"Song of Myself" ('Cantus Meimet') est poema Gualterii Whitman, magnus mediusque textus in libro Leaves of Grass conlocatus, qui dicitur "cor poetici cogitationis Whitmanianae repraesentare."[1][2]

A black-on-white engraving of Whitman standing with his arm at his side
Gualterius Whitman. Scalptura chalybis.

Editiones recensere

Poema primum sine partibus separatis prolatum est,[3] ut primum ex duodecim poematibus sine titulo in primá Leaves of Grass editione (1855). Prima editio a Whitman impendio suo prolata est. Whitman in editione altera (1856) titulum "Poem of Walt Whitman, an American" ('Poema Gualterii Whitman, Americani') adhibuit, ad "Walt Whitman" in editione tertia (1860) imminutum.[2] Divisus est textus quartae editionis in quadraginta duabus partibus numeratis, atque ad ultimum titulum "Song of Myself" in ultima editione (1881–1882) habuit.[2]

Receptio recensere

Poema "Song of Myself," anno 1855 simul ac prolatus, a criticis et lectoribus vulgaribus electum est, et hodie inter poemata laudatissima et potentissima ab Americano facta manet.[4] Periodicum Christian Spiritualist de poemate "Song of Myself" iudicium benigne et copiose anno 1855 expressit, Whitman conlaudans ob repraesentationem "novi generis poetici," quod per ex cogitationem activam "influentís animam et spiritum divinum" percepit.[5][6] Radulphus Waldo Emerson epistulam Whitman misit, eius opera ob ingenium et sapientiam[7] praedicans.[2] Comprobatio autem populi cunctabatur. Conservativi sociales poema vituperaverunt quia, ut dicebant, acceptas morum normas ludificabatur ob eius manifestas sexualitatis humanae depictiones. Iurisconsultus districtus Bostoniae anno 1882 litem poetae minitatus est ob leges obscenitatis violatas, mutationesque in nonnullis locis in "Song of Myself" fieri poposcit.[2]

Modus litterarius recensere

Poema usitato poetae modo versibus liberis componitur. Whitman, qui verba "tam simplicia quam gramen"[8] laudat, usitata stanza? versuum exemplaria declinat pro modo simplice, qui audientiam per saturam attrahere potest.[9]

Iudices litterarii in poemate grave transcendentalismi momentum observaverunt. In parte 32, exempli gratia, Whitman exprimit desiderium "vivere inter animalia" et divinitatem inter insecta invenire. Poema per hoc romanticismum genus realismi antevenire videtur quod in litteris Civitatum Foederatarum post Bellum Civile Americanum magnum momentum habuit. Hoc in loco (pars 15, 1855), exempli gratia, poetam videmus harenosorum vitae quotidianae singulorum amplecti:

Verba Anglica Verba Latine reddita

The lunatic is carried at last to the asylum a confirm'd case,
(He will never sleep any more as he did in the cot in his mother's bed-room;)
The jour printer with gray head and gaunt jaws works at his case,
He turns his quid of tobacco while his eyes blurr with the manuscript;
The malform'd limbs are tied to the surgeon's table,
What is removed drops horribly in a pail;
The quadroon girl is sold at the auction-stand, the drunkard nods by the bar-room stove.

Homo insanus ad asylum tandem portatur, casus confirmatus,
(numquam iterum dormiet ut in lectulo in cubiculo materno dormivit);
typographus diurnus cano capite macraque maxilla capsam colit,
bolum tabaci volvit, oculis supra manuscriptum palantibus;
membra deformia ad mensam chirurgi adligantur,
quidquid removetur in hamam foede excidit;
quadrona sub hastá venitur, ebriosus prope focum cauponae dormitat.

"Se" recensere

 
"Song of Myself" locos de foedis Civitatum Foederatarum ante bellum realitatibus amplectitur, inter quos locus servum multiracialum tractans.

Whitman in poemate vehementius dicit omnipotentem "me" qui pro narratore est, cum Gualterio Whitman, homine historico, non confundendus. Persona descripta finibus sui usu receptis excelluit: "Mortem cum moribundis, et ortum cum infante recens lavato transgredior . . . et inter petasum et caligas non comprehendor."[10] De argumento autem poematis, textus insigniter adfirmat: "Haec revera sunt cogitationes omnium hominum aetatibus terrisque omnibus vivorum; mei propriae non sunt."[11]

Sunt in poemate nonnulli loci alii qui Whitman patefaciant narratorem nonnullos singulos esse petentem; potius, poeta pro omnibus narrare videtur:

  • "Nam omnis atomus ad me pertinens aeque ad te pertinet."[12]
  • "Me in omnibus hominibus video, nemine plus et nemo non grano hordei minus, / et bonum et malum quod de me dico de eis dico."[13]
  • "Tu es qui sermocinatur idem ac sermocinor. . . . Lingua tui sum."[14]
  • "Magnus sum, multitudines contineo."[15]

Critici Alicia L. Cook et Ioannes B. Mason significationes verbi pro se et eius momentum in poemate explicant: Cook scribit ianuam poematis intellectae in "notione sui"[16] iacere, (a Whitman signata) "rem et singularem et universalem"[17]; Mason de "implicatione lectoris in motu poetae a re singulari ad rem cosmicam" disserit.[18] Hoc "se" pro perfecta forma est, sed, contra translaticiam poesim epicam, identitas est unus ex plebibus, potius quam heroes.[19]

Politicus "sui" contextus recensere

Elizabetha Erkkilä, historicus litterarius, scribit: "drama identitatis" in poemate "in civile civitatis in discrimine versantis dramate inhaeret,"[20][2] quod ad difficultates servitutis, iurum mulierum, redintegrationis religiosae, et amoris liberi spectat, quae per Americam pervadebant cum Whitman "A Song of Myself" duceret.

Adnotationes recensere

  1. Anglice: "representing the core of Whitman’s poetic vision."
  2. 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 2.4 2.5 Ezra Greenspan, ed., Walt Whitman’s "Song of Myself": A Sourcebook and Critical Edition (Novi Eboraci: Routledge, 2005).
  3. Jerome Loving, Walt Whitman: The Song of Himself (Berkeleiae: University of California Press, 1999).
  4. Huck Gutman, "Walt Whitman's 'Song of Myself,'" in The Oxford Encyclopedia of American Literature, ed. Jay Parini (Oxoniae: Oxford University Press, 2004). Oxford Reference Online. Oxford University Press; interrete, 20 Octobris 2011.
  5. Anglice: "a new poetic mediumship," [quod percepit] "influx of spirit and the divine breath."
  6. David S. Reynolds, Walt Whitman’s America: A Cultural Biography (Novi Eboraci: Alfred A. Knopf, 1995).
  7. Anglice: "wit and wisdom."
  8. Anglice: "as simple as grass" (section 39).
  9. Patrick Redding, "Whitman Unbound: Democracy and Poetic Form," New Literary Theory 41.3 (2010):669-90. Project Muse; interrete, 19 Octobris 2011.
  10. Anglice: "I pass death with the dying, and birth with the new-washed babe . . . and am not contained between my hat and boots" (sectio 7).
  11. Anglice: "These are really the thoughts of all men in all ages and lands, they are not original with me."
  12. Anglice: "For every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you" (pars 1).
  13. Anglice: "In all people I see myself, none more and not one a barleycorn less / and the good or bad I say of myself I say of them" (pars 20).
  14. Anglice: "It is you talking just as much as myself. . . . I act as the tongue of you" (pars 47).
  15. Anglice: "I am large, I contain multitudes" (pars 51)<.
  16. Anglice: "concept of the self."
  17. Alice L. Cook, "A Note on Whitman’s Symbolism in 'Song of Myself,'" Modern Language Notes 65.4 (1950): 228-232.
  18. John B. Mason, "Walt Whitman's Catalogues: Rhetorical Means for Two Journeys in 'Song of Myself,'" American Literature 45.1 (1973): 34-49.
  19. James E. Miller, Walt Whitman (Novi Eboraci: Twayne Publishers, 1962).
  20. Anglice: ""the drama of identity . . . [in the poem is] "rooted in the political drama of a nation in crisis."

Nexus externi recensere