Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of California, Santa Cruz. / Typescript. Bibliography: leaves 262-271.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Wisconsin--Madison, 1981. / Typescript. Vita. eContent provider-neutral record in process. Description based on print version record. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 234-240).

Thesis (M.A.)--Indiana University, 2007. / Title from screen (viewed on Apr. 27, 2007) Department of English, Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI) Includes vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 65-70)

This thesis examines Walt Whitman's friendships with many of his contemporaries in New York, Boston, Washington and Camden, and highlights the differences among them.

This paper is a study of Walt Whitman's influence in England, Northern European countries, Southern Europe, Latin America, and other countries.

This dissertation explores the prophetic tradition in lyric poetry, focusing on the example set by Walt Whitman and carried forth in Hispanic letters, most notably in the cases of León Felipe, Federico García Lorca, and César Vallejo. By “prophetic” I do not wish to suggest “predictive” but rather a voice that, like the words of the biblical prophets, speaks to an entire community, by turns profoundly critical, but also appealing to human dignity. In the preface to the first (1855) edition of Leaves of Grass, Whitman explains the public value of poetry: “[F]olks expect of the poet to indicate more than the beauty and dignity which always attach to dumb real objects…. they expect him to indicate the path between reality and their souls.” (621) The roots of Whitman’s lyric song would grow deep in these three contemporary Hispanic poets, during times of grave social and political crisis. By tracing the influence of Whitman’s prophetic voice in their works, I show how his aesthetic of sacrifice reaches dramatic conclusions in the New York of Lorca’s poetry, as well as in the Spanish Civil War represented in Felipe’s Ganarás la luz and Vallejo’s España, aparta de mí este cáliz. Their prophetic lyric voice rises from Whitman’s song, founded upon a communal humanity and an “I” freed from the limits of the individual self. This voice, which we see in the poetry of Whitman, Felipe, Lorca, and Vallejo, is a lament culminating in the very personal sacrifice of the first-person poetic subject. I show how these four authors respond to the crises in their own times and lives with contemporary public voices that redeem our own human dignity in a world that might seem otherwise abandoned to its own undoing.

No description available.

Submitted by Cássia Santos (cassia.bcufg@gmail.com) on 2014-09-19T11:55:16Z No. of bitstreams: 2 Dissertacao Frankslayne Paranista de Oliveira Borges.pdf: 1147066 bytes, checksum: 421efbccf428ca6e6d07a239091d83ff (MD5) license_rdf: 23148 bytes, checksum: 9da0b6dfac957114c6a7714714b86306 (MD5) / Approved for entry into archive by Luciana Ferreira (lucgeral@gmail.com) on 2014-09-19T12:53:22Z (GMT) No. of bitstreams: 2 Dissertacao Frankslayne Paranista de Oliveira Borges.pdf: 1147066 bytes, checksum: 421efbccf428ca6e6d07a239091d83ff (MD5) license_rdf: 23148 bytes, checksum: 9da0b6dfac957114c6a7714714b86306 (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2014-09-19T12:53:22Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 2 Dissertacao Frankslayne Paranista de Oliveira Borges.pdf: 1147066 bytes, checksum: 421efbccf428ca6e6d07a239091d83ff (MD5) license_rdf: 23148 bytes, checksum: 9da0b6dfac957114c6a7714714b86306 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2012-04-02 / In this dissertation we will discuss Walt Whitman’s poetry in the aspects that articulate the lyric and the epic in an epilyric unity, taking the 1892 edition of Leaves of Grass as its study object. We shall ascertain the theoretical assumptions of modernity and modern poetry characteristics, which are crucial to the understanding of the poet’s aesthetic and ideological project, as delivered in his preface for the 1855 edition, as well as his importance to modernism in poetry in the following century. Subsequently, we shall examine carefully the subjectivity expressed in the book at issue, which is polymorphically shaped, as it’s showed by the categories proposed by Kinnaird (1962) and Bloom (2001). Finally, we shall find how Whitman used aspects of the epical literature to construct his oeuvre and carry out his design to become the national poet of the United States. / Nesta dissertação trataremos da poesia de Walt Whitman sob os aspectos que articulam o lírico e o épico numa unidade epilírica, tendo como objeto a obra Leaves of Grass em sua edição de 1892. Averiguaremos, ainda, os pressupostos teóricos da modernidade e as caracterizações da poesia moderna, fundamentais para a compreensão do projeto ideológico e estético do poeta, demonstrado em seu prefácio de 1855, bem como da sua importância para o próprio modernismo na poesia no século seguinte. Em seguida, nos aprofundaremos no estudo da subjetividade expressa na obra em questão, que se configura polimorficamente, como demonstram as categorias propostas por Kinnaird (1962) e Bloom (2001). Por fim, verificaremos como Whitman lançou mão de aspectos da literatura épica para construir sua obra e executar seu projeto de ser o poeta nacional estadunidense.

The purpose of this thesis is to organize and examine Walt Whitman's poetic representations and discussions of laborers and labor issues in order to argue that form a distinct "poetics" of labor in Leaves of Grass. This poetics of labor reveals that Whitman was attempting to enlarge the audience for American poetry by representing American society at work in poetry. Whitman also used labor as a poetic subject in order to justify the work of the poet in that society. In this sense, Whitman's poetics of labor is comprised of numerous demonstrations of his argument for the labor of poetry because the representation of America at work is contained within the work of the poet. The organization of this thesis rests upon a distinction between the work of the hands and the work of the mind. This distinction resonates in nineteenth century American literature, and it is especially important to debates about the status of the writer in a working democratic society. This question figures prominently in the works of Emerson and Thoreau, and a central issue for both of them is whether or not the writer should participate in the work of the hands. Whitman engages in this debate as well, and argues that the poet can participate in all kinds of work through poetic representation. He participates by representing workers in poetry, and in Whitman's argument the poet then becomes a representative of those workers. A central premise of this thesis is that Whitman's poetry of labor demonstrates an attempt to ensure that America works according to Whitman's interpretation of democracy. This is most apparent in poems where he directly addresses his working audience, and those addresses reveal a specific ideology behind Whitman's poetics of labor. That is, Whitman attempts to level the implicit hierarchical organization of different kinds of work. For instance, in such poems as "Song for Occupations" and "Song of the Broad-Axe," Whitman engages in a conversation with manual laborers in an effort to acknowledge their value and significance to the democratic process. As he celebrates their contribution, he also associates his own work with them, and argues for the · usefulness of such poetry to that process as well. In such poems as "When I Heard the Learn'd Astronomer'' and "To A Historian," Whitman addresses those who labor with the mind in order to include them in the dialogue, and also to argue that the majority of that work needs to be revised because its claim for authority perpetuates hierarchical distinctions. Whitman offers poetry as a solution, and argues that it is central to democracy because it "completes" all labor by fusing the work of the community with the work of shaping individual identity that comes from reading and writing poetry. This thesis draws upon New Historicist methodologies and approaches to Whitman in order to reconstruct the significance of labor in Whitman's poetics. The poetry which directly addresses laborers and labor issues in Leaves of Grass forms the basis of the argument, but Whitman's relevant prose is considered in detail as well. In particular, Democratic Vistas is examined for its claims that the "work" of poetry is itself incomplete. "Work" is used here to refer both to the aesthetic object and the effort involved in reading it. In other words, Whitman argues that the work of poetry, like the work of democracy, is a continuous, recursive process.

This thesis examines the reasons why Walt Whitman has been a "puzzle" to literary critics for well over a century. It shows the correspondence between Walt Whitman's work and the mystical tradition of East as also interpreted by American Transcendentalists. Enquiry into "self" is the central theme of most of Whitman's work. Two aspects of this enquiry have been investigated in this thesis and compared with the Upanishads: the development of self; and the use of contradictions as a means of conveying meaning. Both aspects support the view that Whitman displays a worldview not in accordance with the popular Western view in which God and man are entirely different and can never meet on equal terms. Whitman's view can be compared to that of the American Transcendentalists and Neoplatonists which finds a sympathetic chord in the native European tradition of humanistic values as well as in the Upanishads. Whitman works from a state of consciousness that is different in spirit and structure from the Hegelian dialectical principle which has wielded so much influence over Western thought. Whitman's poetry is remarkably akin to that of the Upanishadic writers in whose consciousness the subject and object have fused into one. Whitman is shown to draw his ideas from a depth of the human psyche that is often associated with Eastern thought but which is also present in the West. Four stances of self in Whitman's work have been identified which are seen to be related to, but not identical with, four states of consciousness in the Upanishads. The thesis concludes that not only is there a remarkable degree of correspondence between Walt Whitman and the Upanishads, both in respect to development of the self and use of contradictions, but that interpreting him in the light of the Upanishads provides another modern opportunity for meeting of the East and the West.