Leaves of Grass - 1855 edition

Walt Whitman

Penguin Classics

2005

308 páginas

10h 16m

ISBN-13: 9780143039273

The publication of Leaves of Grass in July 1855 was a landmark event in literary history. Ralph Waldo Emerson judged the book "the most extraordinary piece of wit and wisdom America has yet contributed." Nothing like the volume had ever appeared before. Everything about it-the unusual jacket and title page, the exuberant preface, the twelve free-flowing, untitled poems embracing every realm of experience-was new. The 1855 edition broke new ground in its relaxed style, which prefigured free verse; in its sexual candor; in its images of racial bonding and democratic togetherness; and in the intensity of its affirmation of the sanctity of the physical world.

Resenhas (5)

5 (Perfeito)

More than we know

As a millenial that recently has liked up with the latest Kendrick Lamar's album "Mr. Morale & The Big Steppers", Whitman's poems feel exactly like a deep symbolic Kendrick Lamar song. I know I'm getting the timeline wrongly here because there are hundreds of years separating Lamar and Whitman apart, but what I'm trying to say is that hip hop is not that far from what we consider classic literature as these modern poets like Kendrick himself and Nas (that I've mentioned before in another review) are capable of depicting feelings, places and life experiences onto their music crafts like these poets did back in the day.