When he had to leave his post at the newspaper he became a carpenter. Whitman’s best friends were workers, drivers of vans and omnibuses, sailors and fishermen. A barbarian law about returning runaway slaves enacted in 1850 under the pressure of the slave – owners caused an explosion of indignation from common Americans and these events avoided Whitman’s muse. In his poems. The «Song of the Flabbiness», «Bloody Money», «Killed in the House of Friends». he expresses his anger against slave – owners and their accomplices.
In 1855, as an unemployed journalist he collected a little volume of poems and rhymes called «Leaves of Grass». The roofs of his poetry went into an American folklore. He found support in American humor and wrote in blank – verse.
Whitman perceived all characteristic qualities of humor and folklore: boundless exaggeration (overstatement), cosmic seals, social criticism, Davie Croquet’s good Natured boasting and Paul Bangan’s heroic inspiration (enthusiasm).
Whitman states that all people are equal, class and racial prejudices should be swept aside.
In the first chapter of the poem «Song of Myself» Whitman writes:
I celebrate myself, and sing myself…
The poetical «I» of Walt Whitman is common man, man in general. Whitman’s heart is open to everybody. The poet expresses his heartfelt feelings and love towards the working people. He merges (combines) with the people.
The poem «Song of Myself» turns into a hymn to a man of labor. But its philosophical meaning is wider, that is, a hymn to life on the earth.
In «Leaves of Grass» he raises his voice against slavery – the shame of America.
In «Boston Ballad» Whitman castigates the American bourgeoisie who accepted a low about fugitive agvols. In his pamphlet, «The 18th Presidential Elections», (1856) the poet analyses the political systems of the USA and shows that the dreams of Americans for freedom and democracy have nothing to do with social system of America. Whitman criticizes both Republicans and Democrats.
Whitman understands that the Americans people, who won a victory over the slave – owning fourth only to find themselves in a new servitude into the slavery of monopolies. About it he spoke in his treatise «Democratic Vistas» (1871). This is a manifesto for the defense of realism.
The poet condemns the spirit of gain that the crisis, about American democracy of seared America he speaks about. One of the signs of the decay was the ground, which sometimes takes place during elections.
Whitman states that there exists a deep abyss between literature and life. Whitman bibber Americans criticism of what he was the evils of capitalist America. The works of American writers states the poet, have to give strength to a man new forces – energy «they have to show vitalaims – goals».
Whitman defends the demands of the ideological content of art.
New literature, according to Whitman, must show not only the present but also must give a man perspectives of the future.
Whitman’s poetry is original and unique. Ancient literature of the East also served Whitman as one of the sources of inspiration.
Emily Dickinson (1830–1886)
Emily Dickinson (1830–1886) was an American lyrical poet, and an obsessively private writer – only seven of her some 1800 poems were published during her lifetime. Dickinson withdrew from social contact at the age of 23 and devoted herself in secret into writing.
Dickinson was born in Amherst, Massachusetts, to a family well known for educational and political activity. Her father, an orthodox Calvinist, was a lawyer and treasurer of Amherst College, and also served in Congress. She was educated at Amherst Academy (1834–47) and Mount Holyoke Female Seminary (1847–48). Around 1850 Dickinson started to write poems, first in fairly conventional style, but after ten years of practice she began to give room for experiments. From c. 1858 she assembled many of her poems in packets of 'fascicles', which she bound herself with needle and thread.
After the Civil War Dickinson restricted her contacts outside Amherst to exchange of letters, dressed only in white and saw few of the visitors who came to meet her. In fact, most of her time she spent in her room. Although she lived a secluded life, her letters reveal knowledge of the writings of John Keats, John Ruskin, and Sir Thomas Browne. Dickinson's emotional life remains mysterious, despite much speculation about a possible disappointed love affair. Two candidates have been presented: Reverend Charles Wadsworth, with whom she corresponded, and Samuel Bowles, editor of the Springfield Republican, to whom she addressed many poems.
After Dickinson's death in 1886, her sister Lavinia brought out her poems. She co-edited three volumes from 1891 to 1896. Despite its editorial imperfections, the first volume became popular. In the early decades of the twentieth century, Martha Dickinson Bianchi, the poet's niece, transcribed and published more poems, and in 1945 Bolts Of Melody essentially completed the task of bringing Dickinson's poems to the public. The publication of Thomas H. Johnson's 1955 edition of Emily Dickinson's poems finally gave readers a complete and accurate text.
Dickinson's works have had considerable influence on modern poetry. Her frequent use of dashes, sporadic capitalization of nouns, off-rhymes, broken metre, unconventional metaphors have contributed her reputation as one of the most innovative poets of 19th-century American literature. Later feminist critics have challenged the popular conception of the poet as a reclusive, eccentric figure, and underlined her intellectual and artistic sophistication.
Emily Dickinson is still considered America’s foremost woman poet. Of her more than 1,700 extend poems, only a handfull were published in her lifetime. She never merried and she seldom left her family home in Amherst, Massachusetts, but she transcended all physical limitations in her extensive, artistic correspondence and, even more so, in her unflinchingly honest, psycologically penetrating and technically adventurous poems.
One hundred nine of her best and best-remembered works are reprinted here exactly as they appeared in the first three posthumous anthologies: the 1890 volume (Poems by Emily Dickinson / Edited by two of her friends / Mabel Loomis Todd and T.W. Higginson, Roberts Brothers, Boston [the 16th edition, 1897, was the specific source]), the 1891 volume (same title as a above, plus Second Series [the 5th edition, 1893, was the specific source]) and the 1896 volume (same title as for 1890, plus Third Series [1st edition was source]). The titles (such as «Escape» and «Compensation») given to some of the poems by the early editors are retained here for completeness, but since they were not original with the poet, they have not been entered in any table of contents or index of titles. An index of first lines has been provided, however, at the end of this volume.
Success by Emily Dickinson.
Success is counted sweetest
By those who ne’er succeed
To comprehend a nectar
Requires sorest need.
Not one of all the purple host
Who took the flag today
Can tell the definition
So clear, of victory
As he, defeated dyind,
On whose forbidden ear
The distant strains of triumph
Break, aganized and clear.
Hamlin Garland (1860–1940)
Garland was reared in circumstances that forced him to a firsthand recognition of the distance between the national image of the western lands as promise and fulfillment on the one hand much grimmer actually on the other. His father stubbornly clung to the idea to the idea of the of the fortune yet to be made on the border farm and faithful to the promissory note of America, emigrated from Maine to West Salem, Wisconsin when Garland was born. The fortune never materialized and the family moved to north-eastern Iowa, where Garland lived for 12years, attending the Cedar Valley Seminary.
Still seeking the family moved to Ordway, South Dakota; but instead of fortune the Garlands met with toil, dullness and the hostility of the nature. Wanting to teach and to escape his environment, Hamlin sold his Dakota claim at a small profit and became one of the «back-trailers from the middle border» in fleeing to Boston. His movement from the west to east was. Significant: although the national insisted that the land of the «folk» and democratic realization lay westward, and the east was effete, artificial and aristocratic, many nevertheless sought the very kind of life that the American was supposed to spurn. The split in perception, the double goals in Garland are not merely personal but typical of many American men of letters.
In Boston he lived alone and struggled to find a new life. He educated himself in the Boston public library and studied and taught in the Boston School of Oratory, all the while trying to write. He read Spencer, single-tax economics, the issues of realism and impression in fiction. In 1887he returned to the Midwest for a visit and saw with new perspective the treeless prairies the unremittingly brutalizing toil and the frontier’s murderous effect on his parents. Enraged he returned east and began to contribute stories to B.O. Flower’s influential «Arena». Eneouragedby Joseph Kirckland, Flower and William dean Howells, he attempted to create «veritism» in function a realism that wouldn’t stop short with accepted subjects and attitudes but would also include the less pretty experiences that had led to his disenchantment. In 1891 he published «Main-travelled roads; in the heat of his experience, he had written all the stories in this volume between1887and 1889. often «Main – Travelled roads» (1910) was in turn, a collection made up out of «Prairie Folks» (1893) and «Wayside Courtships» (1897) these two consisted of stories written in the short, fruitfull period.
Mark Twain (1835–1910)
«American satirical and critical literature began with Mark Twain», said Chernishevsky. Mark Twain, an honest democrat, satirized the American press («Running for Governor»), (Моякардитуравгубернатори). He exposed, in biting satire, race diserimation and he so-called American democracy («Goldsmitn’s Friend Abroad Again»), 2) bribery and corruption in the highest political cireles of the United States (The Gilled Age» 1) Chares Warner the novel of was written in co-authorstup with 1873, the bourgeois «Culture» of the dollar The Man who Corrupted Hodleyberry (1898). Mark Twain altacked the imperialist policy of the reactionary government with wrath and indignation, and vaised his voice in defence of the nactives of the Philippine Islands (I’filipi:n ailandz) =Филлипины), who were subjected to the iron heel of American imperialism («A Defence of General Funston,» 1902). Imperialist exploitation of colonial peoples is robbery, humiliation and slow, slow murder, said Mark Twain. (ПриключенияТомаСайёра). Two of his earlier works – «The Adventures of Tom Sowyer» (1876) and «The Adventures of Huckleberry finn» (1888) – are Beloved by children, as well as growp – ups, all over the world. It is because the joys and sovvows of childhood are depicted with such deep human understanding and sympanty that children and grown-ups alike have the feeling that it is their present and past that is benig brought before them. But there is also sharp social criticism in the books. We see the narrow – mindedness, dullness and backwardness of petty bourgeois lite in the American small town, and the cruel conditions under which the Negro slates lived.
Is there really any evidence that Mark Twain was «greatly influenced» by the 1905 revolution? That sounds bizarre.
Mark Twain was greatly influenced by the Russian Revolotion of 1905; but he did not understand the great historical rote of the working class. That is wily pessimism may be found in some of his works.
Howerer, in his works is eypressed the protest of the masses against capitalism and its evils. Mark Twoins worksbroadly democratic, deeply human, openly anti – imperialistic and brillianty satiric – are of the greatest importance today, when the fight of the progressive people for place and happiness and against imperialism and fascism is becoming more and more intense.
During 1857–1861 le was a pilot лоцман on a Mississippi steamboat, until the Civil war blockaded the river. Them Cobfederate volunteer.
In 1862 Samuel fried to find silver in Nevada them became a reported for the Territorial Enterprise. Started written falles under the pseudonym of Mark Twain.
From 1864 to 1866 the made a trip to Hawaii and delivered popular lectures in California and Nevada.
In 1867 he rublished the Celebrated Jumpiny Froy of Calaveras County and Other Tales. Two years later he wrote («Простакизаграницей») = «The Iunocents Abroad or the New Piligrim’s Progress» In 1872 Mark Twain’s Nevada sketches «Roughing H» («Налегке» – «Огрубевшие») appear and the book is about gold seekers of Nevada.
He made a trip to Europe during 1878–1879. His stories «My Watch» («Моичасы») and «Journalism in Tennesses» («ЖурналисткавТеннессе») are best ones.
«The Prence and the Pauper» (1882) («________») was published in 1882 and «A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court» came into existence in 1889 («ЯнкиизКоннектикутапридворакороляАртура»).
«The Tragedy of Pudd’n head Wilson» («ПростофиляВильсон») saw the world in 1894.
Two years later Mark Twain created «Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc» («Личныевоспоминанияожизнид’Арк»).
In 1892 there appeared «The American Claimaut» («Американскийпретендент»).
Many people recognize Samuel L. Clemens only by his pseudonym, Mark Twain, and they know him as primarily a humorist, a funny man to be read for laughs. Nothing could be more unjust, for Mark Twain is a major writer in American literature and one of the World’s great satirists.
He was a brilliant spokesman for the American frontiersman, often called the «Lincoln of our literature «. His father was an old-time pioneer from Virginia; the son was born at Florida, Missouri, in 1835. Not long thereafter the family settled in Hannibal, Missoury, on the bank of the Mississippi, the famous river which Mark Twain made doubly famous in three of his most important works. The father died when the son was only twelve, and Mark Twain went to work in typical American fashion, as a small-town boy who must pull his weight on a fatherless family. His older brother, Orion Clemens, was editor of the local newspare, and Samuel became a printer while doing odd literary jobs for his brother.
Until about 1870 – some dozen years after his getting his pilot’s license – Mark Twain belongs to the Far West. He became a silver miner in Nevada; next, a newspaper reporter; next, a special correspondent in the Sandwich Islands; next, a roving correspondent in Europe and the East; next, an instractional torch-bearer on the lecture – platform; and finally, he became a scribbler of books, and an immorable fieture among the other rocks of New England. Perhaps M. Twain did not strike gold in Nevada, but he discovered in the Far West his true vocation, which was that of writer extraodinary. His career as «newspaper reporter» came in California, and he was correspondent for the Sacramento «Unoin» in Hawaii. In 1867 he sailed on the «Quaker City» to the Holy Land and to Europe, and it was the fruit of his journey,» The Innocents Abroad» (1869), which first gave him an inernational reputation. Before that he had written some sketches and started his career as professional humorist on the lecture platform. In 1870 he moved to the home city of his new wife, to Elmira, New York, and entered upon the final greatest stage of his career. Later he moved with his family to Hartford, where he died in 1910.
His best productive years, from» The Innocents Abroad» to «Joan of Arc» (1896), speak for themselves. We may consider him first as a novelist and writer about the Mississippi River, as in «The Adventures of Tom Sawyer» (1876), «Life on the Mississippi» (1883), and «The Adventuresof Huckleberry Finn» (1884). These books are remarkable accounts of the society that bordered the Mississippi in the middle of the 19th century, and they catch almost ideally the life of the small-town American boy. For all their surface romanticism, they fundamentally realistic and often satirical portraitures. These are the travel – books; in addition to «The Innocent Abroad», by include «Roughing It» (1872). «A Tramp Abroad» (1880), and «Following the Equator» (1897). These are almost always vivid, however, and especially «TheInnocent Abroad», endowed with great potentialities of the comic.
When Mark Twai is deseribius an American milieu in this way, he is superb: but when he ventures into Europe and talks similarly about Europeans, He betrays his provincialism. In no respect is he more typically a frontiersman than in his remarkable contempt for the French.
A final group of Mark Twains works is usual category of the miscellanous comprising «The Prince and the Rauper» (1882), «A Connecticut Yankee at King Arthur’s Court» (1889) and Joan of Arc» (1896). These have been popular, and deservedly so; they are most characteristic of their author, for with their humor and tenderness and sympathy they illustrate also an intolerance of the traditional and the royal.