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The essentially mystical Walt Whitman : an elucidation of the mystical dimension in Leaves of grass / Don Moores

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Identifier	Thesis 1500
Author	Moores, Don
Title	The essentially mystical Walt Whitman : an elucidation of the mystical dimension in Leaves of grass / Don Moores
Publisher	Central Connecticut State University
Date	1997
Resource Type	Master's Thesis
Notes	In the large body of criticism dealing with Walt Whitman there are innumerable analyses of the poet's journalism, sexuality, politics, war experiences and post-war experiences, as well as his innovations in form, such as the use of free-verse, which forever changed the face of modern poetry. Few literary figures have elicited more scholarly exegesis than Walt Whitman. Although such discussions are quite useful, they do not treat the poet "as he is in himself in his own rights" to use his own phraseology. In other words, they do not deal with Whitman's defining characteristic -- his mysticism. It must be remembered that he is the poet who wrote: And I will not make a poem nor the least part of a poem but has reference to the soul, Because having look'd at the objects of the universe, I find there is no one nor any particle of one but has reference to the soul ("Starting From Paumanok" 174-75). Most critics, however, do not adequately deal with the subject, often completely failing even to acknowledge this central aspect of Walt Whitman's verse. The few scholars who have examined the subject seem to be too quick to pigeon-hole Whitman's mysticism, claiming that he got such ideas from a variety of different sources, including Kant, Swedenborg, Emerson and the Hindu philosophers. I believe, along with Malcolm Cowley and Maurice Bucke, that while it is no doubt true he was influenced by these thinkers, he nevertheless arrived at many similar truths as a result of his own mystical experiences. Since it is next to impossible to prove that Whitman had mystical visions, I examine in my thesis the extent to which his poetic vision exemplifies the characteristics of mysticism. My specific argument is that all of the major themes in Leaves of Grass are expressed from a markedly mystical viewpoint. The topics that comprise the main body of my discussion are knowledge, reality, equality, reincarnation, the self, freedom, love and unity. The contribution my thesis makes to the field of Whitmanian criticism is that it is an original reading of a much read and widely interpreted poet. My analysis goes against the grain of the traditional reductive view of Whitman as merely a poet of democracy, eroticism and individualism. To be sure, he embraced and lived up to such roles. His poetic vision, however, encompassed much more than politics, sexuality and the individual man. One of the great mystics of his day, Whitman saw with a bird's eye view far beyond the confines of finite consciousness and physical existence.
Subject	Whitman, Walt, 1819-1892. Leaves of grass Whitman, Walt, 1819-1892 -- Criticism and interpretation Mysticism in literature
Department	Department of English
Advisor	Heitner, John A
Type	Text
Digital Format	application/pdf
Language	eng
OCLC number	39977894
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The essentially mystical Walt Whitman : an elucidation of the mystical dimension in Leaves of grass / Don Moores

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