Walt Whitman-Leaves of Grass

Biography of Walt Whitman

Walter "Walt" was an American poet, essayist and journalist. A humanist, he was a part of the transition between transcendentalism and realism, incorporating both views in his works. Whitman is among the most influential poets in the American canon, often called the father of free verse. His work was very controversial in its time, particularly his poetry collection Leaves of Grass, which was described as obscene for its overt sexuality. Born on Long Island, Whitman worked as a journalist, a teacher, a government clerk, and in addition to publishing his poetry was a volunteer nurse during the American Civil War. Early in his career, he also produced a temperance novel, Franklin Evans (1842). Whitman's major work, Leaves of Grass, was first published in 1855 with his own money. The work was an attempt at reaching out to the common person with an American epic. He continued expanding and revising it until his death in 1892. After a stroke towards the end of his life, he moved to Camden, New Jersey, where his health further declined. He died at age 72 and his funer . Whitman's work breaks the boundaries of poetic form and is generally prose-like. He also used unusual images and symbols in his poetry, including rotting leaves, tufts of straw, and debris. He also openly wrote about death and sexuality, including prostitution. He is often labeled as the father of free verse, though he did not invent it. Whitman wrote in the preface to the 1855 edition of Leaves of Grass, "The proof of a poet is that his country absorbs him as affectionately as he has absorbed it." He believed there was a vital, symbiotic relationship between the poet and society. This connection was emphasized especially in "Song of Myself" by using an all-powerful firstperson narration. As an American epic, it deviated from the historic use of an elevated hero and instead assumed the identity of the common people. Leaves of Grass also responded to the impact that recent urbanization in the United States had on the masses. al became a public spectacle.

Leaves of Grass
Through "Leaves of Grass" the reader is given a truly American collection of poems that shows what was great about America, along with its problems, yet leaves us with a tone of optimism and happiness overall. Whitman shows us he was happy to be alive and live quietly among everything else. He shows us that we are really all the same, and that love is more important than hate or war. We see that death is not a bad thing in itself, but the horrific deaths that come with any war are not necessary. The true beauty and nature and peacefulness of life of all kinds is shown, along with the collective link through everything, throughout America, and even further on. I really enjoyed focusing on every last detail that I could get my mind around and seeing Whitman's spirit and outlook on everything through his lasting poetry.

When the famous English logician and philosopher Alfred North's Vatheda (Alfred North Whitehead) asked whether there was something unique and specifically on the U.S.answered just one word: "Whitman." But that happened thirty years after the poet's death, and originality is characteristic that has ever been denied in this case. What is the poetry of Walt Whitman (Walt Whitman, 1819-1892) missing, according to some critics of his collection Leaves of Grass (Leaves oj Grass, 1855), were the admixture of art. So, for example, a London magazine that same year, said that "Walt Whitman equally familiar with art how many pigs with math. " What, then, contained the first Whitman Collection twelve songs that the cover is not even have a name of the author only his picture, cause this kind of evaluation? What made it possible to get something that is considered bizarre, barbaric and ignorant turn, by almost general opinion, one of the highest take-off of American poetry? Although the collection Leaves of Grass Whitman experienced the death of eight editions through which grew, expanded and changed, the basic features of poetry, which is the form as well as the content remained the same and equally unusual, especially for the nineteenth century. Whitman, in fact, introduced free verse in poetry that contains neither rhyme nor fixed meter or other common versifikacijska resources. They are replaced Tom and colloquial verse irregular length, open form poetic rhythm comes from neematizovane pronounced shifts and nenaglaenih syllables Vitmenov free verse, although not original, as it appears in the English, early 17th century in the translation of the Bible, is extremely realization of the romantic

idea of organic forms, forms that should come from of the offense and to express his individuality. Content or messages Vitmenovih most characteristic poems are also essentially romantic or speaking in American terms. Whitman, however, has no regard for conventions of poetry, and therefore can first its most famous "Song of myself" ("Song of Myself") starts like this: I shall observe myself and sing myself, and what I have to allow yourself and you allow yourself.

Ja svetkujem samog sebe i pjevam samog sebe, a to ja sebi doputam morate i vi sebi.

Walt Whitman, the cosmos, of Manhattan the son, I'm not sentimental, do not stand on top of men and women of side of them and not more modest than immodest. Whoever degrades another degrades me, and whatever you do or say, returning finally to me.
Walt Whitman, taj kozmos, sin Manhattana,nemirnjak, ,nisam sentimentalan, ne stojim povrh ljudi i ena ni postrance od njihi nisam vie skroman nego neskroman. Ko god poniava drugog poniava mene,a to god se uini ili kae, vraa se konano k meni.

As the preceding verses show, Whitman has taken himself to divine service; it is a kind of Brahma, the supreme almighty Creator and umpires in space, but the final paragraph of romantic egoism and arrogance of his poetry so-he joins the typical American sense of democracy and equality. Because for Whitman, as he says in the preface to the first edition of Leaves of Grass,"The United States themselves are

essentially the greatest poem." On the one hand, this does not is surprising for a poet who "accidentally" published his first collection of poems in American Independence Day, 4th July and had three brothers with names George Washington (George Washington), Thomas Jefferson (Thomas Jefferson) and Andrew Jackson (Andrew Jackson). But on the other hand Vitmenov attitude as to confirms the words of John Locke (John Locke) that at the beginning all the world was America. For Whitman, in fact, as long struggled to present their poetry realistic, America was mythical, imaginary country, the image of his ideal world and not the one that surrounded him. Also, adding democracy and full equality among all people, Whitman poetry does not pay a Americans but all people around the world. However, Emerson was not hard to feel kinship with the peculiar poetry. When he was sent to Whitman as the most influential American philosopher and literary arbiter, the first edition of Leaves of Grass, Emerson was able the following letter: "I'm not blind to the value of the miraculous gifts Leaves of Grass. I think it's most extraordinary testimony of the spirit and wisdom has emerged in America. ... Here we find incomparable things said incomparably well, as they should. I find courage processing that so delights us, and which can only inspire great power observations. I greet you at the beginning of a great career ... " Although Emerson's enthusiasm waned somewhat after Whitman his private letter wide gesture samoreklamerskim published in newspapers without asking authors - to the extent that his anthology of American poetry in 1873. This is the reason why the Whitman poetry, according to Emerson's recipe, the strongest rely on their own vision of the nature and objects as poetic as inspiration. For Whitman "true" nature is certainly a wilderness. Garden, cultivated environment may be related only to the European experience: America, or at least significant part of the American experience, in the opinion of American writers in mid- 19th century, it is only present as a virgin territory that has not touched by human foot. So Whitman, for example, in the tenth verse of "Song of itself "presents itself as an archetypal American personality: confident, self-satisfied and utterly independent hunter in the wild: I was deep in the mountainous desert hunt hunting wander and wonder at his own ease and joy; only late in the afternoon looking for a safe place for the night, fallen fire and cooked freshly killed game, then fall asleep in a pile of leaves with my dog and a gun with me.
Sam, daleko u planinskoj pustoi lovim lov,lutam i udim se vlastitoj lakoi i veselju,tek kasno popodne traim sigurno mjesto za noenje, palim vatru i peem tek ubijenu divlja,a onda padam u san na hrpi lia sa mojim psom i pukom uza me.

While the usual image of the American conception of man's relationship with nature and brings to mind characters like Buffalo Bill (Buffalo Bill) and Davey Crockett (Davy Crocket), Whitman files must dvaesetdruge stanzas of "Song of himself "as a submissive woman is more unusual and contains a number of sexual hints:

These more! And to you I give, I do what do the Gentiles will, I notice from your bank crooked fingers that call, I believe that you decided not to retire until I'm have touched, we have to walk a little, and I undress, linking me out of sight of land, Save me soft pillows, poljuljaj me wavy Omam, sprinkle me love wetness, - I can give you his gift.

Ti more! I tebi se ja predajem, ja pogaam ta tihoe, opaam s obale tvoje iskrivljene prste koji pozivaju,vjerujem da si odluilo da se ne povue dok me ne opipa,moramo se malo prohodati, i ja se svlaim, povezi meizvan dogleda kopna, spremi me u mekane jastuke, poljuljaj me u valovituomamu, zapljusni me ljubavnom mokrinom ja ti mogu dati uzdarje.

But the most characteristic Whitman poetic use of nature is certainly contained in the central and richly paradoxical symbol - grass. By choosing this symbol, Whitman is moving away from the European literary tradition, because they do not want to use traditional poetic characters. Grass is for him "Drab hieroglyph" that grows everywhere, not society chooses itself, does not require, not seeking care: a word democratic plant that bears witness to the invincibility and indestructibility of life. Grass is also a symbol of Whitman's death, but "beautiful and pumpkin-pie hair of graves "also speaks of immortality: The smallest blade of grass proves that in reality there is no death; and when it was, it led forward life, and does not stand at the end to stop it, and ends at the time when life appeared. Everything goes on out there, nothing is lost, and to die is something other than the man thought, and

happier. ("Song of myself", verse 6)

Najmanja travka dokazuje da u zbilji nema smrti; a kada bi je i bilo, ona vodi naprijed ivot, a ne stojina kraju da ga zaustavi,te prestaje u asu kad se ivot javi. Sve ide dalje i vani, nita se ne gubi, a umrijeti je neto drugo nego je ovjek mislio, i to sretnije.

The grass is, therefore, the ultimate Whitman and eloquent vision of nature. His attitude according to tradition, again paradoxically, at the same time a typical American: Whitman unusual to want to pose as an American bard. Thus he speaks of himself in one of their own anonymous view Leaves of Grass: Self-reliant, with haughty eyes, taking on all the characteristics of their country, stepped Walt Whitman into literature, speaking as a man unconscious that has ever been anything like a book or a writer. While you, therefore, in this respect also want to see a democratic poet, deprived of all the advantages and reverse "high" culture, yet Kejmbridska History of American Literature (Cambridge History of American Literature, In 1917.) Points out that the elements of style Vitmenovog resulting from a range of diverse "Walt Whitman and His Poems'' United State Review, September 1855, quoted in Walt Whitman, ed. Murhy, p. 30th literary sources: the Bible, Ossian (Ossian), SE-kspirovog blank versa Blake (Blake) poetry and Carlyle (Carlyle) and Emerson's prose, which is, that true? How Whitman knew the European tradition and how it used for? In "Song of myself," he says about this:

Houses and rooms are full of spices, and the shelves are filled with fragrances I'm tasting the mirluh and know him and love him, evaporation could also get me drunk, but I do not allowed them to keep it. (Verse 2)
Kue i sobe su pune miomirisa, police su ispunjenemirisima, ja udiem taj mirluh i poznajem ga i volim ga,isparavanje bi me moglo takoe opiti, ali ja to nedoputam, toga se uvam.

Tradition, represented here smells, is part of the internal world poet, but it is also dangerous because it can "experiments" that is disabled, hamper creative possibilities. Therefore Whitman in this poem confronts tradition "Atmosphere" that is "fragrance, no flavor evaporation," and that stands for American nature. All this, of course, is not so simple as in the song looks. Although Vitmenovo formal education lasted a very short time, although the later in life and trying their clothes and their appearance to present as a man of the people, it is hard work in the libraries and museums of New York educated than average, while, for example, the opera was one of his constant vital interests. . Ideal the world is located in the "Song of myself", the most famous and most characteristic Whitman poem, which attempts not only to express the poet's personality than the entire United States in its pedesetdvije verse probably a kind of organic frameworks years ago. Whitman himself with the divine throne enthrones every person, because "they are all immortal and mysterious as I am" (Verse 7), and idolizes his country to confirm the greatness and dignity every nation, because he is America in its ideal projection, it seems a road map the future. This is particularly evident in the song "I come from Paumanoka "(" Starting from Paumanok ") which is a declarative expression Vitmen s "Americanism," an attempt to create an American epic. Waged therefore altruistic reasons and not propaganda, Whitman celebrates America from its dreams, believing that at least dreams of people like, but if their political systems do not can be. It is a form of poetry that Whitman highlights the Anglo-American poet and critic TS Eliot (Eliot), claiming that the poet managed "to turn the real America ... into something magnificent and important, to revise the real ideal. " Yet through the haze ideals sometimes peek and a detail from the not so ideal reality, like in the tenth verse of "Song of myself" where appears runaway slave, or tridesetetvrtoj verse of the same song that speaks about Mexican massacre of 412 boys. But Vitmenov ideal as it passes through this ordeal unscathed: the person in the song is not only helping a runaway black man extend its road to the north, to Canada, but his position in the saving heal the wounds ankles and neck and wash the tired feet, while the mass death of war Prisoners only be further patriotism instead raises questions about the purpose of warfare. Because Whitman is not a rebel like some other American writers his time; divine gesture he accepts the contrary: "I am large, I contains a lot of "(" Song of myself ", verse 51). In this sense characteristic of his song "I hear that attacked me" ("I Hear It Was Charged Against Me ") in 1860, a year before the outbreak of civil war in America: I hear that attacked me go at destroying the

institutions, but in reality I am not for or against these institutions (Which in reality I have in common with them?, Or what to do with their destruction?)
ujem da su me napali da idem za tim da razorimustanove, ali u zbilji ja nisam za ustanove ni protiv njih (ta u zbilji ja imam zajedniko s njima? ili ta s njihovim razaranjem?)

Whitman, the divine prophet, just beyond the institution in his schema sight of the world they are obviously just an illusion, as in Emerson's philosophy. But the one aspect of her poetry Whitman sharply different from their -transcendentalist contemporaries: it is his attitude toward the human body and its various organs and functions. Other transcendentalists, although generally accepted theory of human instincts and celebrate their divine origin, for some types of sediment puritanism which they themselves were not aware of the feel to ease the human body and it is so does not appear in their works. Whitman, however, has no such scruples: no matter what your Romantic starting point he announces without hesitation: I am the poet of the body and I am the poet of the soul, ("Song of myself", verse 21)
Ja sam pjesnik tijela i ja sam pjesnik due.

to make things a little later brought to a boil, not only at the level of remaining statements than actually singing body: Through me, echoing voices are prohibited: Voices of sexes and lusts, but I'm taking zakopreni veil and transforms,
I do not cover your mouth with your fingers. Kroza me jee zabranjeni glasovi: Glasovi spolova i poude, zakopreni no ja skidamkoprenu i preobraavam, Ja ne pokrivam usta prstima.

3TS Eliot,'''' Whitmans and Tennyson, Walt Whitman, ed. Murphy, PP. 206-207. I think that the bowel is not less valuable than the head and heart intercourse did not simpler than death, I believe in the flesh and the lust vision, hearing, sense of touch are miracles, and each part and heel me is a miracle. ("Song of myself", verse 24) Further development of the use of images of the human body can be seen in later poetry, especially in the third edition of Leaves of Grass in 1860. which contains a cycle "Children of Adam" (originally "Enfans d'Adam," later "Children of Adam"). "Children of Adam" are, in fact, Anthem sexual love that Whitman rises to the top pedestal, kiti triumphant crown: From those without frequent me that I was nothing, from what I have decided to celebrate even if left I was among the people, the echo of my own voice singing phallus, sing a song poraanja, singing makes beautiful children and one of them beautiful grown people; singing natisak muscle and connections sings the song in the second bed. ("From the river closed aa Side" "From Pent-Up Aching Rivers")
Iz one esti mene bez koje bih bio nita,iz onog to sam odluio da proslavim pa makar ostao sam meu ljudima,iz odjeka mog vlastitog glasa pjeva phallus, pjeva pjesma poraanja, pjeva nudu prekrasne djece i od njih prekrasnog odraslog naroda; pjeva natisak miia i spajanje, pjeva pjesmu druga u krevetu.

It is through this hyperbolic relationship to the acceptance of divine ideas generated by the human body through extreme exaggeration of attitude and logic images this view products ("the smell of the scent of salty armpit of Prayer" "The Song of itself ", verse 24) reveals Whitman as a top comic poet. He and that I was aware of, and despite the seriousness of the prophets, saluting this humor. Towards the end of his life he was one of his biographer: "I'm proud of you I am a true humorist below everything else. "

The best and most characteristic examples Vitmen s humor related to its noncompliance with the "sacred cows" religious and image. At the beginning of "Song of myself", for example, suggests that God created nature to remind man of his existence, such as the lady who dropped the monogrammed handkerchief to his suitor possible to begin the conversation. Later in the song gods are shown as drawings, etchings and prints that Whitman looks at a show, where purchases of Osiris, Isis, Belusa, Brahma, Buddha, Jehovah, Manitou, Allah and Odin "Exactly according to their price." In the end he reveals and what is the price: at 51 stanza deity is described as "the listener is up there" who might still have something to confide poet-prophet, but is undoubtedly weak and needs to "speak frankly" because no one Quoted in Richard Chase, "Walt Whitman as American Spokesman'', Walt Whitman, A Collection of Critical Essays, ed. Roy Harvey Pearce, Prentice Hall, Englewood Cliffs, NJ, 1962, p. 157, "Would not listen". In front of a poet who is also a prophet of the new time and a new world old pictures of the gods must give way and all that was left to them is to perhaps give in advice to his successor before they disappear into oblivion. What is the message that Whitman as poet-prophet wants to transfer their readers? Perhaps the answer to this question may be the simplest over the interpretation of his manifesto, "Song of myself". She tries, to the familiar romantic canons to include as much of that achieve very razueni portrait of the poet and the world. Whitman and originality fundamental weakness of his poetry can be found in the method of exercising the divine comprehensiveness. He, in fact, placed next to each other a lot of pictures from nature, linking them or opposing each other, trying to over these often bizarre series express his basic ideas of brotherhood and equality of men and the natural majesty of the human personality. When the selection capability of the poet they come to the fore in the true concept and orientation, when the image sequences deliberately and deliberately designed to be handed down or even illuminate a thought or feeling, then they become "objective correlative" or formulas, certain poetic emotions and it comes to life in the reader. A good example of the triumph of Vitmenovog methods will become opteprlhvaen modern poetry is the tenth stanza of "Song of itself ", which consists of five images or scenes from American life. Verse starts with a solitary hunting in the wild, continuing the image of American pride clippers, clipper, which in the nineteenth century enabled commercial triumph U.S., portrays the possible fullness of day to ordinary people Lnari and shellfish, describes the formation and functioning of the nation's its "boiler for melting" over the wedding zamara white, denim, and Indians, and finally ends up with you runaway black poet goods heading north. The ingredients of this poetic mixture of verbal collage undoubtedly have been carefully selected and dosed: overall impression is a complex image new country, a country that had both good and bad,

but that walk to the bright future. But when the creative selectivity is absent, when the poet believes that quantity or number of files, can develop into quality emotion that the reader supposed to feel, then arise Whitman "catalogs" almost infinite series image, which does not list their true function, although the intent of I-Whitman sleep. He would like to strengthen the representation of the mass of facts and scope of his work. Examples of such "catalogs" that Whitman proud and which contemporary readers The most annoying, many in "Song of myself" - for example, verse 15 and 33 -and there are in other later works such as "The Song Bradve" ("Song of the Broad Axe ") or" I hear America singing "(" I Hear America Singing "). But these long strings are not able to destroy the very euphoria reading unique and infectious optimism as an attitude and approach to life radiates from these songs. On that note it and ends: true poet, dies at 52 stanza, but do- UAL his earlier claims no description evokes death defeat than victory:

I like the air we part, I stress her white Right on straying sun I poured my flesh in eddies, and hoard it in strips teeth. Zavjetam yourself junk that I rose from the grass I love you, if you still need to look under the soles of his boots.

Ja se rastajem kao zrak, ja stresam svoje bijele pramove na odbjeglo sunce, ja izlivam svoje meso u vrtlozima i gomilam ga u trakaste zupce.Zavjetam sebe smeu da bih porastao iz trave koju ljubim,ako me opet trebate pogledajte pod potplate svojih izmama.

The ending is one among the most powerful verses Leaves of Grass: It is confirmed poet's faith in man and his ability, his ubjeenje in human natural brotherhood and immortality. The poet-prophet is shown the way, others will have to go with it, although it is uncertain when: If you do not understand at first, but is encouraged, if you do not apply on one place to look for another, I stop somewhere and waiting for you. Unfortunately, despite many ubjeenjima optimist, but life rarely imitates art. Thus it Vitmenovo belief in human immortality and indestructibility found in unusually
strong temptation during the American civil war between countries of the North and the South (1861-1865), which was created by the very contrary to them a vision of America from "Songs of himself" preutkuje. It was not only optimistic attitude towards human destiny, but odreenije themselves the roots of the American dream, faith in a fresh start in a new continent without limitations of the old, which was not certain whether they would survive the conflict. From

Vitmenovog confrontation with the harsh reality of the American flowed further continuation and expansion of Leaves of Grass poems of national crisis and war under entitled "Drums in the tattoo" ("Drum Taps"). Although Whitman optimism will leave everything to death, as he had hoped and announced in the "Song of myself" mode of expression, attitude and poetic tone but are vastly different in the songs occurred during and after the civil war. He no longer rising, "the barbarian shouting over the rooftops of the world ", is somewhat more restrained, although itself does not allow on- govjetaj defeat. This period has produced and probably the best Vitmenovu the song "Last time flourished lilac in the garden" ("When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard bloomed"). This poem is an elegy on the occasion of premature and violent death of U.S. President Abraham Lincoln (Abraham Lincoln), the man who led the North in civil war trying to save the unity of the country, a man who is years of the war for Whitman became the embodiment and the embodiment of the American spirit and American ideas. And yet Lincoln, who was killed by an assassin's bullet in 1865, nowhere is not mentioned by name in the song. She, like many other previous Whitman poem, grows out of sight paradoxical nature: lilac, central symbol in this poem, and means death for last; defiance of death, because it poet puts on chest dead president, and the hope of immortality, and the birth other Lincoln in time to come because it is an undeniable fact that the lilac, again a wild plant that does not need him back inflorescences next spring. Lincoln, who is in this song only representative of those millions Americans who died in the civil war, was presented in the poem canderful star who went down in the west. It is referred to as a giant cute soul that's gone and you complain States dressed in mourning: all Americans. The third main symbol of which is based this song is a modest gray-brown bird, thrush, which is hidden in a swamp singing his dirge. The song thrush is connects Vitmenovom song and re-paradoxical: it is bloody song holders:The outflow of the death song of life (as well dear brother I know I was not at that burst of music allowed, you would surely die). All three symbols, that is, in their own way of speaking about eternal human dilemma confrontation with death: namely, the meaning of life. And when you put this or intimation question, Whitman speaks only one who can answer, "Holy reasonable death, "singing her a kind of went: Dark mother always as close to sneaking rates low, Did not anyone fullest burst of singing is not welcome? Then here you go I sing, praise and above all, I carry the song says, you really need to get there, then Come out without hesitation. Tamna majko to uvek u blizini ulja se stopama tihim, Zar ti niko pevao nije pev najpunije dobrodolice? Onda evo ja ti ga pevam, slavim te iznad svega, Pesmu ti nosim to kae, kad zaista mora doi, ondadoi bez kolebanja.

The poet's attitude towards death obviously changed significantly: although death may can be overcome, although lilac promising new spring, its existence is more can not simply deny it when confronted with millions dead. In this solemn and restrained tone of the song is ambiguous daybreak and ends after you must inevitably come to light replaced the darkness in the American soul, but that does not promises shine those mornings before the war: For dearest, wiset my soul all day, and countries - here they are now because of him beloved Lilac and star and bird entangled with pevom my soul There in the fragrant cedars dim Borja and dark. Za najmiliju, najmudriju duu svih dan mojih i zemalja evo to su sad zbog njega voljenog Jorgovan i zvezda i ptica spleteni s pevom due moje Tamo u mirisnom borju i kedrovima sumranim i tamnim.

Hand knit poet and his friends mean re-unification of America in pain for Lincoln, but hints at the end of twilight at least a partial loss dazzling dream. Unlike previous Vitmenovih longer songs that obviously suffering from lack of form since, as a kind of poems, organized around actual or metaphorical journey which does not provide strong enough framework song "The last time the lilacs bloomed in the garden" is a solid structure that is relies on the opposition and joining three staff symbol. Although here series of images appear, they are strictly functional and perfectly under control creative imagination. This song is one of the greatest achievements of American poetry. Death or knowledge of death and loss in general from the perspective of the poet as boys, the theme and the song "From the cradle endlessly rocking." Looking a bird couple, the boy learns the possibilities of love and the accompanying possibility of losing and loneliness. Death causes the male female lament and changed the boy's understanding of world: Never again umakmuti not, never echoes, Never more the cries of unsatisfied love would be beyond me, You're never more let it be peaceful child, which primarily bejah what is there, At the sea under the yellow and despondent month ... Faced with the mystery of the death of the boy requires a key, explanation, resolution, response that will enable the continued existence: "Oh, give me the key! (he lurks around here at night). "View, which is the cradle endlessly rocking, gives it to knowledge that death and life forever linked, that the one can not exist without second, that death is not evil but "as an old woman rocking a cradle, the lovely clothes wrapped in the wings bent. "

Whitman is undoubtedly the best-known American poet in us. Translations of his poetry have appeared already in 1900. , and translated it among others and some of our best poets and storytellers such as Tin Ujevi or Ivo Andric. However, despite the Serbo-Croatian is still no comprehensive Whitman edition that would include all of his best poetry. Thus, the example, remains untranslated its unusual
song "Journey to India" ("Passage to India") written in 1871. regarding the three technological wonders of the nineteenth century: the opening of the Suez Canal, the construction of the transcontinental railroad in U.S. and commissioning of the submarine telegraph between America and Europe. This technology, which Whitman poetry and otherwise accept and sometimes even celebrated, here is only reason for the journey to the transcendental meaning of life, far beyond the India. As is often the case with great poets, Whitman does in the U.S. Literature direct followers, with the exception of loud but not very deep Carl Sandberg (Carl Sandberg). But Vitrnen still originator of modern ame- ican poetry, the cornerstone of which rely on all her subsequent ascent. Some of his literary practices have become in modern literatureindispensable: even poets towards the end of aestheticism completely foreignWhitman, I can not deny the presence of his influence. So, for example, modernpoet Ezra Pound (Ezra Pound) feel the need to enter into an alliance with the symbolicWhitman in his poem "The Covenant" ("A Pact"):

I make a pact with you, Walt Whitman I detested you long enough. I come to you as a grown child What had the stubborn father Now I'm old enough to fellowship. You were the gathered out that the new forest Now is the time of carving. We have one juice and one root Let us be among the exchanges. Sklapam pakt s tobom Volte Vitmene Prezirao sam te dovoljno dugo. Dolazim tebi kao odraslo dijeteto imalo je tvrdoglavog oca; Sad sam dovoljno odrastao da prijateljujemo.Ti bjee taj to iskri novu umu ,Sada je doba rezbarenja. Imamo jedan sok i jedan korijen Neka meu nama bude razmjene.

For Whitman poetry still speaks to man of the late twentieth century of those mysteries that science has not been able to resolve: he was in his best songs yet contemporary and current. Vitality and unpredictability which follows the life of the outstanding features Vitmenovog poetic creation: it could say along with the American critic Harvey Piers Roy (Roy Harvey Pearce) that is the only truth about Whitman that "to us it is always a surprise."