I jumped into Leaves of Grass expecting Thoreau, because I love Thoreau. But alas, I have discovered Whitman seems to be more akin to Emerson, at least in my opinion. Since there are so many versions of Leaves of Grass, I chose to read a reprinting of the original 1855 edition, not the numerous updated and expanded editions that Whitman came out with afterwards. I had high hopes for the book because I do enjoy reading poetry but Leaves of Grass started off on a sour note for me. The preface to the story was practically nonsensical. I made the mistake of attempting to start the book while being very tired, however nothing made any sense and I put it down. I waited to start the book another day and I was able to understand more of it, but the story didn't follow what I was expecting from a book entitled "Leaves of Grass". The preface was about America, and poets, and how great poets are, and it was weird. Turns out Whitman had a bit of an ego. Finally, we delve into the actual poetry and I found snippets of lines that I loved, like this stanza:
"Not I, not any one else can travel that road for you,You must travel it for yourself."
But overall the poem seemed like a massive list of things Whitman has seen. He lists various occupations, and various types of faces, and different types of people he has seen, and it's all a bit much without any real story to go along with it. I appreciate his views on the world, about how he felt men and women were equal (as far as I could tell) even in the 1800's. I liked when he had story threads sprinkled here and there in the poem but it wasn't enough to maintain my attention. When I read stories that become a bit hard to follow, I tend to mentally wander and I had to go back multiple times throughout this to gather what was being said. I would say that this was a poem that one needs to read multiple times to fully comprehend, however I don't think I could go back and do that again.
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