Walt Whitman's common sense
This thesis intends to show how Walt Whitman’s olfactory metaphors reflect his democratic idea of America. Whitman’s usage of olfactory metaphors and its relation with Whitman’s democratic idea has been so far a neglected research area. Whitman’s poetic experiment, consisting of its new form and con...
Elmentve itt :
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| Dokumentumtípus: | Könyv része |
| Megjelent: |
JATEPress
Szeged
2020
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| Sorozat: | Acta Universitatis Szegediensis de Attila József nominatae : papers in english and american studies
25 Papers in English and American studies : Tomus XXV. - Distinguished Szeged student papers 2020 25 |
| Kulcsszavak: | Amerikai irodalom - költészet - 19. sz., Walt Whitman |
| Tárgyszavak: | |
| Online Access: | http://acta.bibl.u-szeged.hu/86797 |
| Tartalmi kivonat: | This thesis intends to show how Walt Whitman’s olfactory metaphors reflect his democratic idea of America. Whitman’s usage of olfactory metaphors and its relation with Whitman’s democratic idea has been so far a neglected research area. Whitman’s poetic experiment, consisting of its new form and contents, reflects his distinctive idea of the relationship among America, democracy, and poetry. In Whitman’s poetry the democratic ideals America represents for him are connected to his imagery related to the human body. His usage of corporeal metaphors, particularly olfactory metaphors, intends to bolster the American Experiment by turning upside down the two dichotomies of the soul and body and of the Old and the New world. In his personalization of his ideas about democracy and America through those metaphors, Whitman shows that before a spiritual existence, we are endowed with a corporeal existence and that Americans shall turn not to the Old World but to what is unique to America. From those ideas, the American common emotional backbone should be derived. Whitman’s poetry is language experiment to search for self-expression of America, and it is through olfactory metaphors that air and leaves of grass transform from an inactive “what is always there” to active agents, symbols of eternal egalitarianism. This finer reconfiguration of daily experiences through the sense of smell makes the ordinary extraordinary. Whitman did not attempt to depict representative American individuals to be modeled after, but a poetic mindset by which what unfolded in America could be understood as a grand event of human destiny, and it is this mindset that makes particular details of daily life poetic as well as grand. In turn, his democratic idea revolves around this poetic possibility, which enables people to form emotional ties. |
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| Terjedelem/Fizikai jellemzők: | 33-59 |
| ISBN: | 978-963-315-428-1 |
| ISSN: | 0230-2780 |