rest of her subjects,
but the game quickly descends into chaos. Live flamingos are
used as mallets and hedgehogs as balls, and Alice once again
meets the Cheshire Cat. The Queen of Hearts then orders the Cat
to be beheaded, only to have her executioner complain that this
is impossible since the head is all that can be seen of him.
Because the cat belongs to the Duchess, the Queen is prompted
to release the Duchess from prison to resolve the matter.
Chapter Nine The Mock Turtle's Story: The Duchess is
brought to the croquet ground at Alice's request. She ruminates
on finding morals in everything around her. The Queen of Hearts
dismisses her with the threat of execution and she introduces
Alice to the Gryphon, who takes her to the Mock Turtle. The Mock
Turtle is very sad, even though he has no sorrow. He tries to tell
his story about how he used to be a real turtle in school, which
the Gryphon interrupts so that they can play a game.
Chapter Ten Lobster Quadrille: The Mock Turtle and the
Gryphon dance to the Lobster Quadrille, while Alice recites (rather
incorrectly) "'Tis the Voice of the Lobster". The Mock Turtle sings
them "Beautiful Soup" during which the Gryphon drags Alice away
for an impending trial.
Chapter Eleven Who Stole the Tarts?: Alice attends a trial in
which the Knave of Hearts is accused of stealing the Queen's
tarts. The jury is composed of various animals, includingBill the
Lizard; the White Rabbit is the court's trumpeter; and the judge is
the King of Hearts. During the proceedings, Alice finds that she is
steadily growing larger. The dormouse scolds Alice and tells her
she has no right to grow at such a rapid pace and take up all the
air. Alice scoffs and calls the dormouse's accusation ridiculous
because everyone grows and she cannot help it. Meanwhile,
witnesses at the trial include the Hatter, who displeases and
frustrates the King through his indirect answers to the
questioning, and the Duchess's cook.
Chapter Twelve Alice's Evidence: Alice is then called up as a
witness. She accidentally knocks over the jury box with the
animals inside, and the King orders the animals to be placed back
into their seats before the trial continues. The King and Queen
order Alice to be gone, citing Rule 42 ("All persons more than a
mile high to leave the court"), but Alice disputes their judgement
and refuses to leave. She argues with the King and Queen of
Hearts over the ridiculous proceedings, eventually refusing to
hold her tongue. The Queen shouts her familiar "Off with her
head!" but Alice is unafraid, calling them out as just a pack of
cards, just as they start to swarm over her. Alice's sister wakes
her up from a dream, brushing what turns out to be some leaves,
and not a shower of playing cards, from Alice's face. Alice leaves
her sister on the bank to imagine all the curious happenings for
herself.
GREAT EXPECTATIONS
That same day, Tess participates in the village May Dance, where
she meets Angel Clare, youngest son of Reverend James Clare,
who is on a walking tour with his two brothers. He stops to join
the dance and partners several other girls. Angel notices Tess too
late to dance with her, as he is already late for a promised
meeting with his brothers. Tess feels slighted.
Tess' father gets too drunk to drive to the market that night, so
Tess undertakes the journey herself. However, she falls asleep at
the reins, and the family's only horse encounters a speeding
wagon and is fatally wounded. Tess feels so guilty over the horse's
death that she agrees, against her better judgement, to visit Mrs
d'Urberville, a rich widow who lives in the nearby town of
Trantridge, and "claim kin". She is unaware that, in reality, Mrs
d'Urberville's husband Simon Stoke adopted the surname even
though he was unrelated to the real d'Urbervilles.
Tess goes home to her father's cottage, where she keeps almost
entirely to her room. The following summer, she gives birth to a
sickly boy who lives only a few weeks. On his last night alive,
Tess baptises him herself, because her father would not allow the
parson to visit, stating that he didn't want the parson to "pry into
their affairs". The child is given the name 'Sorrow' and Tess
arranges his burial in the "shabby corner" of the churchyard
reserved for unbaptised infants. Tess adds a homemade cross to
the grave with flowers in an empty marmalade jar.
Phase the Third: The Rally (1624)
More than two years after the Trantridge debacle, Tess, now
twenty, has found employment outside the village, where her past
is not known. She works for Mr. and Mrs. Crick as a milkmaid at
Talbothays Dairy. There, she befriends three of her fellow
milkmaids, Izz, Retty, and Marian, and meets again Angel Clare,
now an apprentice farmer who has come to Talbothays to learn
dairy management. Although the other milkmaids are in love with
him, Angel singles out Tess, and the two fall in love.
Angel spends a few days away from the dairy, visiting his family
at Emminster. His brothers Felix and Cuthbert, both ordained
Church of England ministers, note Angel's coarsened manners,
while Angel considers them staid and narrow-minded. The Clares
have long hoped that Angel would marry Mercy Chant,
a pious schoolmistress, but Angel argues that a wife who knows
farm life would be a more practical choice. He tells his parents
about Tess, and they agree to meet her. His father, the Reverend
James Clare, tells Angel about his efforts to convert the local
populace, mentioning his failure to tame a young miscreant
named Alec d'Urberville.
Angel returns to Talbothays Dairy and asks Tess to marry him. This
puts Tess in a painful dilemma: Angel obviously thinks her a virgin
and she shrinks from confessing her past. Such is her love for him
that she finally agrees to the marriage, explaining that she
hesitated because she had heard he hated old families and
thought he would not approve of her d'Urberville ancestry.
However, he is pleased by this news because he thinks it will
make their match more suitable in the eyes of his family.
Tess returns home for a time but, finding this unbearable, decides
to join Marian at a starve-acre farm called Flintcomb-Ash; they are
later joined by Izz. On the road, she is again recognised and
insulted by Groby, who proves to be her new employer. At the
farm, the three former milkmaids perform hard physical labour.
Alec and Tess are each shaken by their encounter, and Alec begs
Tess never to tempt him again as they stand beside an ill-omened
stone monument called the Cross-in-Hand. However, Alec soon
comes to Flintcomb-Ash to ask Tess to marry him, and she tells
him she is already married. He begins stalking her, despite
repeated rebuttals, returning at Candlemas and again in early
spring, when Tess is hard at work feeding a threshing machine. He
tells her he is no longer a preacher and wants her to be with him.
When he insults Angel, she slaps him, drawing blood. Tess then
learns from her sister, Liza-Lu, that her father, John, is ill and that
her mother is dying. Tess rushes home to look after them. Her
mother soon recovers, but her father unexpectedly dies from a
heart condition.
In the meantime, Angel has been very ill in Brazil and, his farming
venture having failed, heads home to England. On the way, he
confides his troubles to a stranger, who tells him that he was
wrong to leave his wife; what she was in the past should matter
less than what she might become. Angel begins to repent his
treatment of Tess.
Upon his return to his family home, Angel has two letters waiting
for him: Tess's angry note and a few cryptic lines from "two well-
wishers" (Izz and Marian), warning him to protect his wife from
"an enemy in the shape of a friend". He sets out to find Tess and
eventually locates Joan, now well-dressed and living in a pleasant
cottage. After responding evasively to his enquiries, she tells him
Tess has gone to live inSandbourne, a fashionable seaside resort.
There, he finds Tess living in an expensive boarding house under
the name "Mrs. d'Urberville." When he asks for her, she appears
in startlingly elegant attire and stands aloof. He tenderly asks her
forgiveness, but Tess, in anguish, tells him he has come too late;
thinking he would never return, she yielded at last to Alec
d'Urberville's persuasion and has become his mistress. She gently
asks Angel to leave and never come back. He departs, and Tess
returns to her bedroom, where she falls to her knees and begins
a lamentation. She blames Alec for causing her to lose Angel's
love a second time, accusing Alec of having lied when he said that
Angel would never return to her.
Plot
Hester, hearing rumors that she may lose Pearl, goes to speak to
Governor Bellingham. With him are ministers Wilson and
Dimmesdale. Hester appeals to Dimmesdale in desperation, and
the minister persuades the governor to let Pearl remain in
Hester's care.
Because Dimmesdale's health has begun to fail, the townspeople
are happy to have Chillingworth, a newly arrived physician, take
up lodgings with their beloved minister. Being in such close
contact with Dimmesdale, Chillingworth begins to suspect that
the minister's illness is the result of some unconfessed guilt. He
applies psychological pressure to the minister because he
suspects Dimmesdale to be Pearl's father. One evening, pulling
the sleeping Dimmesdale's vestment aside, Chillingworth sees a
symbol that represents his shame on the minister's pale chest.
Major theme
Elmer Kennedy-Andrews remarks that Hawthorne in "The Custom-
house" sets the context for his story and "tells us about
'romance', which is his preferred generic term to describe The
Scarlet Letter, as his subtitle for the book 'A Romance' would
indicate." In this introduction, Hawthorne describes a space
between materialism and "dreaminess" that he calls "a neutral
territory, somewhere between the real world and fairy-land, where
the Actual and the Imaginary may meet, and each imbues itself
with nature of the other". This combination of "dreaminess" and
realism gave the author space to explore major themes.
Other themes
As a result, she retreats into her own mind and her own thinking.
Her thoughts begin to stretch and go beyond what would be
considered by the Puritans as safe or even Christian. She still sees
her sin, but begins to look on it differently than the villagers ever
have. She begins to believe that a person's earthly sins don't
necessarily condemn them. She even goes so far as to tell
Dimmesdale that their sin has been paid for by their daily
penance and that their sin won't keep them from getting to
heaven, however, the Puritans believed that such a sin surely
condemns.
But Hester had been alienated from the Puritan society, both in
her physical life and spiritual life. When Dimmesdale dies, she
knows she has to move on because she can no longer conform to
the Puritans' strictness. Her thinking is free from religious bounds
and she has established her own different moral standards and
beliefs.
MOBY DICK
Plot
Southeast of the Cape of Good Hope, the Pequod makes the first
of nine sea-encounters, or "gams", with other ships: Ahab hails
the Goney (Albatross) to ask whether they have seen the White
Whale, but the trumpet through which her captain tries to speak
falls into the sea before he can answer. Ishmael explains that
because of Ahab's absorption with Moby Dick, he sails on without
the customary "gam", which defines as a "social meeting of two
(or more) Whale-ships", in which the two captains remain on one
ship and the chief mates on the other. In the second gam off the
Cape of Good Hope, with the Town-Ho, a Nantucket whaler, the
concealed story of a "judgment of God" is revealed, but only to
the crew: a defiant sailor who struck an oppressive officer is
flogged, and when that officer led the chase for Moby Dick, he fell
from the boat and was killed by the whale.
The Pequod next gams with the Jungfrau from Bremen. Both ships
sight whales simultaneously, with the Pequod winning the
contest. The three harpooneers dart their harpoons, and Flask
delivers the mortal strike with a lance. The carcass sinks, and
Queequeg barely manages to escape. The Pequod's next gam is
with the French whaler Bouton de Rose, whose crew is ignorant of
the ambergris in the head of the diseased whale in their
possession. Stubb talks them out of it, but Ahab orders him away.
Days later, an encounter with a harpooned whale prompts Pip, a
little black cabin-boy from Alabama, to jump out of his whale
boat. The whale must be cut loose, because the line has Pip so
entangled in it. Furious, Stubb orders Pip to stay in the whale
boat, but Pip later jumps again, and is left alone in the immense
sea and has gone insane by the time he is picked up.
Cooled sperm oil congeals and must be squeezed back into liquid
state; blubber is boiled in the try-pots on deck; the warm oil is
decanted into casks, and then stowed in the ship. After the
operation, the decks are scrubbed. The coin hammered to the
main mast shows three Andes summits, one with a flame, one
with a tower, and one a crowing cock. Ahab stops to look at the
doubloon and interprets the coin as signs of his firmness, volcanic
energy, and victory; Starbuck takes the high peaks as evidence of
the Trinity; Stubb focuses on the zodiacal arch over the
mountains; and Flask sees nothing of any symbolic value at all.
The Manxman mutters in front of the mast, and Pip declines the
verb "look".
The Pequod next gams with the Samuel Enderby of London,
captained by Boomer, a down-to-earth fellow who lost his right
arm to Moby Dick. Nevertheless, he carries no ill will toward the
whale, which he regards not as malicious, but as awkward. Ahab
puts an end to the gam by rushing back to his ship. The narrator
now discusses the subjects of 1) whalers supply; 2) a glen in
Tranque in the Arsacides islands full of carved whale bones, fossil
whales, whale skeleton measurements; 3) the chance that the
magnitude of the whale will diminish and that the leviathan might
perish.
Leaving the Samuel Enderby, Ahab wrenches his ivory leg and
orders the carpenter to fashion him another. Starbuck informs
Ahab of oil leakage in the hold. Reluctantly, Ahab orders the
harpooneers to inspect the casks. Queequeg, sweating all day
below decks, develops a chill and soon is almost mortally feverish.
The carpenter makes a coffin for Queequeg, who fears an
ordinary burial at sea. Queequeg tries it for size, with Pip sobbing
and beating his tambourine, standing by and calling himself a
coward while he praises Queequeg for his gameness. Yet
Queequeg suddenly rallies, briefly convalesces, and leaps up,
back in good health. Henceforth, he uses his coffin for a spare
seachest, which is later caulked and pitched to replace
the Pequod's life buoy.
The Pequod sails northeast toward Formosa and into the Pacific
Ocean. Ahab, with one nostril, smells the musk from
the Bashee isles, and with the other, the salt of the waters where
Moby Dick swims. Ahab goes to Perth, the blacksmith, with bag of
racehorse shoenail stubs to be forged into the shank of a special
harpoon, and with his razors for Perth to melt and fashion into a
harpoon barb. Ahab tempers the barb in blood from Queequeg,
Tashtego, and Daggoo.
On the first day of the chase, Ahab smells the whale, climbs the
mast, and sights Moby Dick. He claims the doubloon for himself,
and orders all boats to lower except for Starbuck's. The whale
bites Ahab's boat in two, tosses the captain out of it, and scatters
the crew. On the second day of the chase, Ahab leaves Starbuck
in charge of the Pequod. Moby Dick smashes the three boats that
seek him into splinters and tangles their lines. Ahab is rescued,
but his ivory leg and Fedallah are lost. Starbuck begs Ahab to
desist, but Ahab vows to slay the white whale, even if he would
have to dive through the globe itself to get his revenge.
On the third day of the chase, Ahab sights Moby Dick at noon, and
sharks appear, as well. Ahab lowers his boat for a final time,
leaving Starbuck again on board. Moby Dick breaches and
destroys two boats. Fedallah's corpse, still entangled in the fouled
lines, is lashed to the whale's back, so Moby Dick turns out to be
the hearse Fedallah prophesied. "Possessed by all the fallen
angels", Ahab plants his harpoon in the whale's flank. Moby Dick
smites the whaleboat, tossing its men into the sea. Only Ishmael
survives. The whale now fatally attacks the Pequod. Ahab then
realizes that the destroyed ship is the hearse made of American
wood in Fedallah's prophesy. The whale returns to Ahab, who
stabs at him again. The line loops around Ahab's neck, and as the
stricken whale swims away, the captain is drawn with him out of
sight. Queequeg's coffin comes to the surface, the only thing to
escape the vortex when Pequod sank. For an entire day, Ishmael
floats on it, and then the Rachel, still looking for its lost seamen,
rescues him.
Structure
Point of view
Chapter structure
Bryant and Springer find that the book is structured around the
two consciousnesses of Ahab and Ishmael, with Ahab as a force of
linearity and Ishmael a force of digression. [13] While both have an
angry sense of being orphaned, they try to come to terms with
this hole in their beings in different ways: Ahab with violence,
Ishmael with meditation. And while the plot in Moby-Dick may be
driven by Ahab's anger, Ishmael's desire to get a hold of the
"ungraspable" accounts for the novel's lyricism. [14] Buell sees a
double quest in the book: Ahab's is to hunt Moby Dick, Ishmael's
is "to understand what to make of both whale and hunt". [11]
One of the most distinctive features of the book is the variety of
genres. Bezanson mentions sermons, dreams, travel account,
autobiography, Elizabethan plays, and epic poetry. [15] He calls
Ishmael's explanatory footnotes to establish the documentary
genre "a Nabokovian touch".[16]
Themes
Yet Melville does not offer easy solutions. Ishmael and Queequeg's
sensual friendship initiates a kind of racial harmony that is
shattered when the crew's dancing erupts into racial conflict in
"Midnight, Forecastle" (Ch. 40).[13] Fifty chapters later, Pip suffers
mental disintegration after he is reminded that as a slave he
would be worth less money than a whale. Commodified and
brutalized, "Pip becomes the ship's conscience." [26] His views of
property are another example of wrestling with moral choice. In
Chapter 89, Ishmael expounds the concept of the fast-fish and the
loose-fish, which gives right of ownership to those who take
possession of an abandoned fish or ship, and observes that the
British Empire took possession of American Indian lands in
colonial times in just the way that whalers take possession of an
unclaimed whale.[27]
Style
The elaborate use of the Homeric simile may not have been
learned from Homer himself, yet Matthiessen finds the writing
"more consistently alive" on the Homeric than on the
Shakespearean level, especially during the final chase the
"controlled accumulation" of such similes emphasizes
Ahab's hubris through a succession of land-images, for instance:
"The ship tore on; leaving such a furrow in the sea as when a
cannon-ball, missent, becomes a ploughshare and turns up the
level field" ("The Chase - Second Day," Ch. 134). [37] One
paragraph-long simile describes how the 30 men of the crew
became a single unit:
For as the one ship that held them all; though it was put together
of all contrasting things--oak, and maple, and pine wood; iron, and
pitch, and hemp--yet all these ran into each other in the one
concrete hull, which shot on its way, both balanced and directed
by the long central keel; even so, all the individualities of the
crew, this man's valor, that man's fear; guilt and guiltiness, all
varieties were welded into oneness, and were all directed to that
fatal goal which Ahab their one lord and keel did point to.
("The Chase - Second Day," Ch. 134).
The final phrase fuses the two halves of the comparison, the men
become identical with the ship, which follows Ahab's direction.
The concentration only gives way to more imagery, with the
"mastheads, like the tops of tall palms, were outspreadingly
tufted with arms and legs". All these images contribute their
"startling energy" to the advance of the narrative. When the boats
are lowered, the imagery serves to dwarf everything but Ahab's
will in the presence of Moby Dick.[37] These similes, with their
astonishing "imaginative abundance," are not only invaluable in
creating the dramatic movement, Matthiessen observes: "They
are no less notable for breadth; and the more sustained among
them, for an heroic dignity."[38]
Assimilation of Shakespeare
Background
Autobiographical elements
Ahab seems to have had no model in real life, though his death
may have been based on an actual event. On May 18, 1843,
Melville was aboard The Star, which sailed for Honolulu. Aboard
were two sailors from the Nantucket who could have told him that
they had seen their second mate "taken out of a whaleboat by a
foul line and drowned".[59] The model for the Whaleman's Chapel
of chapter 7 is the Seamen's Bethel on Johnny Cake Hill. Melville
attended a service there shortly before he shipped out on
the Acushnet, and he heard a sermon by the chaplain, 63-year-old
Reverend Enoch Mudge, who is at least in part the model for
Father Mapple. Even the topic of Jonah and the Whale may be
authentic, for Mudge was a contributor to Sailor's Magazine,
which printed in December 1840 the ninth of a series of sermons
on Jonah.[60]
LEAVES OF GRASS
Leaves of Grass is a poetry collection by the American poet Walt
Whitman (18191892). Though the first edition was published in
1855, Whitman spent most of his professional life writing and re-
writing Leaves of Grass,[1] revising it multiple times until his death.
This resulted in vastly different editions over four decadesthe
first a small book of twelve poems and the last a compilation of
over 400.
The poems of Leaves of Grass are loosely connected, with each
representing Whitman's celebration of his philosophy of life and
humanity. This book is notable for its discussion of delight in
sensual pleasures during a time when such candid displays were
considered immoral. Where much previous poetry,
especially English, relied onsymbolism, allegory,
and meditation on the religious and spiritual, Leaves of
Grass (particularly the first edition) exalted the body and
the material world. Influenced byRalph Waldo Emerson and
the Transcendentalist movement, itself an offshoot
of Romanticism, Whitman's poetry praises nature and the
individual human's role in it. However, much like Emerson,
Whitman does not diminish the role of the mind or the spirit;
rather, he elevates the human form and the human mind,
deeming both worthy of poetic praise.
Leaves of Grass was highly controversial during its time for its
explicit sexual imagery, and Whitman was subject to derision by
many contemporary critics. Over time, the collection has
infiltrated popular culture and been recognized as one of the
central works of American poetry.
Initial publication
The first edition was very small, collecting only twelve unnamed
poems in 95 pages.[9] Whitman once said he intended the book to
be small enough to be carried in a pocket. "That would tend to
induce people to take me along with them and read me in the
open air: I am nearly always successful with the reader in the
open air", he explained.[10]About 800 were printed,[11] though only
200 were bound in its trademark green cloth cover. [3] The only
American library known to have purchased a copy of the first
edition was in Philadelphia.[12] The poems of the first edition,
which were given titles in later issues, were "Song of Myself", "A
Song for Occupations", "To Think of Time", "The Sleepers", "I Sing
the Body Electric", "Faces", "Song of the Answerer", "Europe: The
72d and 73d Years of These States", "A Boston Ballad", "There
Was a Child Went Forth", "Who Learns My Lesson Complete?" and
"Great Are the Myths".
The title Leaves of Grass was a pun. "Grass" was a term given by
publishers to works of minor value and "leaves" is another name
for the pages on which they were printed. [9]
Whitman sent a copy of the first edition of Leaves of Grass to
Emerson, the man who had inspired its creation. In a letter to
Whitman, Emerson said "I find it the most extraordinary piece of
wit and wisdom America has yet contributed." [13] He went on, "I
am very happy in reading it, as great power makes us happy."
Republications
The eighth edition in 1889 was little changed from the 1881
version, though it was more embellished and featured several
portraits of Whitman. The biggest change was the addition of an
"Annex" of miscellaneous additional poems. [23]
"Deathbed edition"
By the time this last edition was completed, Leaves of Grass had
grown from a small book of 12 poems to a hefty tome of almost
400 poems.[14] As the volume changed, so did the pictures that
Whitman used to illustrate themthe last edition depicts an older
Whitman with a full beard and jacket, appearing more
sophisticated and wise.
Analysis
When the book was first published, Whitman was fired from his
job at the Department of the Interior after Secretary of the
Interior James Harlan read it and said he found it offensive.
[25]
Poet John Greenleaf Whittier was said to have thrown his 1855
edition into the fire.[13] Thomas Wentworth Higginson wrote, "It is
no discredit to Walt Whitman that he wrote Leaves of Grass, only
that he did not burn it afterwards."[32] Critic Rufus Wilmot
Griswold reviewed Leaves of Grass in the November 10, 1855,
issue of The Criterion, calling it "a mass of stupid filth"[33] and
categorized its author as a filthy free lover.[34] Griswold also
suggested, in Latin, that Whitman was guilty of "that horrible sin
not to be mentioned among Christians", one of the earliest public
accusations of Whitman's homosexuality. [35] Griswold's intensely
negative review almost caused the publication of the second
edition to be suspended.[36] Whitman included the full review,
including the innuendo, in a later edition of Leaves of Grass.[33]
Legacy
In popular culture
Leaves of Grass plays a major role in the John Green novel Paper
Towns. The 1989 film Dead Poets Society makes repeated
references to the poem "O Captain! My Captain!" from Leaves of
Grass, along with other references to Whitman himself.
EMILY DICKINSON
Emily Elizabeth Dickinson (December 10, 1830 May 15,
1886) was an American poet. Dickinson was born in Amherst,
Massachusetts. Although part of a prominent family with strong
ties to its community, Dickinson lived much of her life highly
introverted. After studying at the Amherst Academy for seven
years in her youth, she briefly attended the Mount Holyoke
Female Seminary before returning to her family's house in
Amherst. Considered an eccentric by locals, she developed a
noted penchant for white clothing and became known for her
reluctance to greet guests or, later in life, to even leave her
bedroom. Dickinson never married, and most friendships between
her and others depended entirely upon correspondence.
Life
Emily Elizabeth
Teenage years
During the last year of her stay at the Academy, Emily became
friendly with Leonard Humphrey, its popular new young principal.
After finishing her final term at the Academy on August 10, 1847,
Dickinson began attending Mary Lyon's Mount Holyoke Female
Seminary (which later became Mount Holyoke College) in South
Hadley, about ten miles (16 km) from Amherst.[31] She was at the
seminary for only ten months. Although she liked the girls at
Holyoke, Dickinson made no lasting friendships there. [32] The
explanations for her brief stay at Holyoke differ considerably:
either she was in poor health, her father wanted to have her at
home, she rebelled against the evangelical fervor present at the
school, she disliked the discipline-minded teachers, or she was
simply homesick.[33] Whatever the specific reason for leaving
Holyoke, her brother Austin appeared on March 25, 1848, to
"bring [her] home at all events".[34] Back in Amherst, Dickinson
occupied her time with household activities. [35] She took up baking
for the family and enjoyed attending local events and activities in
the budding college town.[36]
Dickinson was familiar not only with the Bible but also with
contemporary popular literature.[41] She was probably influenced
by Lydia Maria Child's Letters from New York, another gift from
Newton[24] (after reading it, she gushed "This then is a book! And
there are more of them!"[24]). Her brother smuggled a copy
of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's Kavanagh into the house for her
(because her father might disapprove)[42] and a friend lent
her Charlotte Bront's Jane Eyre in late 1849.[43] Jane Eyre's
influence cannot be measured, but when Dickinson acquired her
first and only dog, a Newfoundland, she named him "Carlo" after
the character St. John Rivers' dog.[43] William Shakespeare was
also a potent influence in her life. Referring to his plays, she wrote
to one friend "Why clasp any hand but this?" and to another,
"Why is any other book needed?"[44]
In early 1850, Dickinson wrote that "Amherst is alive with fun this
winter ... Oh, a very great town this is!"[35] Her high spirits soon
turned to melancholy after another death. The Amherst Academy
principal, Leonard Humphrey, died suddenly of "brain congestion"
at age 25.[45] Two years after his death, she revealed to her friend
Abiah Root the extent of her depression:
some of my friends are gone, and some of my friends are
sleeping sleeping the churchyard sleep the hour of evening is
sad it was once my study hour my master has gone to rest,
and the open leaf of the book, and the scholar at school alone,
make the tears come, and I cannot brush them away; I would not
if I could, for they are the only tribute I can pay the departed
Humphrey.[46]
Until 1855, Dickinson had not strayed far from Amherst. That
spring, accompanied by her mother and sister, she took one of
her longest and farthest trips away from home. [51]First, they spent
three weeks in Washington, where her father was
representing Massachusetts in Congress. Then they went
to Philadelphia for two weeks to visit family. In Philadelphia, she
met Charles Wadsworth, a famous minister of the Arch Street
Presbyterian Church, with whom she forged a strong friendship
which lasted until his death in 1882.[52] Despite seeing him only
twice after 1855 (he moved to San Francisco in 1862), she
variously referred to him as "my Philadelphia", "my Clergyman",
"my dearest earthly friend" and "my Shepherd from 'Little
Girl'hood".[53]
Withdrawing more and more from the outside world, Emily began
in the summer of 1858 what would be her lasting legacy.
Reviewing poems she had written previously, she began making
clean copies of her work, assembling carefully pieced-together
manuscript books.[57] The forty fascicles she created from 1858
through 1865 eventually held nearly eight hundred poems. [57] No
one was aware of the existence of these books until after her
death.
The first half of the 1860s, after she had largely withdrawn from
social life,[62] proved to be Dickinson's most productive writing
period.[63] Modern scholars and researchers are divided as to the
cause for Dickinson's withdrawal and extreme seclusion. While
she was diagnosed as having "nervous prostration" by a physician
during her lifetime,[64] some today believe she may have suffered
from illnesses as various as agoraphobia[65] and epilepsy.[66]
Mr Higginson,
Are you too deeply occupied to say if my Verse is alive?
The Mind is so near itself it cannot see, distinctly and I have
none to ask
Should you think it breathed and had you the leisure to tell me, I
should feel quick gratitude
If I make the mistake that you dared to tell me would give me
sincerer honor toward you
I enclose my name asking you, if you please Sir to tell me
what is true?
That you will not betray me it is needless to ask since Honor is
it's [sic] own pawn
Scholar Judith Farr notes that Dickinson, during her lifetime, "was
known more widely as a gardener, perhaps, than as a poet".
[93]
Dickinson studied botany from the age of nine and, along with
her sister, tended the garden at Homestead. [93] During her
lifetime, she assembled a collection of pressed plants in a sixty-
six page leather-bound herbarium. It contained 424 pressed
flower specimens that she collected, classified, and labeled using
the Linnaean system.[94] The Homestead garden was well-known
and admired locally in its time. It has not survived but efforts to
revive it have begun.[95] Dickinson kept no garden notebooks or
plant lists, but a clear impression can be formed from the letters
and recollections of friends and family. Her niece, Martha
Dickinson Bianchi, remembered "carpets of lily-of-the-
valley and pansies, platoons of sweetpeas,hyacinths, enough in
May to give all the bees of summer dyspepsia. There were ribbons
of peony hedges and drifts of daffodils in season, marigolds to
distractiona butterfly utopia".[96] In particular, Dickinson
cultivated scented exotic flowers, writing that she "could inhabit
the Spice Isles merely by crossing the dining room to the
conservatory, where the plants hang in baskets". Dickinson would
often send her friends bunches of flowers with verses attached,
but "they valued the posy more than the poetry". [96]
Later life
After being critically ill for several years, Judge Lord died in March
1884. Dickinson referred to him as "our latest Lost". [106] Two years
before this, on April 1, 1882, Dickinson's "Shepherd from 'Little
Girl'hood", Charles Wadsworth, also had died after a long illness.
Publication
Poetry
Major themes
Legacy