-----from Allen Ginsberg A Supermarket in California
The author in this poem wanted to emphasis his theme about showing his respect to the passed age and showing his worry about the corrupt in the part of spirit and society. As we all know, Walt Whitman’s poetry was a revolution in American literature can be seen in the first publication of Leaves of Grass in 1855. His poetry is “free verse” in that the lack of meter and rhyme is known as his major technical innovation. Allen Ginsberg had a highly praise on him. As the movement of Beat Generation, Allen Ginsberg used poetry as weapon to express his own understanding of Beat---beatific and beat down.
In this poem, the author wrote the sentence “shopping for images”. What he wanted to buy is the things which were listed by Walt Whitman many years ago. What is in the supermarket? The fresh fruits on the shelf fit the needs of customers and the families. We across a strange statement: shopping for images. How can we shop for images? What he refers to us is still the pure image---“dreaming of your enumerations”. The things on the shelf are the images of languages in Walt Whitman’s poetry. The language in Walt Whitman’s poetry and the spirit in his poetry are the things which Allen Ginsberg dreamed of. A young America which is full of energy is worth being praised. Allen Ginsberg found the song of himself, the song full of courage and the echo of the real world among Walt Whitman’s work. The meaning of age in this poem is that the nation or the race opens the age which belongs to them and creates the history of them own. To a certain extend, the age singer equals the national singer. The world is the world which has its features of timing and events. This means that the link of combining the world is not the same as the goods on the shelf but the things which contain the world and individual spirits.
There is a difference between Walt Whitman’s poetry and the successor’s poetry.
The former poetry focused on the point of the combing of the poetry and the real world. It extended the full of fruit of the history through he understood the meaning of lives living on earth.
The latter’s poetry showed that the nature of material has been deprived from the former world. Our moral and spirit has become the goods in the supermarket or the desire in every family in the capitalism nations. Allen Ginsberg recalled the dream of poetry and moral in Walt Whitman’s age.
In this poem, Allen Ginsberg imaged Walt Whitman passing through the death to come to the age which was so called the Golden Age of America. What he can see? How can he do? Would he care about the price and market’s conditions as the American middle-aged women? Allen Ginsberg follows Walt Whitman in the supermarket, but never reached the collection office. They did not like the goods which had been deprived the nature of them but pursuit the things which existed front their eyes and enjoyed the pleasure of nature.
美国文学选读第三版课后习题答案陶洁
