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Leaves of Grass

Walt Whitman

4.12 · Rating details · 78,940 ratings · 2,238 reviews

Here, in its original and complete form, is the edition of the American masterpiece that inspired Emerson to write his famous words to Whitman: "I greet you at the beginning of a great career..."

As Malcolm Cowley says in his Introduction, the first edition of Leaves of Grass "might be called the buried masterpiece of American writing," for it exhibits "Whitman at his best, ...more

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Paperback, 624 pages

Published August 1st 2006 by Simon Schuster (first published 1855)

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Rating details

· 78,940 ratings · 2,238 reviews

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Sep 11, 2007 Selby rated it really liked it

Shelves: poetry

Whitman used to right fake reviews under false names for Leaves of Grass and send them to publishers, newspapers, and periodicals. I love that about him. So over the top. He had love for everything. Especially himself. As for the quality of the work the words speak for themselves:
"This is what you shall do: Love the earth and sun and the animals, despise riches, give alms to every one that asks, stand up for the stupid and crazy, devote your income and labor to others, hate tyrants, argue not co ...more

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Dec 17, 2016 Lizzy rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: classics-literay-fiction, poetry, usa, read-2017, stars-5

In Leaves of Grass Walt Whitman sings nature and his symbiosis with America, he sings the universe and his awareness of it all, but above all he sings the people and their quest for individuality and immortality. ‘The proof of a poet is that his country absorbs him as affectionately as he has absorbed it.’ And here he includes himself with all his mysticism and spiritual illuminations. In that, it is a celebration of humanity, his country and everything in it. Some parts of his poems were so bea ...more

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Jul 11, 2017 Michael rated it it was amazing

Whitman sings the song of America like no other poet I know--the outsized joy and pain, the affinity for common folk and the love of nature and the sheer overwhelming feeling of every sight and sound and industrious noise around him. "I hear America singing, the varied carols I hear," he wrote. Because of this some are tempted to see Whitman as a poet of pure exuberance--like a proto-hippie or, worse, like a garrulous Hallmark card. But Whitman doesn't shy away from pain at all--he embraces it l ...more

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Aug 05, 2013 Lauren Schumacher rated it did not like it

When Leaves of Grass was first published, critics applauded Whitman "only that he did not burn" the "mass of stupid filth" immediately upon completion. They primarily objected to its sensual and occasionally (rather overtly) homoerotic content. Nowadays, of course, it seems entirely too mild to raise an objection on those grounds, but man, oh man, I understand the impulse to want to turn this book into kindling.

It's less like THIS...

...and more like THIS.

This weighty poetic tome has all the we ...more

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Jan 21, 2011 Dan rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Alright, my rating here is very misleading. I haven't read Leaves Of Grass. I don't even intend to read Leaves Of Grass. Not all the way through any way. It seems sort of weird to just read a big fat collection of poetry all the way through. The five star rating is for one poem, "Song of the Open Road".

I've never really appreciated poetry. I've liked song lyrics and that's poetry, but it seemed like I needed a tune to go with it. I've liked scripture which can be pretty poetic, but it seemed I n ...more

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Sep 19, 2018 Helga rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: classics, poetry

I am the poet of the Body and I am the poet of the Soul,
The pleasures of heaven are with me and the pains of hell are with me,
The first I graft and increase upon myself, the latter I translate into new tongue.
I am the poet of the woman the same as the man,
And I say it is as great to be a woman as to be a man,
And I say there is nothing greater than the mother of men.

This is the first edition of Leaves of Grass published in 1855, which consists of 12 poems. In his poems Whitman exalts nature and h ...more

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Feb 28, 2014 Roy Lotz rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: highly-recommended-favorites, best-words-best-order, religion-mysticism-theology

It is becoming increasingly trendy to chalk up success to practice and hard work. We have the famous 10,000 hours from Malcolm Gladwell’s Outliers, and a similar theme from Joshua Foer’s Moonwalking with Einstein, just to name two examples. But it seems to me that some people were just born to do what they did, that no amount of practice could ever have produced something so fresh, original, new, and revolutionary.

Take Montaigne. He invented a new genre (the essay), pioneered a free and easy pro It is becoming increasingly trendy to chalk up success to practice and hard work. We have the famous 10,000 hours from Malcolm Gladwell’s Outliers, and a similar theme from Joshua Foer’s Moonwalking with Einstein, just to name two examples. But it seems to me that some people were just born to do what they did, that no amount of practice could ever have produced something so fresh, original, new, and revolutionary.

Take Montaigne. He invented a new genre (the essay), pioneered a free and easy prose style, and popularized a down-to-earth skeptical attitude. There was no precedent to his proclamation that he would write about only himself. To be sure, he worked very hard on his essays—going over them again and again, crossing out a line here, adding one there. But it wasn’t the practicing that made him special, it was that his essays were the expression of an entirely original type of person, who effortlessly broke every rule.

Walt Whitman is a similar case. Though free verse had precedents in the Biblical psalms, no poet had emancipated himself so completely from prosody, rhythm, and rhyme. Though deism was trendy with the Transcendentalists, Emerson’s and Thoreau’s perspectives were a far cry from Whitman’s mysticism. Not to mention that his celebration of the bodily pleasures and sexuality scandalized nearly everybody. Could 10,000 hours of anything have produced that? How do you practice to be original?

This is all besides the point, I suppose. This poem is gorgeous. It’s so modern in its sensibilities, I almost want to say that it could have been written in the 50s or 60s; but Whitman’s reverence for nature, love, and life was so pure and raw, that no disillusioned Cold War drug fueled Beats or Hippies could have come close. There is nothing trendy in his poetry—he was a member of no movement. He was not writing in verse to 'rebel’ against anything, but to celebrate everything he saw worth celebrating.

At his worst, Whitman is repetitive: continually rehashing ideas and imagery, and producing some uninspiring lists. But at his best, Whitman is revelatory. When the force of his original perspective is married to the force of his original style, the product is as extraordinary as it is inimitable. The words and ideas are woven around each other like a vine growing around a tree, producing a poem that lives and breathes—so freshly harvested from his mind, that even now it seems to still have dirt and roots clinging to it.

I’m happy to see that America has produced a poet capable of upholding the democratic principle without descending into ‘just one of us plain folksiness’. And I’m glad to see that America has produced an individualist that is not peevish and immature. I’m saying “America produced," but I’m not really sure what mysterious force results in people like Whitman and Montaigne. But it sure as hell ain’t 10,000 hours.
...more

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Nov 27, 2007 Ben Wilson rated it liked it

Recommends it for: democrats, republicans, flag-shitters

Recommended to Ben by: President Clinton gave this as a present to Monica Lewinsky

Shelves: neverfinished

Leaves of Grass is like reading every single instant message that I and a friend of mine ever wrote to one another over the course of the last ten years. Likely way too long, too self-serving and would have shocked the general public if they cared to read it when it was written. But nestled in there are some real, true brilliant moments.

This is after all Whitman's life work, laid bare and un-edited for the most part. What else are we to expect? He is literally singing a song of himself, which he ...more

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Apr 12, 2008 Collin rated it did not like it

Shelves: gave-up-on

Holy shit this is self-important and tedious.

--update: This has sat untouched on my desk all year. I can think of a hundred books I'd rather start than finish this, so I doubt I'll pick it back up unless I run out of books to read, I'm too poor to buy any more books, all my friends turn on me and refuse to loan me anything else, and all the nearby libraries are set on fire simultaneously.

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Aug 24, 2014 Samadrita marked it as to-read · review of another edition

Shelves: 1001-and-more, behemoth, in-by-about-america, poetry, timeless-classics, environment-nature, philosophy-philosophical, paused-for-now

There's only so much rhetoric on American imperialism I can ingest and assimilate at a stretch. Later, Mr Whitman.

(paused at 47%)

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Jul 17, 2009 Jeanette "Astute Crabbist" rated it it was ok · review of another edition

Shelves: classics, poetry, america, finish-someday

Did you know that the letters in "Leaves of Grass" can be rearranged to spell "Asses of Gravel"?
If you find yourself anagramming the letters in the title rather than reading the poetry, it's a good sign you're not into the book. But I really wanted some of whatever Whitman was smoking that made him so ecstatically, ebulliently enthusiastic about every molecule on the planet. Including his own b.o.

"The scent of these arm-pits aroma finer than prayer."

Huh??? Was this guy sniffing glue along wit ...more

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Oct 09, 2015 Araz Goran rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: أدب, شعر, الادب-الأمريكي

شريد الطرقات وغريب الأطوار ،ملحن الكلمات ،الماشي بين السفوح والوديان ، المقاتل ، المتطرف الغائب ،الحاضر ، قديس الروح وعربيد الجسد، المتفائل، الرفيق والسائح، الفلاح، المغامر، المنطلق نحو حياة لا حدود لها وأفق فسيح يتمدد أمامه كرحلة أبدية تنتهي من حيث تبدأ وتبدأ من حيث ينتهي، في أعماق الطبيعة وجنون الحياة وبين أجساد الفقراء والبائسين والقتال والمقاتلين ،البحر والصيادين ..

هناك حيث يسكن والت ويتمان...

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

أنا شاعر الجسد، وأنا شاعر الروح
هناءات الجنة معي، وعذابات ال
شريد الطرقات وغريب الأطوار ،ملحن الكلمات ،الماشي بين السفوح والوديان ، المقاتل ، المتطرف الغائب ،الحاضر ، قديس الروح وعربيد الجسد، المتفائل، الرفيق والسائح، الفلاح، المغامر، المنطلق نحو حياة لا حدود لها وأفق فسيح يتمدد أمامه كرحلة أبدية تنتهي من حيث تبدأ وتبدأ من حيث ينتهي، في أعماق الطبيعة وجنون الحياة وبين أجساد الفقراء والبائسين والقتال والمقاتلين ،البحر والصيادين ..

هناك حيث يسكن والت ويتمان...

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

أنا شاعر الجسد، وأنا شاعر الروح
هناءات الجنة معي، وعذابات الجحيم معي
أغدق الأولى على نفسي
وأترجم الثانية لغة جديدة
أنا شاعر المرأة، كما أنا شاعر الرجل...

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

أيها الغريب
حين تمر بي وتريد أن تحدثي
لم لا تحدثني؟
ولم لا احدثك؟

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

أرى ما فعلته المعارك والأوبئة والطغيان..
أرى السجناء والشهداء
أرى المجاعة في البحر
وأرى البحارة يقترعون على من سيقتلون
حتى يظل أحياءً ، الباقون
أرى الإهانات والشتائم التي يكيلها المتغطرسون
للعمال
والفقراء
والزنوج
وأمثالهم...
كل هذا...
كل هذا اللؤم والعذاب الذين لا ينتهيان
أجلس وأحدق فيهما
أرى
وأسمع
صامتاً !!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

هل ظن إمرؤ
أنه سعيد الحظ بإن ولد؟
أسارع فأقول له أو لها
أنه سعيد الحظ كذلك بأن يموت
وأنا العارف السبب
إنني أدع الموت للموتى

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

في الليل أفتح كوّتي
وأنظر إلى المنظومات الكونية المنتشرة بعيداً
فإذا كل ما أراه -ولو ضاعفته قدر ما أستطيع- لن يبلغ
إلا حافة المنظومات الأبعد
إنها تتسع وتزيد إتساعاً.....

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

النصر ، الأتحاد، الأيمان ، الذات ، الزمن
العقد المستعصية، الثروات، الأسرار
التقدم الأبدي الأكوان، أبناء الحاضر
ها هي ذي الحياة إذاً

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

إني أرى شيئاً من الله، كل ساعة من الساعات الأربع والعشرون
وكل لحضة في وجوه الرجال والنساء، أرى الله
وفي وجهي أمام المرأة
فإنني أرى رسائل من الله ملقاة في الشوارع
وكل رسالة موقع من الله
وأنا أترك الرسائل مكانها
فأنا أعلم أنني حيثما حللت
فإن رسائل أخرى ستظل تجيء، إلى الأبد.....

...more

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May 22, 2013 Teresa rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: g-poesia, n-eua, 5e, l-100bb, favorites, fmag

"Adeus, minha Fantasia!
Adeus, querida companheira, minha amada!
Vou, mas não sei para onde vou,
Nem qual será a minha sorte, nem se alguma vez nos voltaremos a ver,
Por isso, adeus, minha Fantasia!

Agora, a minha última vontade — deixa-me olhar para trás por um instante;
Cada vez mais lento e leve o tiquetaque do relógio dentro de mim,
Retirada, anoitecer, e em breve a surda palpitação que pára.

Convivemos, alegrámo-nos e consolámo-nos durante muito tempo;
Foi magnífico! — Agora separamo-nos — Adeus, mi ...more

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Nov 16, 2013 Ahmed Oraby rated it liked it · review of another edition

ويتمان شاعر داعر، عبقري، لطيف، حييّ، محب للكون والطبيعة والوجود
عاشق للمتع والحياة واللذائد
شعره داعر، ومفضوح. وإباحي أحيانا
كلماته صريحة جريئة، ونداءاته تنبض بالحياة
ديوان جميل وعبقري، وترجمة سعدي يوسف أحيته

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Oct 08, 2015 Nahed.E rated it liked it · review of another edition

القراءة الأولي لـ والت وايتمان
الشاعر الأمريكي الشهير
الهادئ .. الراقي .. البسيط إلي حد التعقيد !!

هل تعرف ذلك الإحساس حين تصبح سعادتك الكبري في الاستلقاء علي العشب الأخضر والعالم يمر من فوقك لا تعبأ به ولا يعبأ بك ؟

هل تعرف ذلك الإحساس حين تكون سعادتك في أن تتحدث مع ذاتك عن ذاتك .. وعن الآخرين بمنتهي الصدق .. فلا تعبأ بصورتك في المرآة كيف كانت ؟ ولا كيف نظروا إليك ؟ ولا كيف سيحكمون عليك في يوم ما ؟

هل تعرف ذلك الإحساس حين تتحدث إليهم بكل صدق
وتقول : هذا أنا ! فلا تتعبوا أنفسكم في تغييري .. أنا أحب نف ...more

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Apr 10, 2018 Chris_P added it · review of another edition

Shelves: classics-and-modern-classics, poetry-or-smthing-like-it

I read it in my living room. Read it by the sea. Read it in the afternoon, at sunset and at night. I read it from mid-winter through mid-spring. Read it while sad, read it while content, read it while not giving a fuck. I read it and understood it, read it and misinterpreted it.
I read it.
Do I seem weird?
Do I care?

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Jun 19, 2011 Ben Winch rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: american, poetry, anglo, 5-stars

A child said, What is the grass? fetching it to me with full hands;
How could I answer the child?.... I do not know what it is any more than he.

I guess it must be the flag of my disposition, out of hopeful green stuff woven.

Or I guess it is the handkerchief of the Lord,
A scented gift and remembrancer designedly dropped,
Bearing the owner's name someway in the corners, that we may see and remark, and say Whose?

I'm no expert on Walt Whitman, and given that this poem ('Song of Myself') has been celeb

A child said, What is the grass? fetching it to me with full hands;
How could I answer the child?.... I do not know what it is any more than he.

I guess it must be the flag of my disposition, out of hopeful green stuff woven.

Or I guess it is the handkerchief of the Lord,
A scented gift and remembrancer designedly dropped,
Bearing the owner's name someway in the corners, that we may see and remark, and say Whose?

I'm no expert on Walt Whitman, and given that this poem ('Song of Myself') has been celebrated by everyone from Neruda to Borges to Pessoa to Robin Williams in Dead Poet's Society ('I sound my barbaric yawp over the roofs of the world'), I doubt I'm educating anyone by bringing it again to their attention. That said, this was just what I needed this morning as I warmed into my first day alone in the country after too many weeks of a lack of privacy so intense that I have read and written almost nothing. Nervous, wondering if I might piss away the week allotted to me if I couldn't become inspired, I flicked idly through these pages over coffee, remembering, as I often have in the maybe ten years since I first read them, how they once impressed me, and soon found myself enthralled, a tear in my eye, as I read of the child and his unanswerable question. Now, by any popular notion of the word I am not religious, and I have a handful of staunchly anti-religious friends who'll attest to it, though I'll own that these friends strike me as both too literal-minded and too combative (they 'protesteth too much'), and that these days I either ignore or attempt to dissuade them every time they head off on a rant, so narrow and senseless and insensitive do such rants seem to me. The point is: God? 'The Lord'? Hell, to be honest I could give a shit, at least as regards any organised religion's conception of the subject. But something in that line about the handkerchief ('that we may see and remark, and say Whose?') moves me, the same way Bob Dylan (the born again Dylan!) moves me when he sings 'In the fury of the moment / I can see the master's hand / In every leaf that trembles / In every grain of sand.'

And I call to mankind, Be not curious about God,
For I who am curious about each am not curious about God,
No array of terms can say how much I am at peace about God and about death.

I hear and behold God in every object, yet I understand God not in the least,
Nor do I understand who there can be more wonderful than myself.

Why should I wish to see God better than this day?
I see something of God each hour of the twenty-four, and each moment then,
In the faces of men and women I see God, and in my own face in the glass;
I find letters from God dropped in the street, and every one is signed by God's name,
And I leave them where they are, for I know that others will punctually come forever and ever.

Forever and ever. The constant mystery we know is beyond our powers to explain; even the smallest child who looks at the stars knows that. The constant, ever-renewing mystery which we can tap into now and then, loafing and 'observing a spear of summer grass', but which ultimately we must, again and again, leave behind, knowing it will never go away, but equally that we cannot gaze at it for long.

I celebrate myself,
And what I assume you shall assume,
For every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you....

These are the thoughts of all men in all ages in all lands, they are not original with me,
If they are not yours as much as mine they are nothing or next to nothing,
If they do not enclose everything they are next to nothing,
If they are not the riddle and the untying of the riddle they are nothing,
If they are not just as close as they are distant they are nothing....

It is you talking just as much as myself.... I act as the tongue of you,
It was tied in your mouth.... in mine it begins to be loosened.

Big words, huh? As bold as can be. As earnest and without irony (Pessoa did it with irony) yet hardly at all portentous or laughable. Strange, that Whitman should say here 'Logic and sermons never convince', when it seems that this whole epic rant (all 60 pages) is the sermon to end all sermons. But he admits to contradicting himself, explaining 'I am large.... I contain multitudes.' And at one point he falters in his ecstasy:

Somehow I have been stunned. Stand back!
Give me a little time beyond my cuffed head and slumbers and dreams and gaping,
I discover myself on a verge of the usual mistake.

That I could forget the mockers and insults!
That I could forget the trickling tears and the blows of the bludgeons and the hammers!
That I could look with a separate look on my own crucifixion and bloody crowning!

For all its joy and exulting in the simple fact of life, 'Song of Myself' is ever aware of suffering: 'the suicide on the bloody floor of the bedroom', the runaway slave ('He staid with me a week before he was recuperated and passed north'), 'the mother condemned for a witch and burnt with dry wood, and her children gazing on'.

I do not ask the wounded person how he feels.... I myself become the wounded person'....

I play not a march for victors only.... I play great marches for conquered and slain persons....

This is the meal pleasantly set.... this is the meat and drink for natural hunger,
It is for the wicked just the same as the righteous.... I make appointments with all....

I am the poet of commonsense and of the demonstrable and of immortality;
And am not the poet of goodness only.... I do not decline to be the poet of wickedness also....

I don't claim that Whitman's work is perfect, and in fact I skipped or skimmed several passages this morning (I've never been one for lists, and Whitman, in his passion to encompass multitudes – of people and places – is occasionally enamoured of them), but I do think 'Song of Myself' is some kind of a masterpiece. The introduction to this edition (Penguin's 1986 reprinting of 'The First (1855) Edition') compares it to the Bhagavad-Gita, the Upanishads, The Marriage of Heaven and Hell, Rimbaud's Illuminations, The Chants of Maldoror, Thus Spake Zarathustra and the works of the Beats, and suggests that 'Song of Myself' 'should be judged... as one of the great inspired (and sometimes insane) prophetic works that have appeared at intervals in the Western world'. I agree (though not necessarily with the 'insane' part). With its insistence on a universal spirit beyond the senses or the intellect, and its bold adoption of the voice of that spirit, it resembles nothing so much as one of those letters dropped in the street, signed with the name of God. I said it is without irony, but a gentle self-mockery runs through it, enough to convince us of the humility of the man as he wrestles his personality into submission to hear snatches of the inner voice. 'Backward I see in my own days where I sweated through fogs with linguists and contenders,' he says early on (sounding again like Dylan: 'You've been with professors and they've all liked your looks'), and just before the famous yawp he admits: 'The spotted hawk swoops by and accuses me.... he complains of my gab and my loitering.' But in the end, though he can't refrain from fictionalising his own portrait in a dandy's effort to give his outpourings the credibility of the proletariat ('Walt Whitman, an American, one of the roughs'), the impression he leaves is one of deepest attachment to, regard for and identification with the reader.

I bequeath myself to the dirt to grow from the grass I love,
If you want me again look for me under your bootsoles.

You will hardly know who I am or what I mean,
But I shall be good health to you nevertheless,
And filter and fibre your blood.

Failing to fetch me at first keep encouraged,
Missing me one place search another,
I stop some where waiting for you.

Leaves of Grass was self-published by Whitman, a printer's assistant, in Brooklyn in 1855.
...more

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May 29, 2007 Bryan Jones rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

"Song of Myself" is a work of pure genius comparable to Shakespeare's greatest. I love these last three stanzas especially. When my wife and I were dating long distance and when I was deployed, I would end alot of my letters with "I stop somewhere waiting for you."

I bequeath myself to the dirt to grow from the grass I love.
If you want me again look for me under your bootsoles.
You will hardly know who I am or what I mean,

But I shall be good health to you nevertheless,
And filter and fibre your blo ...more

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Aug 06, 2016 Ahmed Ibrahim rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: 2016, ورقى, مكتبتى, شعر, مترجم

مختارات من ديوان الشاعر الأمريكي المتميز، شاعر الطبيعة، المحب لوطنه بصورة كبيرة جلية في أشعاره - والت ويتمان، ديوان ظل شاعره يكتب وينقح فيه أربعين سنة.
ويتمان ذو فلسفة مختلفة بعض الشيء، واختلف الجميع عليه، فالبعض يراه متصوفًا والبعض يراه شاذًا!
في المقدمة تحدث المترجم عن هذه النقطة ورد بأن أشعاره الجنسية تنفي عنه الاثنان.
لكن أغلب أشعاره توضح فلسفته، فهو يرى نفسه في الجميع ويرى الجميع في نفسه، فيها من الفكرة الصوفية لكن بطريقة مختلفة.. فالشاعر عندما يتحدث عن أي شخص/شيء يتحدث كأنه هو، ومثال على هذا مختارات من ديوان الشاعر الأمريكي المتميز، شاعر الطبيعة، المحب لوطنه بصورة كبيرة جلية في أشعاره - والت ويتمان، ديوان ظل شاعره يكتب وينقح فيه أربعين سنة.
ويتمان ذو فلسفة مختلفة بعض الشيء، واختلف الجميع عليه، فالبعض يراه متصوفًا والبعض يراه شاذًا!
في المقدمة تحدث المترجم عن هذه النقطة ورد بأن أشعاره الجنسية تنفي عنه الاثنان.
لكن أغلب أشعاره توضح فلسفته، فهو يرى نفسه في الجميع ويرى الجميع في نفسه، فيها من الفكرة الصوفية لكن بطريقة مختلفة.. فالشاعر عندما يتحدث عن أي شخص/شيء يتحدث كأنه هو، ومثال على هذا قوله:
" في كل الناس أرى نفسي
لا أزيد عليهم بحبة شعير، ولا أنقص
وما أقوله في نفسي –إن خيرًا أو شرًا- أقوله فيهم. "

" إنني من كل قومٍ وجنس
من كل طائفةٍ ودين "

" أيُّها الغريب
حين تمر بي، وتريد أن تحدِّثني
لم لا تحدِّثني؟
ولم لا أحدِّثك؟ "

من سيقرأ أشعاره ستتضح له شخصية الشاعر وفكره بشكل كبير، وخصوصًا قصيدة "أغنية نفسي" والتي تحتل نصف الديوان تقريبًا، وهي قصيدة ممتازة أودعها الكاتب فلسفته، وهذيانه، ووطنيته، بمعنى أعمّ: أودعها نفسه.

أما عن الترجمة فممتازة، لم تنتقص من القصائد بل أضافت لها، فالقصائد بلغتها الأصلية قصائد نثرية ذات سطور طويلة، وفي الترجمة قطّعها المترجم بطريقة تجعلها أقرب إلى الشعر الحر.
" مطوفًا
أفكر في الكون،
رأيت القليل الذي هو خير
يتقدم بخطًى ثابتة
نحو الخلود.
ورأيتُ الكثير الذي هو شر
يمضي سريعًا:
يَنحَل
ويتبدَّد
ويموت. "
...more

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Jul 29, 2007 Andrew rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Recommends it for: Everyone

Shelves: all-timefavorites, favorites, poetry

Literary rapture. I don't know how else I could describe my first experience reading Leaves of Grass. It was pure literary rapture.

I highly recommend Leaves of Grass to everyone - especially those who still believe, or want to believe, in the basic goodness of the American Experiment.

Pick up the slim first edition (Whitman revised and expanded Leaves of Grass throughout his life. The final product, which is what is most often seen on bookshelves, is a bloated, redundant beast.

Read the whole t ...more

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Mar 11, 2019 Anima rated it really liked it

‘I will not make poems with reference to parts,
But I will make poems, songs, thoughts, with reference to ensemble,
And I will not sing with reference to a day, but with reference to all days,
And I will not make a poem nor the least part of a poem but has reference to the soul,
Because having look’d at the objects of the universe,
I ﬁnd there is no one nor any particle of one but has reference to the
soul ‘

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Jun 09, 2016 Yassmeen Altaif rated it really liked it · review of another edition

تعرفت على الكتاب من باب الصدفة، أبحث عن كتاب ديني ومن خلال البحث كان هذا الكتاب من المئة الكتب التي ينصح بقراءتها، أسم الكتاب آثار فضولي عن ماذا تتحدث هذه الأوراق.

وبعد البحث اكتشفت ان أوراق العشب شعر، وبدأت قراءته لأول مرة إقرأ كتاب شعري مترجم وليس قصائد عربية.

القصائد جميلة جداً، والترجمة جيدة وممتازة.
المواضيع المتناولة في الكتاب رائعة، بدأها بقصائد بهذا الكتاب مناشد المكتبات والقارئ وختمها بأغنية عن نفسه.

"أيتها الخجلى
أيتها المتدفقة بالأنوثة،
آه لو جذبتك إليّ
لأغرس فيك للمرة الأولى
شفتي رجل ...more

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Jan 07, 2014 Liz Janet rated it liked it · review of another edition

Unlike many Americans, I was not introduced to Walt Whitman during my school years through English/Literature/Composition classes, but through a magnificent and beautiful film called Dead Poets Society. I fell in love with his poetry then, of course, not all of his poetry is shown, for the film speaks more of literature and its importance to human consciousnesses, rather than the different dead poets, but it did introduce me to "O Captain! My Captain!"(which is not in this collection, and I am Unlike many Americans, I was not introduced to Walt Whitman during my school years through English/Literature/Composition classes, but through a magnificent and beautiful film called Dead Poets Society. I fell in love with his poetry then, of course, not all of his poetry is shown, for the film speaks more of literature and its importance to human consciousnesses, rather than the different dead poets, but it did introduce me to "O Captain! My Captain!"(which is not in this collection, and I am so angry about it, because it should be in all of Whitman's works. I would however, not refer to him as Homer or Dante, I do not believe there might come a poet that will compare to the scope of those two, the closest I can get to someone compared to Whitman would be, maybe, Emily Dickinson.

A minority of the poems in this collection, but to me the most important at the time, deal a lot with preserving the union of the states, instead of what the South advocated, a separation. (One of the greatest economical disasters in the history of the US) With Song of Myself, which mostly speaks of private freedom, some have interpret it to mean his sexuality, but I have always thought of it as the entire "freedom" aspect, in a time where slavery was rampant. He was well known for opposing slavery, of course, he still had the skewed ideas of the time even though he considered himself egalitarian, and later on he saw abolition as a threat, which is one of the many points I disagree with him.
Now, the vast majority deals with sexuality. At the time of the original publication, many called this work obscene, for as many poets of the time, had done away with realism and the material world, and chose to write in a more allegorical manner that used symbolism and the religious/spiritual. I am more of an allegorical pal myself, but these poems are not at all offensive, people back then were prudes.

All this said, I do not agree with the "historical" consensus that this work is one of the greatest things to have come out of the United States. I believe many other poets, novelist, and short story writers, have contributed much more, not only to American literature, but to world literature. To say his work is the best of all, is kind of silly. But I am still going to re-read these poems in the future, I wish to see how much more my views can be influential to me. ...more

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Feb 23, 2013 Philip Cartwright rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: poetry

First the pros:

Whitman's free verse is years ahead of its time. I kept having to remind myself that he published this work in 1855. Wordsworth had only been dead for five years, Tennyson and Browning were at the height of their powers and Longfellow was still churning them out. Whitman was an important moderniser.

His verse has tremendous energy. It crackles off the page and I was often swept giddily along by the blizzard of words. Plus, there are some truly striking images to be found. At its be First the pros:

Whitman's free verse is years ahead of its time. I kept having to remind myself that he published this work in 1855. Wordsworth had only been dead for five years, Tennyson and Browning were at the height of their powers and Longfellow was still churning them out. Whitman was an important moderniser.

His verse has tremendous energy. It crackles off the page and I was often swept giddily along by the blizzard of words. Plus, there are some truly striking images to be found. At its best, his poetry is deeply evocative yet also disorientating, allowing the reader to see the "mundane" through new eyes.

This is linked to Whitman's celebration of ordinary men and women, which I also welcomed. While Tennyson was writing about Greek myths and Browning was constructing the interior monologues of Renaissance aristocrats, Whitman's focus was the beauty and profundity of the everyday. In this respect he was the heir to Wordsworth.

Finally, his positivity is forcefully expressed and can be uplifting or even inspiring. Sometimes.

This caveat brings us to the cons:

There are, frankly, way too many words. Image tumbles after imagine in an incontinent stream. I'm sure this was intentional; Whitman wants to overwhelm the reader and the sheer variety of people, objects, occupations, landscapes, etc can sometimes produce a sense of wonder. But it can also bore the reader as Whitman hammers his point into the ground for page after page. Like Dylan Thomas, he seems to have had a facile knack for poetic turns of phrase - they just flowed out of him. But the danger is that the significance of his words diminishes as their volume spirals towards infinity.

Finally, there is something a bit cheap about Whitman's unfailingly positive mysticism. All is good, he blithely assures us, even suffering, pain, ruin and death. But there's absolutely no sense that he's had to struggle to achieve this benign equanimity. He was what William James described as a "healthy-minded", "once-born" writer; someone who was constitutionally incapable of being distressed by the darker side of life. As a result, his mysticism can seem less like an insight and more like a sort of cheerful stupidity. He is not so much a Buddha as a village idiot with an exceptional vocabulary. ...more

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Feb 26, 2009 Jenny Beth rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: pour-y-vivre

Few people know that I curl up with Song of Myself whenever i am depressed. i gave a nice boy from England my beautiful edition once as a birthday gift, so now i curl up with this dreadful Norton Anthology edition where the pages are thinner than onion skins. once i get to the end and reread some of my favorites bits i always find i am ready to rejoin the family of mankind again as tolerable, if not pleasurable, company. I think, as many do, that the affirmation and daring and greed and urgency ...more

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Oct 05, 2016 anna (readingpeaches) rated it it was ok

Shelves: before-20th-c, 2-lgbt, poetry, 2-mlm, 2-lgbt-authors

SUCK MY DICK WALT

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Aug 16, 2011 Manny marked it as to-read

Shelves: why-not-call-it-poetry

To quote Robert Louis Stevenson:

…like a large shaggy dog just unchained scouring the beaches of the world and baying at the moon.

But let's look at the positive side. Monica Lewinsky gave a copy to Bill Clinton as a present.

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Aug 26, 2017 Emily rated it did not like it

Shelves: dnf, classics

Holy crap this is boring and pretentious. Admittedly, I don't like poetry, but I'm trying to make my way through some books that are considered classics. This is a DNF for me. IMO, poetry needs to rhyme. I'll stick with Dr. Seuess from now on.

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Sep 09, 2017 Kathleen rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: 2017-challenges, inspiration, nature, philosophical, poetry

“I am he bringing help for the sick as they pant on their backs.
And for strong upright men I bring yet more needed help.
I heard what was said of the universe,
Heard it and heard it of several thousand years;
It is middling well as far as it goes—but is that all?”
Song of Myself, Canto 41

This canto sort of sums up what I love about Whitman. He reminds me that there is so much to celebrate, reminds me that what has been said is not all.

There’s a reason why we’ve all heard about the yawp and the boot- ...more

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Jul 26, 2014 منار هانى rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: شعر

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About Walt Whitman

Walt Whitman

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Walter Whitman was an American poet, essayist, journalist, and 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.

Born on Long Island, Whitman worked as a journalist, a teacher, a government clerk, and a volunteer nurse during ...more