Drum-Taps

Whitman, Walt, 1819-1892Project Gutenberg · United StatesDec 2019

4.6

Word count: 84K words
Chapters: 9

Summary

Project Gutenberg was the first provider of free electronic books, or eBooks. Michael Hart, founder of Project Gutenberg, invented eBooks in 1971 and his memory continues to inspire the creation of eBooks and related technologies today.Drum-Taps by Walt WhitmanAuthor: Whitman, Walt, 1819-1892,Language: English, Class: PS: Language and Literatures: American and Canadian literature, Release Date: Sep 1, 2005

Editor's review

Drum-Taps is a collection of poems Whitman wrote during the Civil War—slim in size but heavy in weight. It turns the poet away from the expansive, luminous self-singing of his pre-war work toward hospitals, battlefields, and everyday mourning. The language still keeps the rhythm of free verse, but gains restraint and a warmth that stays close to specific people. For Chinese readers, the value of this book lies not only in understanding a key turning point in Whitman's writing, but also in the way it offers a lens on war and ordinary people: not through grand slogans, but through individual scenes and short, urgent cries. As a public-domain English ebook from Project Gutenberg, it is easy to obtain and complete in its original text, making it suitable for close reading in English or for comparison with other parts of Leaves of Grass. When reading, it is worth treating it as a collection with an internal progression, noticing how war changes the voice in the poems and how the poet preserves personal grief within public events. Its difficulty lies mainly in the language of English poetry and its historical and cultural background, not in its length.

Who it's for

A good fit for

Literary readers interested in the turning point in Whitman's writing
Students who need the original English poems for close-reading practice
Those interested in American literature of the Civil War era
Readers who want to approach Whitman through a short collection

Not a good fit for

Beginners expecting a Chinese translation or detailed annotations
Casual readers who only want Whitman's best-known poems
Readers with little interest in war poetry

Reading tips

Read through once first, marking recurring images and scenes, then go back and trace the emotional arc of the collection.
Read alongside Whitman's pre-war poems in Leaves of Grass to feel the changes in his language and perspective.
When a passage's historical background is unclear, check the basic timeline of the Civil War first rather than getting stuck on every word.
Read three to five poems a day and leave time to read aloud, to feel the rhythm and tone of the free verse.

About the publisher

Project Gutenberg United States · Founded in 1971

Project Gutenberg is a digital publishing project focused on public-domain ebooks. Its publishing direction centers on classic literary works whose copyright has expired, covering genres such as poetry, drama, fiction, and epic. Representative books include Lyrical Ballads by Wordsworth and Coleridge, Proust's Du côté de chez Swann, Shakespeare's Macbeth and The Complete Works of William Shakespeare, Homer's The Iliad, Dante's La Divina Comèdia: Purgatòri, Cervantes's The History of Don Quixote, Volume 2, and Grahame's The Wind in the Willows. Its author resources consist mainly of classic Western writers such as Wordsworth, Proust, Shakespeare, Homer, Dante, Cervantes, Grahame, and Tolstoy. Its publishing feature is the provision of freely accessible ebooks in EPUB and Kindle formats; it is not a traditional publisher, and publicly available information is limited.

FAQ

What level of English is needed to read this book?

Whitman's free verse does not use many obscure words, but the sentences are long and the imagery dense. A college-level reading ability in English, or the willingness to read with a dictionary, is recommended. If you only want to understand the content, you can start with a selected Chinese translation and then return to the original for comparison.

How does it relate to Leaves of Grass?

Drum-Taps was first published by Whitman as a separate collection during the Civil War and was later incorporated into different editions of Leaves of Grass. It concentrates on wartime experience and can be seen as an important part of understanding Whitman's work as a whole.

What are the features of the Project Gutenberg edition?

This is a public-domain English ebook, complete in its original text and free to obtain. It is suitable for reading and excerpting, but usually has no modern scholarly annotations or Chinese introduction. Readers need to supplement the historical background themselves or use it alongside a reliable translation.

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About the author

Whitman, Walt, 1819-1892 Author

Walt Whitman (1819-1892) was an American poet whose biographical details are limited in publicly available sources, yet whose work has had a profound influence. His representative work Leaves of Grass broke with traditional meter through free verse, celebrating the individual, democracy, and nature in an expansive, rhythmic language, and is regarded as an important marker of the modern transformation of American poetry. Another collection, Drum-Taps, along with The Wound Dresser and The Patriotic Poems of Walt Whitman, draws largely on war and nursing experience, with a plain and deeply moving tone that shows concern for ordinary people. Complete Prose Works and Poems by Walt Whitman also collect his prose and verse. His writings have been translated into many languages, such as Grashalmen and Poèmes de Walt Whitman, and have circulated widely.