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I'm about a third of the way through David S. Reynolds's Walt Whitman's America: A Cultural Biography. The main premise of the book being that Walt Whitman's stated goal was to speak for America, and so to understand his poetry it's good to take a look at which aspects of American culture he absorbed and how well he articulates them. It breaks down different facets like politics, gender relations/sex, popular entertainment, religious movements of the time, the state of scientific understanding. So far its a good read and I'm enjoying it. Its been sitting on my shelf since I read Emerson: A Mind on Fire which I also really loved. That book however was more focused on the details of Emerson's life, whereas as Walt Whitman's America is more focused on Whitman's context. Which also means you get an interesting look at the early history of New York. I also just started Foucalt's A History of Madness since we're starting a small discussion group on it in SAL. Only through chapter one. Its interesting but a little dense. I don't know how much of that is the translation and how much of that is Foucalt.
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Mar 9, 2014 06:38
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Spoilers Below posted:And on that note, does anyone know if a comparable book exists for eastern philosophy? I've read Confucius, Buddha, and Lao Tzu, and then my reading jumped to Mao, D.T. Suzuki, and Alan Watts, and I'm sure there's more philosophers and thinkers I ought to know of in the intervening 3000 or so years. Its out of print so you'll have to buy a used copy but Great Thinkers of the Eastern World edited by Ian P. McGreal is good for this (there is a listing up for a $0.01 copy). The book is subdivided by countries: China, India, Japan, Korea and the world of Islam. Each personality, presented chronologically, gets about 4-5 pages briefly breaking down the philosophers' major works and chief ideas. ~500 pages. I haven't read it cover to cover but its an incredibly useful book. Yiggy fucked around with this message at 05:17 on Apr 8, 2014 |
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Apr 8, 2014 05:14
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