conversations.from: human
conversations.value: What is a description for a book titled Leaves of Grass about Press, Easton, Leaves with the genre: Literature & Fiction, Poetry? End with the sentence 'The frontispiece portrait was specially commissioned and like the other special contents of this edition is copyright 1977 frontispiece art by Robert Shore Rockwell Kent's illustrations from an edition published 1937 and reprinted 1965 by The Heritage Press Features 22kt gold accents, illustrations, moire fabric endsheets, gilded page ends, and a satin-ribbon page marker.'.
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: Easton Press publication of Leaves of Grass by the author. Collector's Edition bound in genuine leather. The present edition is published by advance reservation exclusively for subscribers to The Easton Press collection of the 100 Greatest Books Ever Written.The frontispiece portrait was specially commissioned and like the other special contents of this edition is copyright 1977 frontispiece art by Robert Shore Rockwell Kent's illustrations from an edition published 1937 and reprinted 1965 by The Heritage Press Features 22kt gold accents, illustrations, moire fabric endsheets, gilded page ends, and a satin-ribbon page marker.
conversations.from: human
conversations.value: What is a description for a book titled Leaves of Grass about Leaves, Grass, America's with the genre: Literature & Fiction, Poetry? End with the sentence ' The content and grouping of poems is that authorized by the poet for the final and complete edition of his masterpiece.'.
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: These are the incomparable poems of one of America's greatest poets--an exuberant, passionate man who loved his country and wrote of it as no other has ever done. Singer, thinker, visionary and citizen extraordinary, this was the author. Thoreau called the author "probably the greatest democrat that ever lived" and Emerson judged 'Leaves of Grass' as "the most extraordinary piece of wit and wisdom America has yet contributed." The text of this Signet Classic edition of 'Leaves of Grass' is that of the "Death-Bed" or ninth edition, which was published in 1892. The content and grouping of poems is that authorized by the poet for the final and complete edition of his masterpiece.
conversations.from: human
conversations.value: What could be a title for a book about Press, Easton, Leaves with the genre: Literature & Fiction, Poetry?
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: A title for this book could be 'Leaves of Grass'
conversations.from: human
conversations.value: What is the first four paragraphs for this book?
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: Leaves of Grass
  AMERICA does not repel the past or what it has produced under its forms or amid other politics or the idea of castes or the old religions... accepts the lesson with calmness... is not so impatient as has been supposed that the slough still sticks to opinions and manners and literature while the life which served its requirements has passed into the new life of the new forms... perceives that the corpse is slowly borne from the eating and sleeping rooms of the house... perceives that it waits a little while in the door... that it was fittest for its days... that its action has descended to the stalwart and wellshaped heir who approaches... and that he shall be fittest for his days.
  The Americans of all nations at any time upon the earth have probably the fullest poetical nature. The United States themselves are essentially the greatest poem. In the history of the earth hitherto the largest and most stirring appear tame and orderly to their ampler largeness and stir. Here at last is something in the doings of man that corresponds with the broadcast doings of the day and night. Here is not merely a nation but a teeming nation of nations. Here is action untied from strings necessarily blind to particulars and details magnificently moving in vast masses. Here is the hospitality which forever indicates heroes.... Here are the roughs and beards and space and ruggedness and nonchalance that the soul loves. Here the performance disdaining the trivial unapproached in the tremendous audacity of its crowds and groupings and the push of its perspective spreads with crampless and flowing breadth and showers its prolific and splendid extravagance. One sees it must indeed own the riches of the summer and winter, and need never be bankrupt while corn grows from the ground or the orchards drop apples or the bays contain fish or men beget children upon women.
  The American poets are to enclose old and new for America is the race of races. Of them a bard is to be commensurate with a people. To him the other continents arrive as contributions... he gives them reception for their sake and his own sake. His spirit responds to his country's spirit... he incarnates its geography and natural life and rivers and lakes. Mississippi with annual freshets and changing chutes, Missouri and Columbia and Ohio and Saint Lawrence with the falls and beautiful masculine Hudson, do not embouchure where they spend themselves more than they embouchure into him. The blue breadth over the inland sea of Virginia and Maryland and the sea off Massachusetts and Maine and over Manhattan bay and over Champlain and Erie and over Ontario and Huron and Michigan and Superior, and over the Texan and Mexican and Floridian and Cuban seas and over the seas off California and Oregon, is not tallied by the blue breadth of the waters below more than the breadth of above and below is tallied by him. When the long Atlantic coast stretches longer and the Pacific coast stretches longer he easily stretches with them north or south. He spans between them also from east to west and reflects what is between them. On him rise solid growths that offset the growths of pine and cedar and hemlock and liveoak and locust and chestnut and cypress and hickory and limetree and cottonwood and tuliptree and cactus and wildvine and tamarind and persimmon... and tangles as tangled as any canebrake or swamp... and forests coated with transparent ice and icicles hanging from the boughs and crackling in the wind... and sides and peaks of mountains... and pasturage sweet and free as savannah or upland or prairie... with flights and songs and screams that answer those of the wildpigeon and highhold and orchard-oriole and coot and surf-duck and redshouldered-hawk and fish-hawk and white-ibis and indian-hen and cat-owl and water-pheasant and qua-bird and pied-sheldrake and blackbird and mockingbird and buzzard and condor and night-heron and eagle. To him the hereditary countenance descends both mother's and father's. To him enter the essences of the real things and past and present events-of the enormous diversity of temperature and agriculture and mines—the tribes of red aborigines—the weatherbeaten vessels entering new ports or making landings on rocky coasts—the first settlements north or south—the rapid stature and muscle—the haughty defiance of '76, and the war and peace and formation of the constitution... the union always surrounded by blatherers and always calm and impregnable—the perpetual coming of immigrants—the wharfhem'd cities and superior marine—the unsurveyed interior—the loghouses and clearings and wild animals and hunters and trappers... the free commerce—the fisheries and whaling and gold-digging-the endless gestation of new states—the convening of Congress every December, the members duly coming up from all climates and the uttermost parts... the noble character of the young mechanics and of all free American workmen and workwomen... the general ardor and friendliness and enterprise—the perfect equality of the female with the male... the large amativeness—the fluid movement of the population—the factories and mercantile life and laborsaving machinery—the Yankee swap—the New-York firemen and the target excursion—the southern plantation life—the character of the northeast and of the north- west and southwest-slavery and the tremulous spreading of hands to protect it, and the stern opposition to it which shall never cease till it ceases or the speaking of tongues and the moving of lips cease. For such the expression of the American poet is to be transcendent and new. It is to be indirect and not direct or descriptive or epic. Its quality goes through these to much more. Let the age and wars of other nations be chanted and their eras and characters be illustrated and that finish the verse. Not so the great psalm of the republic. Here the theme is creative and has vista. Here comes one among the well- beloved stonecutters and plans with decision and science and sees the solid and beautiful forms of the future where there are now no solid forms.
  Of all nations the United States with veins full of poetical stuff most need poets and will doubtless have the greatest and use them the greatest. Their Presidents shall not be their common referee so much as their poets shall. Of all mankind the great poet is the equable man. Not in him but off from him things are grotesque or eccentric or fail of their sanity. Nothing out of its place is good and nothing in its place is bad. He bestows on every object or quality its fit proportions neither more nor less. He is the arbiter of the diverse and he is the key. He is the equalizer of his age and land... he supplies what wants supplying and checks what wants checking. If peace is the routine out of him speaks the spirit of peace, large, rich, thrifty, building vast and populous cities, encouraging agriculture and the arts and commerce—lighting the study of man, the soul, immortality—federal, state or municipal government, marriage, health, freetrade, intertravel by land and sea... nothing too close, nothing too far off... the stars not too far off. In war he is the most deadly force of the war. Who recruits him recruits horse and foot... he fetches parks of artillery the best that engineer ever knew. If the time becomes slothful and heavy he knows how to arouse it... he can make every word he speaks draw blood. Whatever stagnates in the flat of custom or obedience or legislation he never stagnates. Obedience does not master him, he masters it. High up out of reach he stands turning a concentrated light... he turns the pivot with his finger... he baffles the swiftest runners as he stands and easily overtakes and envelops them. The time straying toward infidelity and confections and persiflage he withholds by his steady faith... he spreads out his dishes... he offers the sweet firmfibred meat that grows men and women. His brain is the ultimate brain. He is no arguer... he is judgment. He judges not as the judge judges but as the sun falling around a helpless thing. As he sees the farthest he has the most faith. His thoughts are the hymns of the praise of things. In the talk on the soul and eternity and God off of his equal plane he is silent. He sees eternity less like a play with a prologue and denouement... he sees eternity in men and women... he does not see men and women as dreams or dots. Faith is the antiseptic of the soul... it pervades the common people and preserves them... they never give up believing and expecting and trusting. There is that indescribable freshness and unconsciousness about an illiterate person that humbles and mocks the power of the noblest expressive genius. The poet sees for a certainty how one not a great artist may be just as sacred and perfect as the greatest artist.... The power to destroy or remould is freely used by him but never the power of attack. What is past is past. If he does not expose superior models and prove himself by every step he takes he is not what is wanted. The presence of the greatest poet conquers... not parleying or struggling or any prepared attempts. Now he has passed that way see after him! there is not left any ves tige of despair or misanthropy or cunning or exclusiveness or the ignominy of a nativity or color or delusion of hell or the necessity of hell... and no man thenceforward shall be degraded for ignorance or weakness or sin.
conversations.from: human
conversations.value: What is three more paragraphs?
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: Universal as are certain facts and symptoms of communities or individuals all times, there is nothing so rare in modern conventions and poetry as their normal recognizance. Literature is always calling in the doctor for consultation and confession, and always giving evasions and swathing suppressions in place of that "heroic nudity"cc on which only a genuine diagnosis of serious cases can be built. And in respect to editions of "" in time to come (if there should be such) I take occasion now to confirm those lines with the settled convictions and deliberate renewals of thirty years, and to hereby prohibit, as far as word of mine can do so, any elision of them.
  Then still a purpose enclosing all, and over and beneath all. Ever since what might be call'd thought, or the budding of thought, fairly began in my youthful mind, I had had a desire to attempt some worthy record of that entire faith and acceptance ("to justify the ways of God to man" is Milton's well-known and ambitious phrase) which is the foundation of moral America. I felt it all as positively then in my young days as I do now in my old ones; to formulate a poem whose every thought or fact should directly or indirectly be or connive at an implicit belief in the wisdom, health, mystery, beauty of every process, every concrete object, every human or other existence, not only consider'd from the point of view of all, but of each.
  One main genesis-motive of the "Leaves" was my conviction (just as strong to-day as ever) that the crowning growth of the United States is to be spiritual and heroic. To help start and favor that growth—or even to call attention to it, or the need of it—is the beginning, middle and final purpose of the poems. (In fact, when really cipher'd out and summ'd to the last, plowing up in earnest the interminable average fallows of humanity—not "good government" merely, in the common sense—is the justification and main purpose of these United States.)
conversations.from: human
conversations.value: What is the last four paragraphs? Start with the sentence 'The ferment and germination even of the United States to-day, dating back to, and in my opinion mainly founded on, the Elizabethan age in English history, the age of Francis Bacon and Shakspere'.
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: The ferment and germination even of the United States to-day, dating back to, and in my opinion mainly founded on, the Elizabethan age in English history, the age of Francis Bacon and Shakspere. Indeed, when we pursue it, what growth or advent is there that does not date back, back, until lost—perhaps its most tantalizing clues lost—in the receded horizons of the past? [Whitman's note].
  According to Immanuel Kant, the last essential reality, giving shape and significance to all the rest [Whitman's note].
  Sir Walter Scott's COMPLETE POEMS; especially including BORDER MINSTRELSY; then Sir Tristem; Lay of the Last Minstrel; Ballads from the German; Marmion; Lady of the Lake; Vision of Don Roderick; Lord of the Isles; Rokeby, Bridal of Triermain; Field of Waterloo; Harold the Dauntless; all the Dramas; various Introductions, endless interesting Notes, and Essays on Poetry, Romance, &c.
  Lockhart's 1833 (Or'34) edition with Scott's latest and copious revisions and annotations. (All the poems were thoroughly read by me, but the ballads of the Border Minstrelsy over and over again [Whitman's note].)
conversations.from: human
conversations.value: What is the first four paragraphs for this book? Start with the sentence 'Leaves of Grass
  Emerson was being impulsive for a Concord man, but he was also trying to make his phrases accurate'.
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: Leaves of Grass
  Emerson was being impulsive for a Concord man, but he was also trying to make his phrases accurate. Later, disapproving of Whitman's conduct, he would change his mind about the "great career." He would not and could not feel that most of the poems written after 1855 contained "incomparable things said incomparably well." But his praise of the first edition was unqualified, and it tempts me to make some unqualified statements of my own, as of simple truths that should have been recognized long ago.
  First statement: that the long opening poem, later miscalled "Song of Myself," is Whitman's greatest work, perhaps his one completely realized work, and one of the great poems of modern times. Second, that the other eleven poems of the first edition are not on the same level of realization, but nevertheless are examples of Whitman's freshest and boldest style. At least four of them—their titles in the Deathbed edition are "To Think of Time," "The Sleepers," "I Sing the Body Electric," and "There Was a Child Went Forth"—belong in any selection of his best poems. Third, that the text of the first edition is the purest text for "Song of Myself," since many of the later corrections were also corruptions of the style and concealments of the original meaning. Fourth, that it is likewise the best text for most of the other eleven poems, but especially for "The Sleepers"—that fantasia of the unconscious—and "I Sing the Body Electric." And a final statement: that the first edition is a unified work, unlike any later edition, that it gives us a different picture of Whitman's achievement, and that—considering its very small circulation through the years—it might be called the buried masterpiece of American writing.
  All that remains is to document some of these statements, not point by point, but chiefly in relation to "Song of Myself."
  Swiftly arose and spread around me the peace and joy and knowledge that pass all the art and argument of the earth;
conversations.from: human
conversations.value: What is three more paragraphs?
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: I own publicly who you are, if nobody else owns.... and see and hear you, and what you give and take; 30
  I see not merely that you are polite or whitefaced.... married or single.... citizens of old states or citizens of new states.... eminent in some profession.... a lady or gentleman in a parlor.... or dressed in the jail uniform.... or pulpit uniform,
  Not only the free Utahan, Kansian, or Arkansian.... not only the free Cuban...not merely the slave.... not Mexican native, or Flatfoot, or negro from Africa,
conversations.from: human
conversations.value: What is the last five paragraphs?
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: It is greater than wealth.... it is greater than buildings or ships or religions or paintings or music.
  The new rule shall rule as the soul rules, and as the love and justice and equality that are in the soul rule.
  Great is the law.... Great are the old few landmarks of the law.... they are the same in all times and shall not be disturbed.
  It is immutable.. it does not depend on majorities.... majorities or what not come at last before the same passionless and exact tribunal.
  Before the perfect judge all shall stand back.... life and death shall stand back.... heaven and hell shall stand back.
conversations.from: human
conversations.value: Swap the first and the last sentence.
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: heaven and hell shall stand back.... it is greater than buildings or ships or religions or paintings or music.
  The new rule shall rule as the soul rules, and as the love and justice and equality that are in the soul rule.
  Great is the law.... Great are the old few landmarks of the law.... they are the same in all times and shall not be disturbed.
  It is immutable.. it does not depend on majorities.... majorities or what not come at last before the same passionless and exact tribunal.
  Before the perfect judge all shall stand back.... life and death shall stand back....It is greater than wealth.