/lit/ - Literature

The face that launched a thousand ships against the Old World's literary canon...

>>22790410
Huh. Well that sort of makes sense, you start studying philosophy by reading the history of it. The class on the history of western literature starts in January so maybe that'll do for now.
On another note, I wish I could grow a beard like Mr. Whitman

How tf does he do it? This is the best writing I have ever read. Nothing even comes close. It's beautiful. I almost got hard reading it.

Why do people who have never read Leaves of Grass always assume that it is environmentalist or "nature" literature?

This guy is such a huge faggot. Had to put down Leaves of Grass after the fiftieth poem about democracy.

Everyone knows his poetry but his prose work is really good too. An often forgotten, underrated part of his repertoire

>I heard that you ask’d for something to prove this puzzle the New World,
>And to define America, her athletic Democracy,
>Therefore I send you my poems that you behold in them what you
>wanted.
Did he achieve his goal?

>>21204241
I'm foaming at the mouth

Supporters of free verse generally believe these two things:
1. There have been many great poems written in traditional forms, however...
2. Meter and rhyme are artificial constraints which hold back poetry.
I don't see how these can both be true. If you support free verse but also think Paradise Lost is a great poem, are you saying that Paradise Lost would have been even better if it were written in free verse, and that its meter is a flaw in the poem? Of course, it's possible that a supporter of free verse could disagree with assertion number 1 and believe that all metered poetry is defective, but if that's the case, then there was practically no truly great English poetry written between the Middle English period and the 19th century, which also seems ridiculous.

Whoever you are, I fear you are walking
the walks of dreams,
I fear those realities are to melt from under your
feet and hands;
Even now, your features, joys, speech, house,
trade, manners, troubles, follies, costume,
crimes, dissipate away from you,
Your true soul and body appear before me,
They stand forth out of affairs—out of commerce,
shops, law, science, work, farms, clothes, the
house, medicine, print, buying, selling, eating,
drinking, suffering, begetting, dying,
They receive these in their places, they find these
or the like of these, eternal, for reasons,
They find themselves eternal, they do not find that
the water and soil tend to endure forever —
and they not endure.

Whoever you are, now I place my hand upon you,
that you be my poem,
I whisper with my lips close to your ear,

I have loved many women and men, but I love
none better than you.

O I have been dilatory and dumb,
I should have made my way straight to you long
ago,
I should have blabbed nothing but you, I should
have chanted nothing but you.

I will leave all, and come and make the hymns
of you;
None have understood you, but I understand you,
None have done justice to you, you have not done
justice to yourself,
None but have found you imperfect, I only find no
imperfection in you,
None but would subordinate you, I only am he
who will never consent to subordinate you,
I only am he who places over you no master,
owner, better, god, beyond what waits intrin-
sically in yourself.

Painters have painted their swarming groups, and
the centre figure of all,
From the head of the centre figure spreading a
nimbus of gold-colored light,
But I paint myriads of heads, but paint no head
without its nimbus of gold-colored light,
From my hand, from the brain of every man and
woman it streams, effulgently flowing forever.

The poetry of Walt Whitman is garrulous, ridiculous, and repetitive. He is undoubtedly the most overrated author in the Western Canon and is only worthy of inclusion due to his influence upon American free verse poets.

>>19740816
ABCD

>just happy to be here

Where do I begin with Whitman?

O Janny! my Janny! our fearful post is done,
The Board has weather’d every rack, the (You)s we sought are won,
The oldfags near, the Chads I hear, the Anons all exulting,
While follow eyes the steady shitposts, the Pepes grim and daring;
But O hole! hole! hole!
O the bleeding drops of red,
Where on the bed my Janny lies,
Dilated, cold and dead.


My Janny does not answer, his lips are pale and still,
My Tranny does not work for pay, he heeds not fag nor shill,
The Board is anchor’d safe and sound, its posters gay and fun,
From fearful sneed the victor feed chucks and sucks and won;
Exult Anons, and post thy Memes!
But I in mournful stead,
Shitpost the Board my Janny kept,
Dilated, cold and dead.

Was he a part of romanticism or was he a part of realism?
I've heard people speak of him as a realist because of his portrayals of everyday life yet I feel like his writings are far too pretty, grand and transcendental to fully fit in to the realism category.
Maybe it is just poetrys inherent quality to feel very romantic, I dont know lol.
I'm also sure that the different movements of the 1800s overlapped quite a bit and one could argue that his writing somehow is a blend of several different ideas of the time period.
What does /lit/ think?

>>17612548
>>17612634
>>17612659

Okay, here's what I'm adding:
The Trial, Kafka (I haven't read this one, so I'll write the note for it after I get it.)
The Intellectual Life (Haven't read)
A short collection of poetry by Whitman (ideally one with Song of Myself, I Sing the Body Electric, and When Lilacs, and without the endlessly kitsch O Captain! My captain!)
>Walt Whitman is the American Poet if there is one. This book is a single swell of the ocean of his poetry. Read him at risk of being swept away. [I might also include H.P. Lovecraft's poem dissing Whitman, because I think it's the best advertisement there is for Walt.]
Civil Disobedience, Thoreau
>A scout is obedient. If a scout thinks that laws are unfair, he tries to have them changed in an orderly manner rather than disobeying them. This is from the scout handbook. However, a scout must first obey his moral compass, and ensure that obeying an order is not against his honor. Henry tells us what to do when the laws of our government are so egregious that they violate our duty to God and our country.
Captains Courageous by Rudyard Kipling (Haven't read)

I opted not to include The Power of One or Silent Spring because I just don't think it would spark much interest in them. I am torn on Storm of Spring, because some of them might end up loving it like I did, but a lot of them are interested in the military and I would be afraid of pushing them further in that direction. Maybe that's just me being a pussy though.

I don't know why but his poetry feels off to me, I can see Whitman's appeal but he isn't for me.

Are there any great poets of today, or has the genre been diminished and over saturated with white girl poetry?

>>15986575
Pfffft. Yeah, right.

Did any other great poets, whether before or after him, use similar long, hanging lines?

>>11521792
Dang, never knew that about Joyce/Whitman... Ulysses does read like Whitman in godless world, now that I think about it :-)

Wanna be my literary pen-pal, anon :S

Email is b e l l m 0 3 0 3 @ g m a i l

>>11481653
Learn’d astronomers btfo eternally

Are translated poems worth reading?