Leaves of Grass
by Walt Whitman · first published 1855
26% recommend70% neutral4% critical
Why HN recommends it
The book offers comfort and reflection, and it is often opened at random and read until the reader feels better. Some people have memorized passages and keep a worn copy close at hand.
Summarised by Claude from recommending comments
Leaves of Grass is a poetry collection by American poet Walt Whitman. First published in 1855, Whitman spent most of his professional life writing and rewriting Leaves of Grass, revising it multiple times until his death. There have been held to be either six or nine individual editions of Leaves of Grass, the count varying depending on how they are distinguished.[2] This resulted in vastly different editions over four decades—the first edition being a small book of twelve poems, and the last, a compilation of over 400.
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…ficciones; jorge luis borges fractals: form, chance and dimension; benoit mandelbrot fragments; sappho gospels of mary and judas; unknown i ching; unknown la vida es sueno; pedro calderon de la barca leaves of grass; walt whitman letters of vincent van gogh meghaduta; kalidasa my life; isadora duncan nightwood; djuna barnes oku no hosomichi; basho one piece; eiichiro oda poems; emily dickinson relativity:…
on “Ask HN: What book have you given as a gift?” ↗A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court by Mark Twain North of Boston by Robert Frost Leaves of Grass by Walt Whitman A Study in Scarlet by Arthur Conan Doyle (+ the other Sherlock Holmes') Candide by Voltaire (was reminded by other posting - this is great!)
on “Ask HN: What are your favorite books or essays written at least 100 years ago?” ↗Leaves of grass by Walt Whitman is something that I feel calls to me at times, and my bibleworn copy often sits on my workbench. I even have some sections memorized.
on “Ask HN: What books do you keep on your desk?” ↗Crime and Punishment Leaves of Grass Persuasion Foundation The Diary of Lady Murasaki The Remains of the Day Travels in Siberia Anabasis A Brief History of Time The Rebel
on “Ask HN: What is the most mind expanding book(s) you have read till date?” ↗Leaves of Grass by Walt Whitman. If ever I’m struggling with something I pick it up and open to a random leaf and just read until I feel better.
on “Ask HN: What's the "best" book you've ever read?” ↗May I prescribe a course in reading? Read Zola's Germinal. Read Moby Dick. Leaves of Grass. Pride and Prejudice. King Lear. Les Miserables. Lysistrata. The Odyssey. Anything great. We all (for reasonable values of 'all') yearn. It's the human condition. "true ambitions" suggests a fairly naive…
on “I'm 25 years old and I am lost” ↗Fascinating. So far I'm only up to Leaves of Grass, but I'm struck by the prose style of the earlier reviewers. Even the most pompous and pedantic of today's book reviewers would never write like this: But multitudinousness cannot make the spectacle…
on “Classic Books Reviewed in The Atlantic” ↗…reorganize them. On the other hand, there are always entirely different things you could be doing, and the time you spend tweaking could be used to make new things. Walt Whitman spend his entire life writing Leaves of Grass, editing and re-editing. Had he not died I'm sure he'd have continued to write it. Is the complete poem the last draft he wrote? Is it one of the earlier drafts when he first thought he was finished?…
on “Is a product ever complete?” ↗> "It is no discredit to Walt Whitman that he wrote Leaves of Grass, only that he did not burn it afterwards." Damn.
on “Why Great Critics Make Disastrous Judgments” ↗Well. Shakespeare could never get staged today. Nor could "Wuthering Heights" get published. "Leaves of Grass" might get published given Whitman's ability to schmooze, and it might even sell as many as 100 copies (pretty good for poetry). The vast bulk of great literature isn't. Gatsy and "Catcher in the Rye"…
on “Why Great Critics Make Disastrous Judgments” ↗Poetry hasn't been structured in rhyming stricture for ~150 years or so. In English, Walt Whitman was kinda the first 'famous' person to abandon rhyming and meter [0], and dive into 'free verse'. His Leaves of Grass, revised over his entire life, has numerous examples. Some of his best work is here: https://interestingliterature.com/2017/06/10-of-the-best-wal... Even centuries after his death, I find his poetry…
on “‘We Are Not Essential. We Are Sacrificial.’” ↗…All the week she thought of her, she watch’d for her many a month, She remember’d her many a winter and many a summer, But the red squaw never came nor was heard of there again. —- Walt Whitman, Leaves of Grass
on “Street Bench Zen” ↗…use a design pattern it will be a direct response to a real need, not an imagined future need. To conclude, I'll leave you with this quote from Walt Whitman, talking about the "deathbed edition" of "Leaves of Grass" -- a book he revised nine times during his life, which grew from 12 poems to 400 during his lifetime. "L. of G. at last complete—after 33 y'rs of hackling at it, all times & moods of my life, fair weather…
on “Take pride or fuck it” ↗…greatest songs sung and remixed by many musicians since and is an accredited influence to many contemporary musicians Walt Whitman :: * published only one book in his lifetime.. with five revisions.. leaves of grass at 36 * i personally think he is the greatest author ever to write.. even though i do see areas and room for improvement, yet i believe he is the best of the best.. and historically he is essential to…
on “Ask HN: Do I give up now?” ↗Thanks for calling out the Whitman Archive! I worked to digitize the manuscript & early first editions of Leaves of Grass while an undergraduate at UVA, and both had a great time and learned a ton about Whitman and old books. To make a modern comparison, scholars believe Whitman authored Leaves of Grass in a very similar…
on “Walt Whitman's Letter for a Dying Soldier to His Wife Discovered” ↗