In Search of Walt Whitman, Part One: The Early Years (1819-1860)
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 17 เม.ย. 2020
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This engaging film tells the story of Walt Whitman’s remarkable life (1819-1892), the turbulent era in which he lived, and the timeless poetry he created.
In Part One, Walt Whitman rises from a hardscrabble boyhood in Long Island and Brooklyn to write the masterpiece Leaves of Grass in 1855 that revolutionizes literature. Many of Whitman’s most famous poems are profiled including “I Hear America Singing,” “Song of Myself,” “I Sing the Body Electric,” “Out of the Cradle Endlessly Rocking,” and “Crossing Brooklyn Ferry.” Part One also explores the mystery of how a seemingly ordinary writer, with little education or training, could have created such a literature-changing masterpiece.
Be sure to check out Part Two: The Civil War and Beyond (1861-1892): • In Search of Walt Whit...
This is an East Rock Films production. East Rock Films is an educational film organization that seeks to inform and inspire viewers by bringing to life famous writers, artists, and their works. - ภาพยนตร์และแอนิเมชัน
"A ship under full sail". One of the most majestic sights, ever.
Thank you very much for sharing this film! I'm from Ukraine, I know and love Walt Whitman. For me, one of the reasons to learn English was to read his great poems in original.
My favorite poem Walt Whitman wrote is A Child Goes Forth. I read it at my sons funeral in Florida 25 yrs ago.
Whitman's eyes tell it all, especially when he's young.... If I could meet anyone from the past, he'd be at the top of my list.
Thank you for this documentary. I discovered his poetry in the 6th grade . Now at age 65, his works continue to move me like no other poet.
GOOD FOR HIM for anonymously reviewing his own book. Love it.
A true free spirit who took off his hat to nobody. "Out of the Cradle Endlessly Rocking" will break your heart in 100 pieces.
I'm from northern England in the lakes and I adore Whitmans wonderful beautiful poems he was a great writer
So right about his greeting the future. He's a lifelong friend. This is a beautiful presentation.
A joyful evening I’ve spent becoming acquainted with Mr. Whitman I have struggled to understand him. I gave my copy of Leaves of Grass to a family of five boys and one girl, hoping one of them could find him. Now I must replace my book. I am an Artist and maker of papers and books and pictures , but have never believed I could write. However I am now encouraged to see that I can appreciate those who do write poetry. I love History and Historical fiction. I love Emerson. Now I’m in love with Whitman 🌺
I am glad that I was Born 100+ years after Walt, because I would have missed the experiencing of Reading his Works of Art.
This is to you a hundred years henceforth, or any number of years henceforth. These seeking you. . .
This documentary is perhaps the best I will ever get in hold of. My blessings for the creator. stunning.
This two-part Whitman documentary is my favorite on the poet. I watch it about once a year. The music of Holst and others is entirely appropriate to the tone of WW's poetry.
" Walt Whitman says I celebrate myself, I sing myself. That is aloneness. This man Whitman is really a mystic, not just a poet. He should be counted with the ancient RISHIS of the Upanishads. America has not given birth to many great mystics; Whitman is really one of the most precious gifts of America to the world. He says: I celebrate myself, I sing myself. That’s what a mystic has always been supposed to do, that’s what a mystic’s function is: to celebrate himself. But how will you celebrate? You will have to invite others. You will have to ask others to come and participate.
Please meditate on these words of Walt Whitman:
“I think I could turn and live with animals, they ar so placid and self-contained;
I stand and look at them long and long.
They do not sweat and whine about their condition.
They do not lie awake in the dark and weep for their sins;
They do not make me sick discussing their duty to God.”
❤
He is very spiritual. Alan Ginsberg must have loved him madly, so reminiscent...
It is not aloneness. It is quite the opposite. It is awareness of being the ocean, and yet an individualized, unique drop of the ocean we all are part of. Yes he was certainly a mystic as he exactly describes cosmic consciousness.
I love Walt Whitman. 🕊
this documentary is extraordinary. thanks for this. its encouraging to hear whitmans humble background, his inclination to loaf and enjoy nature, and his constant reaffirmation of the human soul.
Must see! Considered well acquainted w/WW’s works, life & times, whoa, was I wrong. This thoughtful & moving 2-part series of a quintessential American, great poet & human being, is astonishing in scope & depth & every measurement of purpose accomplishment. The quiet narration, comments, selected poems, readings & in print, chosen anecdotes presentation & focus, music, photos, etc. were perfect, create a flow & pleasurable experience of recognition & surprise. Many documentaries today are comparative flash cards or POV Cliff notes with overbearing music, manipulated sound volumes, fast paced cram sessions of obviously show off technique or expertise, photos, graphics, popups w/incidental factsheets & sidebars. Grateful to UTube & all those who made this possible & kudos for not destroying with ad insertions (blasphemy). Never heard story of a Booth rescuing a Lincoln, possible in a smaller & more intimate world WW was passing through.
Thank you! Yes, I was amazed by the Booth story. I first heard about it when I took of Ford's theater with my uncle. It is such an incredible twist of fate, I had to put it in the film!
I see you, I feel you, I hear you, I am you - dear Walt.
Wonderful to have contributed to this excellent documentary on 19th century newspaper journalist and noted poet Walt Whitman -- created, produced, written, and directed by Dr. Andrew D. Kaplan.
Trees, flowers and sun and sometimes even the paintings are so comforting to watch
Very beautiful documentary. Thank you for loading it..
One more thing to add.. magnificent!
I remember studying Whitman in jr high. But we never covered any of this. Thanks to all involved in providing this information
Walt filtered out the daily nonsense and silliness of religion Christianity duty and doctrine", and pulled in the beauty of the spirit of it and became free of the bondage of religion. The suns glorious shine in the window of the chapel on Sunday morning is more peaceful and wonderful of Gods loving kindness than any sermon ive ever heard in my life..
He has a connectedness with nature within his heart that I totally understand…
Your profile pic is beautiful
When we realize that each of us is A Part of Nature, no Apart from Nature, then The Universal Mind becomes open on to You.
Mesmerizing. Loved every moment. Thank You.
Thank you! I am glad you enjoyed the film. Don't forget to watch Part 2, if you haven't already :)
Excellent film. Thank you so much for making this available.
I really enjoyed this. It struck my heart listening to his words and made me cry. I recently found a partially burnt copy of Leaves of Grass 1876 and cannot stop reading till done. His mind was simplistic but his heart was so deep. Looking forward to learning more about him
👍🙏✨
@@cafepoem189 I agree his heart was deep, but I can't assent to his mind being simplistic. Pure, perhaps, but not simplistic . . .
So was Oscar Wilde, be yourself, the rest are taken
The sound makes the meaning. Common humanity past and future are riveted simultaneous in the eternal now.
beautiful.
The highlights for me were: 18:36 One of the papers Walt wrote for was the Broadway Journal. One afternoon in 1845, he strolled into its offices to talk with its editor an owner who was none other than Edgar Allan Poe. 20:48 Emerson 32:50 For Whitman, the days after his newspaper failed in 1849, were days of preparation - "the gathering of the forces," as he later called it. Making up for a scant education, he read voraciously on religion, history and science. He kept a notebook to record observations and insights. He was "simmering", as he liked to say, forging the raw materials into what would be a new kind of poetry. 43:34 Dr. Richard Maurice Buck was a close friend of Whitman's during the poet's later years. Buck wrote one of the earliest biographies on Walt Whitman and served as co-executor of his literary estate. Buck believed that in June of 1853 or 1854, when Whitman was around 35 years old, he had a cosmic and transcendent experience that played a role in infusing his poetry with a profound spiritual wisdom. Buck describes this belief in his book, "Cosmic Consciousness," in which he profiles Whitman and others throughout history who had spontaneous transcendent experiences that deeply changed them and their work, offering them a glimpse into the immortality of all things. Buck himself was no stranger to such a mystical experience. He reports that in 1872 he experienced a transcendent vision after reading Leaves of Grass and other poetry. While Whitman never spoke publicly about a profound mystical experience there are hints throughout his notebooks from the 1850s, while he was writing leaves of grass: "I am in a mystic trance exhortation something wild and untamed half-savage. He later wrote about being in a trance, yet with all senses alert with the objective world suspended or surmounted for a while and the powers in exultation freedom vision. 48:30 "I believe in you my soul the other I am must not abase itself to you and you must not be abased to the other - my mind. (How we lay in June such a transparent summer morning you've settled your head a thought my hips and gently turned over upon me and parted the shirt from my bosom bone and plunged your tongue to my bare stripped heart and reached till you felt my beard and reached till you held my feet swiftly arose and spread around the peace and joy and knowledge that pass all the art and argument of the earth) and I know that the hand of God is the elder hand of my own and I know that the Spirit of God is the eldest brother of my own and that all the men ever born are also my brothers and the women my sisters." 53:53 In "Song of Myself", Whitman distinguishes between one's personality and the larger self - the deeper self - is of the same essence as the universal Spirit and that true knowledge is acquired not through the senses or an intellect but through union - union with this self. 1:08:00 Whitman sent a copy of the book to Ralph Waldo Emerson the most widely respected American essayist whose lecture on poetry years before greatly inspired Whitman. Emerson sent him a glowing letter: "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 find incomparable things said incomparably well. I greet you at the beginning of such a great career which, yet, must have had a long foreground somewhere for such a start." 1:13:55 Whitman sent a copy of the second vision to the writer Henry David Thoreau who had published Walden two years before. Thoreau returned the gesture by visiting Whitman in November 1856 along with fellow Concord resident, Bronson Alcott. Thoreau and Whitman got along very well and Thoreau was a great admirer of Leaves of Grass. 1:23:24 Emerson visited Whitman and the two strolled for hours in Boston's main public park. Emerson advised Whitman that some of his poetry would shock readers. If the books were to sell Walt needed to remove or expurgate the offending lines but Walt refused.
Fantastic job on this. =) You elevate Whitman and show the true soul of the poet. I also appreciate the reference to RM Bucke!
Could we with ink the ocean fill
And were the skies of parchment made;
Were every stalk on earth a quill,
And every man a scribe by trade;
To write the love of God above
Would drain the ocean dry;
Nor could the scroll contain the whole,
Though stretched from sky to sky.
That's beautiful
From the old protestant hymn: THE LOVE OF GOD. Gregg Oreo long Beach Ca
One of the very best I’ve listened to
Thank you so much.
Beautiful to WATCH and LISTEN TO. THANK YOU.
Thanks for this! Amazing work!
Well narrated.
He was singing his inward..
Whitman articulates beautifully, for the most part, that Man/Woman are made in the Image of God....
Spellbindng...i sat there transfixed; Whitman was an American Leonardo, in a literary sense. We need him now. First time I realized there's no commerc'ls if you don't pause it; first time i watched something so good I forgot to pause it --
We have Chomsky now, but yeah Whitman … would he be heard today?
I didn't listen
I looked into the eyes in a photograph.
These eyes tell much .
I look into them for something
I see endurance.
Most of the visuals in this video are poetry themselves.....so beautiful scenes
Thank you for this
‘Tis a pity that knowledge and wisdom are so frequently thought of as one and the same.
Thank you, excellent doc.
Thank you. Beautiful doc. I've loved his poems forever. Nice to learn more of the man, the things he held dear. What shaped him to be the man he was.
This is so good!
Once you got to the LOG section, you really knocked it out of the park with the soundtrack.
Thank you! Choosing the music for the film and getting the rights for it with a very tight budget was a challenge but it was also a wonderful exercise in intuition.
wonderful
He was way ahead of his time we know that we can live at by reversing our aging to aging younger
Thank you for sharing this wonderful thing!🙏
It is my pleasure.
Yes, thank you so much🐝🌺
Spectacular
Much thanks🙏
Thank you that was great!!
When lilacs last in the dooryard bloomed.
That line in itself a poem
This is beyond wonderful !
This was so good & inspirational. So deep that I could cry. 💕
Thank you! I appreciate it :)
The truth about Whitman, as I see it, was that he’d experienced cosmic consciousness, and everything he wrote was coming from this. To those who haven’t experienced this (mostly everyone), he will seem outlandish, even just plain crazy. He’s not alone though, Jesus, Buddha, Shakespeare, Goethe, Dante, Emerson, Dickinson et al all had these intimations of immortality. However, even without this angle, Whitman can just be read as humanistic wisdom for the ages. Those who claim something ‘off’, or worse, about him are, in my experience, usually rigid, linear thinkers who have sold their soul to this so-called holy book or that so-called holy book. There is more wisdom in 🍁 Leaves of Grass than all those dusty tomes put together.
I love your comment! I've read it three times.
It sounds like you’ve had to suffer some fools…..a good bit of anger in your note (righteous indignation?)…
Still, your points are very well taken and as someone who gets both Whitman and the Bible, I appreciate your passion. I know Whitman would too…
💯🫶🏼
Non abiding eh 🤣🤣🤣😁
Brilliant thoughts Donald lamont
A beautiful portrait, his words perfectly spoken and spoken of.
Whitman like his contemporary Thoreau were deemed lazy because they didn't buy into the Puritan ethics.
I didn’t study and This video saved my English grade
THANK YOU SO MUCH !!
Whitman would call you a noble loafer. lol.
@@OuterGalaxyLounge Whitman would have loved being called that.
Now go back and read Whitman for yourself.
Phenomenal Documentary
Wonderful Thanks for sharing!
Wonderful!
The highlight for me was [32:55] These were days of preparation - the gathering of the forces as he later
called it. Making up for a scant education, he read voraciously on religion, history and science. He kept a notebook to record observations and insights. He was simmering, as he liked to say, forging the raw materials into what would be a new kind of poetry. [18:36] Edgar Allan Poe [20:50] Ralph Waldo Emerson [25:38] Daily Crescent [40:22] The New Egyptian Museum [43:02] Richard Maurice Bucke - 1853/4 [1:05:00] Leaves of Grass [1:07:49] Ralph Waldo Emerson [1:13:52] Thoreau & Bronson Alcott - 1856 [1:15:23] Faffs [1:23:23] Emerson
WW is one of the GOATS of poetry. ❤
Absolutely brilliant thank you
Oh bring back sweet poetry to we
...fools who use words like 'we' when 'us' will do.
I want to know more about great fire of 1835 burning over 600 newspaper building demolishing publications industry
I'm getting into American transcendentalism
Oh the irony. I've literally just written about the poisoning of 'weeds', which are, in fact healing medicine. Fertiliser which poisond the water and soil. All the beauty that our Creator gave to us without cost, has been monetised. I could go on, but if there's any consciousness out there this should be enough to alert.
Walt is the greatest poet America has ever produced. He goes bail for the USA.
Just started reading his collected works, this helps tie it all together. =-)
Yesterday's smoke in the past it's ashes,
The afternoons sunshine after nature crashes,
Our skies tears purify and nourishes all around,
The rain of today drops from the parliaments without a sound,
The scent of tomorrow's aren't sensed today,
In a moment the past present and future coexists in a thought I say,
As we all grow in more than an instant,
The distance from here and there is not so distant,
Nothing in the universe is stagnant said the soul to a tongue,
Boundless flow like water existence cant be absorbed by a sponge,
The art of words can be misinterpreted by difference,
Imagine hUmaNITY United to acknowledge the indifference,
The diversity that's diversified in New York City,
A culture a way of living from boro 2 boro DIVERcity,
Great! Thank you
Great post ❤
I lived on Long Island, E. Northport 😊 63 Soundview Ave, in the 1980's
I saw this about a year ago. But did not leave a comment.
Walt Whitman was indeed one of our greatest poets.
Thank you, again. I love this channel.
Glad you enjoyed it
Terrific documentary. Thank you.
Maybe some omissions.
Although all-loving, he did seem to make an exception for the Irish.
Same goes for Emerson and Thoreau, it seems.
We constitute a bit of a challenge, apparently!
Yes, I was astonished at Thoreu's cold-heartedness to John Field. David Henry came across as a smug, posturing WASP. I think the levels of immigration had poisoned the locals' view somewhat, and the type of work and conditions which the Irish had to endure coloured the contemporary expression. However, don't feel too isolated, as this was the country where all men, not women, were created equal...oh, except for the four million slaves, of course...
Well to be fair the Irish back then were his day’s Qanon 🤷♂️ The Draft Riots and massacres? They were hard to love back then
I have always been troubled by those passages in Walden.
Sterling Hayden's idea of death in the book Voyage was that our new souls run down a mountain stream from freshly melted snow, then taken by the city to be processed, treated, and mixed with, then flushed through a city commode, and sent back out to sea.
Sterling Hayden may well be linked to Whitman's brand of freedom. We in America like to think we are free but the truth may be that very few of us really are....
@@beerman204 true. man is born free & he is everywhere in chains.
wish he lived today
Every one of his words expresses the knowledge that he does live today, always.
He was enlightened or he had had very profound glimpses.The same is true for Henry David Thoreau and to a lesser degree for John Muir.
He must have understood the message of the Gita.. the final step is enlightenment and this is that journey.
Although there are short poems of his that I love, Whitman isn’t even nearly my favorite poet; still, this was very interesting. What really struck me was his absolute freedom to go wherever he wanted, whenever he wanted, do whatever he wanted within his means, to work or not, to sleep wherever. Think of how different a contemporary female poet’s experiences would have been, _could_ have been, how much more confined, and how much more imagination she would have to possess and use to make up for it! To me, the appearance of Emily Dickinson’s poetry _AT ALL_ is much MUCH more to be wondered at, marveled at, extolled, because it all happened without leaving a little room in the house where she lived....THAT is miraculous, more miraculous than Whitman’s output! One may ask, “Where did ‘Leaves of Grass,’ come from?” _I_ marvel and ask, “Where on Earth did _one word_ of Emily Dickinson’s poetry come from?” Not to mention the women who were novelists as well as poets before 1930...what education did most of them have, not to mention the dearth of solitary experience in the world??
I think about this a lot, think of all of the humans whose genius we’ll never know.
I love Whitman but I had exactly the same thought as you as I watched this. Complete freedom! Not many female artists have had that in the past.
Walt is the greatest American poet. Dickinson's influence pales before the great good grey poet.
What about writers like Mary Shelley, Jane Austen, and the Brontes?
Thank you
Absolutely delicious and so soothing ❤️
You sound as though you’re eating a piece of chocolate cake, not watching a documentary!
My gosh. I am home. He is! as I am, as we are. 6/17/2022
Love ya Uncle Walt
“First great poet”? It is more accurate to describe him as the greatest artist ever produced in the Americas, North and South. His peers are Milton, Blake and Tennyson in England, Victor Hugo in France. Only Shakespeare stands above all.
Please... you sound ignorant. The greatest poet of the Americas? Do you have any idea what you are saying? Do you know Pablo Neruda, José Martí, Ruben Darío? Apparently you don't. I am not knocking WW, I love the man himself but even within the confines of the United States WW was not the best as we have many excellent poets.
Everything is of God, belongs to God, was made by Him and is infused with his energy.
@@a.d.5952which god?
Harold Bloom, the late great literary critic, shared your opinion. He called Walt the greatest writer to ever appear in all of the Americas.
I've heard that Henry Miller felt the same way.
I grew up on Long Island but didn’t appreciate Whitman, his name everywhere there, until I got to know the work of the beats and his influence upon them proud to be poetic homies
Kings Park here.
Interesting that none of the comments mention that Whitman was writing homoerotic prose
And so?
yes,so?..he speaks to all
If by interesting you mean sad and homophobic, then yeah it's interesting. We stan an old timey bi king 👑
If one looks for homo erotica: one FINDS what one seeks. Yes? Even, if it's non existent. We see what we want to see. Gregg Oreo long Beach Ca, a poet free thinker
Sounds more bi- or even "uni-sexual" to me: "And I will show of male and female that either is but the equal of the other, And sexual organs and acts!"
wow! how glad am i ? to of discovered this gem. thank
56:19 Whitman is spot on. The content of our consciousness is not divided in order of our class, politics reeligion and so on and so on. The common denomominator in us all is humanity. Humanity suffers, violence, loneliness, fear of hell on earth and some say there is more in a place called heaven. When our mind is healthy the magnitude may differ due to what images one has created for themselves about themselves and their world at large. Lets say king. A king experiiences all the above and so does the homeless fella down the road. The magnitude may differ for the king because he has the power to excecute certain commands to temporarily reduce his suffering psychologically as compared to the fella down the road whose troubles are on his face and exagerated by luck of power but if they were to drop dead at the same time, all is psychologically finished for both of them but the human conscience stays the same as the contents dont shift. Pain, fear, death, disease, suffering. Believe you me i am poor and work for the so called wealthy but they are the disctiption of suffering. Money covers it up well for the observer but the reality is, the observer is the observed. Jiddu Krishnamurti.
Well said. But we must also extol his sincere joy , the connection, the awe and exaltation he feels inside that he strives to describe to the reader.He mist have been a great person to know or have as a friend!
Did you know: Emerson encouraged Whitman to shorten his name from Walter Whitman ending the unlovely two iambic feet becoming the melodious amphamacer walt WHIT man, adding "I great you at the beginning of a great career."
“I greet you...”
Outstanding individual - genuine mystical experience
Great effort!
A nice movie called "With Honors" features these Whitman phrases...Joe Pesci stars.
That’s how I discovered Walt Whitman.
Not Apart, was what I was writing.
Maltese Crimea By Pius II From The Photograph Of Walt Whitman
In the tv show Room 222 there was a high school called Walt Whitman HS which starred Karen Valentine & Denise Nicolas.
Archie Thomas
There is a real life Walt Whitman High School, in Huntington, LI, NY.
As a child, our family lived in Huntington.
My best friend's paternal Grandmother Van Velsor, was Mr. Whitman's 2nd cousin
What a touch of greatness!
Also, Archie Thomas
I never missed Room 222. "Funny," how these show was part of the groundbreaking shows, around Civil Rights. Pete Dixon,
African- American 11th grade history teacher was a protagonist of tolerance and understanding, in a quiet productive way.
The beauty of his character that it was intertwined with a comedy show. Karen Valentine won an Outstanding Supportive Actress Award/ Primetime Emmy Award (1970)
Archie Thomas
Thanks for liking.
..."See you next week.
Same time, same channel."
Wow! I haven't thought about Room 222 in years! Thanks!
52:09 Jiddu Krishnamurti.
Thanksalot
🌹🌹🌹🌹🌹🌹❤️❤️❤️
Anybody check under his tombstone?