Download Unit 4 American Poet-Walt Whitman课程设计

Unit 4
American Poet: Walt Whitman
学
科：
专
业：
外国语言文学
英语语言文学专业
课程名称：
《文学导论》
适用对象：
本科二年级
授课内容： 第四单元 美国诗人：惠特曼
教师姓名：
龙
云
1
Unit 4
American Poet: Walt Whitman
2
 Teaching Objectives
1) Help Students to know something about Whitman.
2) Help Students to master different rhetorical devices used in Whitman’s poem
3) Promote Students’ knowledge of the key words as a writing technique in the
poem
4) Encourage Students to enhance their understanding of the poem through
discussion
 Teaching Content and Focus
1)
2)
3)
4)
5)
6)
7)
Introduction of Walt Whitman
Masterpiece: “Leaves of Grass”
Poem: “There Was a Child Went Forth”
Teaching Point：Free Verse
Teaching Strategy: Compare Free Verse with Shakespearean Sonnet
Teaching Point：Symbol
Teaching Strategy: Symbolic Analysis of “There Was a Child Went Forth”
 Teaching Methodology
1)
2)
3)
4)
5)
6)
7)
Content-based
Student-centered
Elicitation
Interaction
Discussion
Multimedia Courseware and Board Writing
Lead-in Question — Intellectual Stimulation — Instructional Analysis — Group
Discussion
2
Unit 4
American Poet: Walt Whitman
3
 Teaching Plan
Unit 4
American Poet：Walt Whitman
I. Introduction of Walt Whitman (1819-1892)
1. Literary Period
Walt Whitman was a Romanic writer in the 19th century.
2. Background Introduction
A carpenter’s son, Whitman grew up on Long Island, New York among Quakers.
As a young man, he worked as a rural schoolteacher, typesetter, and reporter. His
mother, Louisa Van Velsor, of Dutch descent and Quaker faith, whom he adored, was
barely literate. She never read his poetry, but gave him unconditional love. His father
of English lineage, was a carpenter and builder of houses, and a stern disciplinarian.
His main claim to fame was his friendship with Tom Paine, whose pamphlet Common
Sense (1776), urging the colonists to throw off English domination was in his sparse
library. The senior Walt was too Burdened with the struggle to support his
ever-growing family of nine children, four of whom were handicapped. Young Walt,
the second of nine, was withdrawn from public school at the age of eleven to help
support the family. At the age of twelve he started to learn the printer's trade, and fell in
love with the written and printed word. He was mainly self-taught.
In 1836, at the age of 17, he began his career as an innovative teacher in the
one-room school houses of Long Island. He continued to teach school until 1841,
when he turned to journalism as a full-time career. He soon became editor for a
number of Brooklyn and New York papers. From 1846 to 1847 Whitman was the
editor of the Brooklyn Daily Eagle. In his final essay written one year before his death
in 1891, he sums up his struggles of thirty years to write “Leaves of Grass”.
2. Whitman’s Masterpiece
“Leaves of Grass” (1855)《草叶集》
“Song of Myself (1855)” 《自我之歌》(1855)
“Song of the Broad-Axe”《阔斧之歌》(1856)
“I Hear America Singing”《我听见美国在歌唱》
“When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom’d” 《小院丁香花开时》(1860)
“Democratic Vistas” 《民主的前景》(1871)
“The Tramp and Strike Question”《流浪汉和罢工问题》(1879)
The publication of “Leaves of Grass” in 1855 marked the birth of American poetry.
3
Unit 4
American Poet: Walt Whitman
4
3. Whitman’s Influence
Whitman is a famous American poet, a great innovator and the first really fine poet.
He is the first major poet to make extensive use of free verse. Many critics regard him
as the father of modern poetry. Thoreau called him “the greatest democrat the world
has seen.”
（1） Whitman’s great contribution to American literature is his use of free verse.
Whitman is the first great American poet to use this form of poetry. He also
used it more skillfully than any other poet as shown in “Leaves of Grass”.
（2） Not only the form of Whitman’s free verse but also his thought of democracy
have been influential in world literature, and remain the inspiring sources of
20th century literature.
（3） Generally speaking, Emerson, Whitman, and Mark Twain achieved American
literary independence of that of Europe, and in their great works American
literature achieved an indigenous sonority of expression.
II. Introduction of Whitman’s Writing Features
1. Free verse: The poems are written in free verse. The lines do not follow any set
form. Some lines are short. Some are long. The words at the end of each line do
not have a similar sound.
2. Symbol: A Symbol is usually a material object used to represent something
abstract.
III. Introduction of “Leaves of Grass”
The first edition of “Leaves of Grass”(1855) differed greatly from conventional
poetry of the period both in form and substance. He wrote in a new form. (He didn’t
use rhyme or regular rhythms of the older poetry.) He expressed himself in language
which is more like common talk, more simple and idiomatic than most poets were
using at that time—free verse. He rejected all traditional view of the past. He insulted
the genteel tradition o American literature history.
“Leaves of Grass” has attained almost universal acceptance as America’s
greatest book of poems. It has been praised as “Democratic Bible” and American Epic.
“Leaves of Grass”, a monumental work and the embodiment of American democratic
ideals, is a continuous performance maintaining the stance of the new American poet,
inheritor of Emerson’s self-reliance and transcendental universalism. The ideas
Whitman expresses in his “Leaves of Grass” are democratic ones besides his singing
of science, labor, and nature and maybe summarized as the realization of liberty,
equality, and fraternity.
4
Unit 4
American Poet: Walt Whitman
5
1. Symbolic Meaning of Grass
Its name is The Leaves of Grass, because grass is the commonest thing in the nature,
but it’s also the most active life in the world. So Whitman used this name to
represent temporary America of his times.
2. Implication of “Leaves of Grass”
In this giant work, openness, freedom, and above all, individua1ism (the belief that
the rights and freedom of individual people are most important) are all that
concerned him. Whitman brings the hard-working farmers and laborers into
American literature, attack the slavery system and racial discrimination.
3. Significance
This cluster of poems was a breakthrough: it broke the regular style. All of it is
written in unconventional verse and rhythm. At the same time, he envisioned the
poet as a hero, savior and a prophet, one who leads the community by his
expressions of the truth.
 Emerson’s Letter to Whitman
21 July Concord Masstts. 1855
Dear Sir,
I am not blind to the worth of the wonderful gift of "Leaves of Grass." I find it the
most extraordinary piece of wit and wisdom that America has yet contributed. I am
very happy in reading it, as great power makes us happy. It meets the demand I am
always making of what seemed the sterile & stingy nature, as if too much handiwork
or too much lymph in the temperament were making our western wits fat and mean. I
give you joy of your free brave thought. I have great joy in it. I find incomparable
things said incomparably well, as they must be. I find the courage of treatment, which
so delights us, and which large perception only can inspire. I greet you at the
beginning of a great career, which yet must have had a long foreground somewhere
for such a start. I rubbed my eyes a little to see if this sunbeam were no illusion; but
the solid sense of the book is a sober certainty. It has the best merits, namely of
fortifying & encouraging. I did not know until I, last night, saw the book advertised in
a newspaper, that I could trust the name as real and available for a post-office. I wish
to see my benefactor, & have felt much like striking my tasks, & visiting New York to
pay you my respects.
R. W. Emerson
Mr. Walter Whitman.
5
Unit 4
American Poet: Walt Whitman
6
IV. Symbolic Analysis of “There Was a Child Went Forth”
1. Summarizing the Main Ideas of Each Stanza
This poem expresses the poet’s identification of his consciousness with all objects
and forms, and the list of things which he himself identifies with is large and
comprehensive. The continual process of becoming is the heart of the poem. This
poem describes the development and improvement of a child’s cognition.
2. Symbolic Interpretation of the Key Words
Written in free-verse, there is an overlapping progression seen throughout the
poem: the child first notices objects, then nature, then animals, then people, then
machines. The progression can also be seen in the specific things the child notices: at
first, he or she notices “early” lilacs, third-month lambs, calves and all these represent
a state of new life. The child begins to see simple color of the flowers such as the red
and white morning-glories and the clover. Then the child branches out to the barnyard
and sees “field-sprouts of the Fourth- and Fifth-month” and apples trees with flowers
and then “the fruit afterward”, symbolizing the growing maturity of the child.
He is beginning to differentiate people by their age, gender, race, and behavior, as
seen by the descriptions of many different kinds of people. Another interesting point:
the child realizes that not everything he sees is good, such as the drunkard and the
weeds. The poem then moves to the parents and shows that along with giving the
child physical life, the mother and father also gave their child more of themselves than
that: it talks about the “wholesome”, gentle mother before talking about the “mean,
anger, unjust” father. However, these words do not mean to be as harsh as they seem.
Father (as well as mother) seem “mean” to their child when they make rules and set
limits; “anger” when their child disobeys those limits, and “unjust” when they punish
their child for his disobedience. Home is a warm place. It offers a shelter to everyone.
The family usages, the language, the company, the furniture, the yearning and
swelling heart mean a lot to the children.
As the child gets older, he begins to think about the things he views – “the doubts
of day-time and the doubts of night-time” - and wonders if things happen by random
chance or if there is a purpose to his daily life. The rest of the poem uses descriptive
language. It first talks about a journey on a ferry that in today’s world can be
compared to a child going off to college. Although it makes one nervous, there is still
a safe destination in sight: “the village in the highland”. Also, a ferry is a large,
slow-moving boat, and much less frightening than a tiny schooner being hurried and
slapped by “tumbling waves”.
The voyage on the schooner can be compared to the rest of the child’s life: unsure
and dangerous, but most likely worth the trip. The image of the horizon suggests an
unknown, an area still to be discovered, adventures that have yet to take place, etc.
“The strata of color’d clouds, the long bar of maroon-tint away solitary by itself, the
spread of purity it lies motionless in...these became part of that child who went forth
every day, and who now goes, and will always go forth every day.”
6
Unit 4
American Poet: Walt Whitman
7
3. Theme
In short, this poem expresses the poet’s identification of his consciousness with all
objects and forms, and the list of things which he himself identifies with is large and
comprehensive and is a good example of Whitman’s catalogs. The continual process
of becoming is at the heart of the poem. We become something or grow into
something and this is the process of becoming, of change and development.
V. Discussion
Implication: Analogy between Child and America
As an artist living in an age that was rapidly industrialized and modernized, Whitman
welcomed the great advance of science and its unexampled achievements in social life,
and his poems written after the Civil War frequently wove them into their web.
VI. Homework
Questions:
(1) The poem describes the influences in the child’s process of becoming. Which
influence do you think is the most lasting? Why?
(2) In what sense is the child’s journey endless, and his quest ceaseless?
7
Unit 4
American Poet: Walt Whitman
8
 The Design of Board Writing
Unit 4
American Poet：Walt Whitman
I. Introduction of Walt Whitman
1.
2.
3.
4.
Literary Period
Background Information
Masterpiece
Influence
II. Whitman’s Writing Features
1. Free Verse
2. Symbol
III. Analysis of “There Was a Child Went Forth”
1.
2.
Key Words
Symbolic Implications
IV. Discussion
1.
2.
Inspiration
Questions
 References
1)
2)
Kaplan, Justin. Walt Whitman: A Life. NY: Simon and Schuster, 1980.
Kummings, Donald D. A Companion to Walt Whitman. Blackwell Publishing, 2005.
童明：《美国文学史》。北京：外语教学与研究出版社，2008。
4) 吴伟仁：《美国文学史及选读》。北京：外语教学与研究出版社，2002。
3)
8
Unit 4
American Poet: Walt Whitman
9
教学总结：
课件的主要特点：
1. 课件色彩运用得当，每个授课内容模块通过色彩变化使学生注意力保持集中。
（绿色模块为作家简介，黄色模块为作品分析，蓝色模块为文本讨论。
）
2. 课件背景图片的选择贴近文本主题和学生生活，课件风格明快。
3. 课件运用文字、图画、动画、音频、图表等多种手段加强教学效果，课堂充满趣味性。
4. 课件教学内容清晰，主旨明确，开篇清晰介绍课堂教学安排。
3． 教学重点突出，作家和文本内容比例安排合理。
4． 教学内容由浅入深，呈现出递进性的教学特点，同时兼顾文学的赏析性和学理性。在学
生理解的基础上加入文学理论分析，可以有效地培养学生的基本文学素养并提高学生运
用理论独立进行文本分析的实践综合能力。
教学方法的创新点
本课程教学内容的设计安排打破了传统的单纯式文本意义阐释，而是在此基础上深入到文学
技法和理论层面上的深度解读，并触及在社会和文化背景下的文本意义探讨。与此同时，将
文本有机地与学生生活联系在一起，通过启示性思考引导学生树立正确的、积极的人生观。
可以说本门课的讲授兼顾了知识性和人文精神培养的双重目标。
教学效果
文学课是一门非常具有挑战性的课程，原因一方面在于学生兴趣不高，另一方面由于众口难
调，教师往往在文本材料的选择上无所适从。特别是英文诗歌的讲解更是难上加难，学生一
开始就抱有抵触情绪，甚至表现出自信心不足。教师在选择适当的文本材料的基础上，需要
注意分析视角的选择，注意内容设置的层次性和内容难度的过渡性，通过将文本内涵和主题
与学生的生活体验进行联系和比较，可以达到良好的教学效果。学生反馈：
(1) 觉得文学，尤其是英美文学并不离我们太远，有时觉得分析诗歌还是挺有趣的一件事。
(2) 了解了一些文学中的基础知识，特别是文章中一些道理，对人生还是有一定帮助的。
(3) 对于英美文学的兴趣大大提升了，甚至觉得外国诗歌其实也挺有意思的。
(4) 原本对文学没有多大兴趣的我开始喜欢看一些文学作品并尝试体会和挖掘作品包含的
深层含义。
(5) 讲诗歌的那部分收获颇丰，起码知道该怎样初读英文诗了。
(6) 收获很大，原来对文学作品比较抵触，在上过这门课后，觉得每篇文章都有很多深层的
涵义，还有许多比喻、象征等，分析这些内涵很有意思。
9