Leaves of Grass (MAXNotes Literature Guides) Review
With so much enlightening prose to choose from, here's a sample from '32':
I think I could turn and live with animals.
they are so placid and self-contained.
I stand and look at them long and long.
they do not sweat and wine about their condition.
they do not lie awake in the dark and weep for their sins.
they do not make me sick discussing their duty to god.
not one is dissatisfied.
not one is demented with a mania of owning things.
not one knees to another, nor to his kind that lived thousands of years ago.
not one is respectable or unhappy over the whole earth.
Leaves of Grass (MAXNotes Literature Guides) Overview
Leaves of Grass, first published in 1855, contained twelve long untitled poems, but Whitman continued to expand it throughout his life.Whitman's poetry was unprecedented in its unapologetic joy in the physical and its inextricable link to the spiritual. As Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote to him: "I am very happy in reading [Leaves of Grass], as great power makes us happy ... I find incomparable things said incomparably well, as they must be."
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Customer Reviews
Bold Faced Thoughts: Confusing - Frank Holt -
The bold faced comments by Laura Ross are frustrating. Who cares what she thinks? It would have been much more appropriate and an easier read without them. The thoughts are not sensitive to the original - seems lick a gemick.
Not happy with the book.
Kindle Edition - Anne Libby - New York, NY
The Kindle edition of this great book is not well formatted, and is thus physically difficult to read. Line breaks appear in the middle of words, not always divided by syllable or in a way that would meet the approval of any author of a manual of style.
Having only paid 99 cents for this tome, I can only comment that I suppose I got what I paid for.
Not Quite the "Original" Edition - Puff - CHICAGO, ILLINOIS United States
While I love Whitman's "Leaves of Grass," I wouldn't quite consider this a reproduction of the "original" edition. The editor has highlighted certain passages in green, and added commentary and exercises at the end of each poem. I suspect lots of folks won't mind this. For me it's cause enough to return the book.
I pre-ordered this item because I was intent on finding an edition with the 1855 preface, but without some new person's additions to the classic work. I very much would like to read the work as Whitman presented it, without interjections from an editor or some other new person whose voice for me is an interruption.
This editor presents this work as a means for writers to find inspiration for their own work, and attempts to guide or at least aid the reader in that project. For someone like me, for whom writing (and reading) is intensely personal, and who prefers to work directly with the text, without intervention, this is just not the right book.
*** Product Information and Prices Stored: Aug 25, 2010 23:11:12
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