Resumen
Resumen de Hojas de hierba
Para quién es
For readers who love big, open, talkative verse about people, cities and the body, and anyone drawn to poems about nature, identity, freedom and friendship.
De qué trata este libro
What if one book of poems could take a whole lifetime to write? Leaves of Grass did. Walt Whitman first printed it in Brooklyn in July 1855, twelve poems with no author's name on the title page. He paid for it himself and helped set some of the type. He kept reissuing it until the last edition of 1891 and 1892. The book bets on a new kind of poem for a new kind of country, with long lines, ordinary people and no neat rhyme. It sounds like a man talking to you across a ferry deck.
En este resumen
- 1One book that grew with its poetFree
- 2The 1855 book breaks every rule
- 3Song of Myself turns one voice into a crowd
- 4The body and the soul stand equal
- 5America sings, and every worker is in the choir
- 6Calamus and the poetry of comradeship
- 7Crossing, connection and the reach of the soul
- 8The Civil War and the poems for Lincoln
- 9How to read it aloud and why it lasts
Idea clave 1 de 9
One book that grew with its poet
Whitman was born in 1819 on Long Island and grew up in Brooklyn. He worked as a printer's helper, a teacher and then a journalist, and he walked the streets and crossed the East River on ferries. All of it went into his poems.
Leaves of Grass was never one fixed text. The first edition of 1855 held twelve poems and a long prose preface. Later editions came in 1856, 1860, 1867, 1871, 1881 and 1891. Each time he added poems, cut some and moved others into new groups.
The title is a clue. Grass is common, grows everywhere and belongs to everyone. Leaves also means the pages of a book. Whitman wanted a poem as plain and widespread as a field.
That’s 1 of 9 key points.
The rest of the summary, written and spoken, and the whole book: free to start.
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About this edition
Every format is free to start, and print and large print are at cost.
- LengthAbout 128,000 words
- Reading timeAbout 8 h 35 min
- FormatseBook, large-print eBook, audiobook, 15-minute summary
- LanguagesEnglish and 12 other languages
Questions about Hojas de hierba
What is Leaves of Grass about?
It is a collection of poems about the self, the body, nature, democracy, friendship, war and death. Whitman speaks as a common man in plain, flowing lines and tries to make every reader feel part of one shared human life.
Why did Whitman keep revising Leaves of Grass?
Whitman treated the book as the record of his whole life. He added poems, cut others and rearranged groups across several editions, from 1855 to the final one of 1891 and 1892, so it grew as he did.
What is Song of Myself about?
A speaker celebrates himself and then widens out to take in all people, from workers to the enslaved, as well as grass, nature, the body, the soul and death.
Is Leaves of Grass hard to read?
The language is plain. It helps to read aloud.
Why was Leaves of Grass controversial?
Many readers in the nineteenth century thought it was shapeless and too frank about the body and desire. Some editions faced attempts at censorship, and later poems on love between men have also drawn long debate.