Reseña del libro "Canto de Mi Mismo"
Walt Whitman en 1855 publico de manera casi clandestina la primera version de un libro titulado Hojas de hierba (Leaves of Grass), que habria de convertirse con el tiempo en la piedra angular de la moderna poesia norteamericana. La obra era una especie de manifiesto revolucionario en contra de la dominacion cultural europea, y sus versos libres, cargados del lenguaje de la gente comun, rompian radicalmente con las tradiciones poeticas mas veneradas de su epoca. Whitman dedico el resto de su vida a enriquecer, aumentar y reelaborar sus Hojas de hierba, cuya octava edicion ya rebasaba las quinientas paginas, y en especial el Canto a mi mismo (Song of Myself), uno de sus capitulos mas bellos y audaces. Whitman nacio en Long Island, Nueva York, el 31 de mayo de 1819, y murio en Camden, Nueva Jersey, en 1892. Hijo de un carpintero pobre y enfermo, abandono la escuela publica cuando apenas tenia trece anos para trabajar en diversos oficios, desde mensajero de un despacho de abogados hasta editor de varios periodicos / Song of Myself, the premier poem in Walt Whitmans Leaves of Grass, is widely believed to be one of the most important poems in American literature. A large part of the brilliance of Song of Myself is the raffish playfulness of its dictionthe poem belongs to the mid-nineteenth centurys love of wordplay that also characterizes Charles Dickens and Mark Twain. Walt Whitman was deeply interested in the American language as it was emerging in his time. Robert Hass and Paul Ebenkamps lexicon walks us through his greatest poem and, in its footsteps, much is revealed about the words Whitman chose in 1855their inflections, meanings, and native usages we wouldnt otherwise know. We are made to understand, perhaps truly for the first time, Whitmans query in Song of Myself: Have you felt so proud to get to the meaning of poems? In the first part of the collection, Hass offers an introduction to the poem and then, with Ebenkamp, a rich annotation of Song of Myself. The second part of this book includes poems from the span of Whitmans career, selected by Hass,that give us a fresh look at the beauty, authority, and sweep of Whitmans work.
