6.3.-10.3.

We will discuss Whitman´s Song of Myself

You find some study materials related to Whitman in this week´s section below.

- in "Walt Whitman´s preface to Leaves of Grass", you find some passages, which underline Whitman´s adherence to transcendentalist ideas. (You may look into any of the texts recommended in SIS:  Cunliffe; Bradbury-Ruland; Elliot; Hart; Marcus-Sollors.) There´ s unbeatable optimism in Whitman, about America. This is not shared any longer by modernist and modern American poets who were inspired by Whitman´s all-embracing American poetic in the 20th century (see the ppt "Whitman and the Whitmasque Line"). However, in a commentary to this document, I added a link to Amanda Gorman´s reading of her poem at the inauguration of President Joe Biden: it is an extraordinary example of American-bound poetic optimism (though not "whitmanesque" in poetic style) at present.

- in "Song of Myself, 1855 - initial part", you find sections of the poem that are pertinent. I´d like you to notice the means of composition of the poem - the free verse does not mean that the poem is not organized: notice anaphora (repetition of some words at the beginning of successive lines, with a frequent stress on "I" and "You" - in relation to this, how individualistic is Whitman´s poetry?; see e.g. the line "For every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you."... and other passages. Also, notice some occasional sounds of rhythm, some occasional rhyming and aliteration. On the other hand, we can notice many examples of Whitman´s famous enumerations (or "catalogues").

Prepare for the next session:

The next session will take place on the 14th March. The topic will be The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain. I hope you will have enough time and be able to finish reading the novel by the time of the session. I supply study material (ppt presentation) about Twain and his work that can help.

Use the Project Gutenberg version, which will be easy to share in class: https://www.gutenberg.org/files/76/76-h/76-h.htm (SEE also the period illustrations in it)

You will again work in groups while preparating for the session, answering the 3 questions stated below, but everyone in a group will choose an identified chapter, or chapters of the novel to prepare a question for the whole class. Please, emphasize the relation of your individully chosen chapters to the development of the whole story and to its themes. 

Questions for the groups:

- facts of life along the Mississippi that are depicted

- the effects of the narrative that uses the voice of the teenage narrator, in his observations, in the relation of various incidents and happenings

- The main hero(es)

You can use a Czech translation as a help for clarifying some more difficult content.

Please, write some summaries of the group discussions into the forum prepared in the section for next week.