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Walt Whitman

Leaves of Grass (Bantam Classics) Mass Market Paperback – July 1, 1983

by Walt Whitman (Author)

4.5 3,565 ratings

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One of the great innovative figures in American letters, Walt Whitman created a daringly new kind of poetry that became a major force in world literature. Leaves Of Grass is his one book. First published in 1855 with only twelve poems, it was greeted by Ralph Waldo Emerson as "the wonderful gift . . . the most extraordinary piece of wit and wisdom that America has yet contributed." Over the course of Whitman's life, the book reappeared in many versions, expanded and transformed as the author's experiences and the nation's history changed and grew. Whitman's ambition was to creates something uniquely American. In that he succeeded. His poems have been woven into the very fabric of the American character. From his solemn masterpieces "When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom'd" and "Out of the Cradle Endlessly Rocking" to the joyous freedom of "Song of Myself," "I Sing the Body Electric," and "Song of the Open Road," Whitman's work lives on, an inspiration to the poets of later generations.

Print length

528 pages
Language

English
Publisher

Bantam Classics
Publication date

July 1, 1983
Dimensions

4.12 x 1.15 x 6.85 inches
ISBN-10

0553211161
ISBN-13

978-0553211160
Lexile measure

NP
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Amazon Customer

Don't buy books from Amazon

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on January 26, 2023

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Order your book from your local bookstore. (I used IndieBound to order from mine.) Why? Because Amazon ships books primarily in lightly-padded bags. This is baffling. They shipped this lovely leatherbound book in a bag! And OF COURSE it arrived damaged. This has happened so many times to me with other books, I don't know why I bother anymore. I returned it and did what I should have done and that's order it from the local bookstore. I even told them to only call me to pick it up if the book arrives undamaged. They responded super positively to this request. I received the book from not-Amazon in perfect condition.

The book is beautiful. The pages are a smidgen thin (the letters ghost through the page) but the page color is this gorgeous light yellow and the type and flourishes throughout are just so pretty. The cover is understated and perfect, IMHO. I really like this book.

Five stars for the book. One star for Amazon's inability to ship books properly.

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LA Reader

Beautiful

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on April 15, 2023

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A beautiful book: the Rockwell Kent illustrations and binding make it even more special. Arrived quickly and in perfect condition from online seller logofat.

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uni aum Entertainment

Literary Curiosities Lovers

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on November 30, 2013

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Walt Whitman Leaves of Grass poetry collection are loosely connected and each represents a celebration of his philosophy of life and humanity. This books discussion of delight in sensual pleasures during a time when such candid displays were considered immoral. Where much previous poetry, especially English, relied on symbolism, allegory, and meditation on the religious and spiritual, Leaves of Grass (particularly the original edition) exalted the body and the material world. Whitman's poetry praises nature and the individual human's role in it. Whitman does not diminish the role of the mind or the spirit; he elevates the human form and mind, deeming both worthy of poetic praise.

With one exception, the poems do not rhyme or follow standard rules for meter and line length. Among the poems in the collection are "Song of Myself", "I Sing the Body Electric", "Out of the Cradle Endlessly Rocking".

On May 15, 1855, Whitman registered the title Leaves of Grass with the clerk of the United States District Court, Southern District of New Jersey, and received its copyright. The first edition was published in Brooklyn at the Fulton Street printing shop on July 4, 1855. Whitman paid for and did much of the typesetting for the first edition himself. The book did not include the author's name, instead offering an engraving by Samuel Hollyer depicting the poet in work clothes and a hat, arms at his side. Early advertisements for the first edition appealed to "lovers of literary curiosities".

The first edition was very small, collecting only twelve unnamed poems in 95 pages. Whitman 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." Bound in its trademark green cloth cover. 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.

Originally written at a time of significant urbanization in America, Leaves of Grass responds to the impact urbanization has on the masses.

When the book was first published, Whitman was fired from his job at the Department of the Interior after Secretary of the Interior read it and said he found it offensive. Poet John Greenleaf Whittier was said to have thrown his 1855 edition into the fire. 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." Critic Rufus Wilmot Griswold reviewed Leaves of Grass in the November 10, 1855, issue of The Criterion, calling it "a mass of stupid filth" and categorized its author as a filthy free lover. 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. Whitman included the full review, including the innuendo, in a later edition of Leaves of Grass.

Emerson urged Whitman to tone down the sexual imagery in 1860.

On March 1, 1882, Boston district attorney demanded the removal of the poems "A Woman Waits for Me" and "To a Common Prostitute", as well as changes to "Song of Myself", "From Pent-Up Aching Rivers", "I Sing the Body Electric", "Spontaneous Me", "Native Moments", "The Dalliance of the Eagles", "By Blue Ontario’s Shore", "Unfolded Out of the Folds", "The Sleepers", and "Faces".

Whitman rejected the censorship, "The list whole & several is rejected by me, & will not be thought of under any circumstances." The poet believed the controversy would increase sales, which proved true. Though banned by retailers went through five editions of 1,000 copies each. Its first printing, sold out in a day.

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F.Hoffman

Worth the effort.

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on June 12, 2013

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Like listening to a very good friend who drones on and on, but you listen because you know he is going to say something really worth waiting for.

I knew little about Whitman or Leaves of Grass. I had read or heard some quotes which I liked, so I started reading. At first it was very annoying! He used exclamation points at the end of every sentence! (Or if not an exclamation, he put it all in parentheses.) Again and again with the exclamation points! (Again and again with the parentheses.) And the subjects I did not find that interesting, or the wording very well formed.

The first 3rd of the book is a collection of random thoughts, mostly about how great America is. On and on about things he might just have read about in the newspaper, with very little evidence of personal experience. List after list. And when he was not writing about America, he was writing about being gay. Now I don't know if he was or was not, I only know what I read; and it sure seemed gay to me. I just did not see what was so great about this book. What I did not realize at the time was that I was being introduced to his voice, his individual way of expressing himself.

The middle 3rd of the book has as its subject the Civil War. Here he comes into his own. I could feel his horror, his empty numbness, his pride and his despair. Nearly every poem is a gem, nearly every thought, a revelation. One exception is "O Captain! My Captain!, which although great poetry, is not written in the voice I had come to know. It seems to me to have been written for general consumption, not in the private, personal style of the rest of the book.

The last 3rd of the book is the recovery from, or rather ghosts from, the Civil War; and also about becoming old. Again here, I had to be patient and wade through quite a few verses to find something that spoke to me. The wounds from the war were real, the dreams acquiring the patina of chivalry. Also, as with most folks now growing old, he was old a long time. He tended to repeat himself and complain about the maladies of being old again and again... as we do.

This is a personal life's journey of one man, in his unique voice. I am glad he shared it with me.

(The kindle edition I read had some formatting issues, but the Amazon website indicates that is being corrected).

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Thiago Sardenberg

um clássico para ser revisitado

Reviewed in Brazil 🇧🇷 on July 30, 2021

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Meu contato inicial com Whitman foi na faculdade, num tempo em que as leituras eram mais por obrigação que por prazer. Mas algo nos poucos poemas que li de Whitman, na época, tirados deste Leaves of Grass, conseguiu chamar minha atenção o suficiente para que, mesmo anos depois, a vontade de ler a obra completa permanecesse.
E assim foi; demorou, mas eis que mais de uma década depois, com essa edição tão bonita em capa dura, me aventuro pela primeira vez pelas muitas páginas da obra completa. Incrível como achei o livro atual, mesmo tendo sido escrito no século XIX! Não por acaso, obviamente, o consideraram na época ofensivo e imoral. Hoje eu o chamo de belo e profundo: fala da alma e do corpo sem pudores, de liberdade, empatia e diversidade, coisas que ainda hoje discutimos. Da natureza - e da natureza humana.
No fim, acabou que se tornou um dos meus livros favoritos de poesia. Certamente, o revisitarei no futuro! Recomendo muito.

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Adrian Ang

Canterbury Classic Collection. Affordable and good quality.

Reviewed in Singapore 🇸🇬 on November 22, 2021

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Canterbury Classic Collection. Affordable and good quality.

海原泰山

☆最も安価で、最も便利な、ホイットマンの、「草の葉っぱ」の、原著！「英詩入門」としても、好適！

Reviewed in Japan 🇯🇵 on November 6, 2016

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　ココの所、数年、個人的には、英語の読書を、していなかった。
　それで、何か、英語のmetre文の、感応力を、身に付けたい、と、思った。
　そこで、適度に、アメリカ英語で、適度にイギリス英語で、有るものを－
　－と、思ったら、自ずと、Whitman の、「Leaves of Grass（草の葉っぱ）」と、決まった。
　当初、Cambridge University Press の、大きな版を、探したが、見当たらない。
　そこで、逆に、最も、安価な、O.U.P.の、Oxford World's Classics の版にした。
　この、Oxford World's Classics の版ならば、１９８０年代ならば、ポケット版の、ハードカヴァーの、文庫で、千円しなかったからだ。
　「Leaves of Grass の、全篇では無く、Choices でも、良い」と、思っていた。
　
　だが、この土壇場での変更が、かえって、良かった。
　送られて来たのは、予想と違い、ペーパーバックで、新書よりも、大きめの版だった。
　紙質は、白く、印刷活字も、読みやすい書体だ。
　こう言った点、Oxford University Press の、良心を、感じる。

　この本が、どう言う本であるか、については、Editor（編者）の、Jerome Loving氏が、巻頭の、Introduction で、良く述べられているので、そちらを、お読み下さい。
　どうやら、このOxford World's Classics の版は、abridged では無く、Whitman の、死後出版の、詩も、収めたモノの、模様。
　念のために、申し上げておくが、これは、学生諸兄が、英文和訳の修行に、用いるのでは無く、趣味としての、読書として、楽しむべき、本です。
　Whitmanの言葉－"Take off your hat to nothing known or unknown or to any man or number of men. Go freely with powerful uneducated persons and with the young and with the mothers of families,read these leaves in the open air every season of every year of your life."
　－要するに、この、「Leaves of Grass（草の葉っぱ）」を、読むのに、若すぎることも、遅すぎることも、無い。－老若男女は、問わない、と言うワケです。

　この詩集の価格は、元々、￡８．９９　の本だが、日本円で、１０００円は、「しない」。
　
　

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Srotapatti

Ótimo, Recomendo.

Reviewed in Brazil 🇧🇷 on March 8, 2021

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Ótimo, Recomendo.

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haru

1855年初版バージョン

Reviewed in Japan 🇯🇵 on August 31, 2018

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自分が長年持っている分厚いのはいわゆる臨終版と知り、初版が読みたくて購入。短く、読みやすく、これも魅力的。日本語版は2013年のみすず書房初版バージョンが、解説も含めよく対応していると思いました。

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