Dissertations / Theses on the topic 'Whitman, walt, 1819-1892, concordances'

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.

Democracy and mysticism are two prominent themes of Walt Whitman's writings, yet few critics have explored the connections that may exist between these areas. Some critics have noted that Whitman holds an ideal of "spiritual democracy," in which all people are equal due to their identity with a transcendent self such as that found in "Song of Myself," but they have not identified the best philosophical model for such a political viewpoint. I believe that the parallel between Whitman's thought and Vedantic mysticism, already developed by V. K. Chart and others, may be expanded to account for Whitman's political thought. Past studies of Whitman and Vedanta have focused only on the advaitic aspects of his writing, but in his later years he came to adopt a visistadvaitic stance similar to that of Ramanuja. In the political sphere, his concept of a Brahmanic self shared by all people led him to not only believe that all people are equal, but that they also possess the capacity to become contributors to a democratic society. Whitman felt that the poet was the primary means by which the masses could attain mystical consciousness and the concomitant social harmony. The ideal poet described in Democratic Vistas and the Preface to the 1855 Leaves of Grass serves as a mediator between the people as they are and Whitman's ideal of a completely unified democratic society and thereby parallels the Vedantic guru's function of bridging the relative and absolute levels of reality.
Department of English

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.

Alors que de nombreux critiques ont souligné l'importance des quatre éléments dans l'œuvre de Whitman, une étude approfondie de leur influence sur l'imagination, la sensibilité, et l'art poétique de l'écrivain fait cruellement défaut. L'emploi par Whitman de "elements" ou de termes apparentés montre avec quelle facilité on passe des éléments aux aliments et à ces "ailments" que l'anglais associe à la souffrance. Dejà se trouve ébranlée la vision traditionnelle d'un optimisme à toute épreuve. Si l'on essaie d'évaluer le role spécifique de chacun des éléments dans l'œuvre, on s'aperçoit que si l'eau est à la hauteur de sa réputation, l'air, la terre, et le feu ont besoin d'être rehabilites. Le feu surtout, dont le statut particulier et perturbant a ete indument minimise. Mais l'exploration se fait beaucoup plus fructueuse si l'on se debarrasse du carcan de la quaternite elementaire pour recourir a une approche plus diversifiée. Un examen attentif du role joué par les éléments dans la célébration par Whitman du "corps électrique", dans sa conception de l'espace et du temps et ses tentatives changeantes de domestication de la mort, ou son rituel de l'union et sa quête infatigable de l'un, conduit à des conclusions séduisantes et parfois inattendues. L'un des aspects les plus fascinants de l'œuvre ainsi placée sous l'objectif élementaire réside en la réalité protéenne d'une poésie aux perspectives illimitées, extraordinairement moderne, tout aussi ouverte que la route d'un de ses chants. Elle a le pouvoir de rajeunir éternellement. .
While many critics have stressed the importance of the four elements in Whitman's works, a thorough study of their influence on his imagination, sensitivity and theory of poetry has long been overdue. Whitman's use of "elements" and some cognate words shows how easily "elements" become "aliments" and "aliments", and unsettles the traditional vision of the poet's unruffled optimism. Trying to assess the specific role of each of the four elements in his writings, one realizes that if water is equal to its reputation, air, earth and fire are worth rehabilitating. Fire, above all, seems to have a peculiar, disturbing status which has been unduly minimized. But the exploration becomes much more rewarding when one gets rid of the straitjacket of the elementary "quaternion" and resorts to a more variegated approach. A careful perusal of the part played by the elements in Whitman's celebration of the "body electric", in his conception of space and time and variable

En depit des apparences, l'absence semble etre au coeur de l'oeuvre de whitman. Absence fondatrice, on la trouve dans l'intention poetique de l'auteur qui s'autocree et par lameme cree l'amerique a partir d'un neant originel ou d'une page blanche. Il donne a voir un monde autre ou le corps est un texte, support de l'ecriture de soi, et le texte une parole. Absence creatrice, elle apparait dans leprocessus creatif meme, a travers les moyens mis en oeuvre - comme la negation - pour modeler et informer cette nouvelle realite. Grace a un jeu subtil de miroirs et d'echos, metaphores, metonymies et hypallages multiplient les signifiances a l'infini, instaurant un espace imaginaire fluide ou le texte, affranchi de toutes contraintes, parvient a s'enoncer seul. Mais l'absence destructrice, qui engendre le doute et le desespoir, est toujours presente et malgre les strategies qu'il deploie pour se dissimuler, pour se soustraire aux frontieres du moi du monde, du lexique, et de la syntaxe, whitman finit par se laisser happer par le mot meme de << mort >>. En definitive, c'est l'absence destructrice qui triomphe : la mort demeure une enigme et la creation poetique une illusion.

Walt Whitman was a feminist, and this assertion can be supported by excerpts from his prose, poetry, and conversation. Furthermore, the poet's circle of associates, chronology, and place of residence also lend credence to the hypothesis stating Whitman's subscription to feminist credos. A pro-feminine attitude is evident in much of Whitman's work, and his ties to the women's rights movement of the nineteenth century do influence the poet's portrayal of women. But the section of poems titled "Children of Adam" proves to be an anomaly in Walt Whitman's feminist attitudes. Instead of portraying women as equals, able to walk a path of equanimity with males, the women of "Children of Adam" are often obscured in linguistic veils or subjugated to the poet's Adamic rhetoric.

O objetivo desta dissertação é analisar alguns dos momentos decisivos do processo de formação da poesia norte-americana, marcados pelas quatro primeiras edições (1855, 1856, 1861,1867) de Leaves of Grass, de Walt Whitman. A escolha desses momentos sublinha o caráter engajado do projeto poético de Whitman, que não visava à mera aclimatação da poesia européia no Novo Mundo, mas sim à constituição formal de uma poesia norte-americana adequada à realidade social de seu país. Nesse sentido, a leitura das quatro primeiras edições de Leaves of Grass pressupõe dois movimentos complementares: o entendimento dessa poesia enquanto resposta aos inúmeros conflitos que perpassam as décadas de 1850 e 1860 norte-americanas, quando a modernização, encabeçada pela industrialização e pelo trabalho livre, entra em choque definitivo com estruturas sociais de origem colonial, baseadas tanto na exploração do trabalho escravo como na própria constituição descentralizada da república; e a configuração literária desses problemas, em que veremos elementos constitutivos da poesia romântica européia em relação dialética com formas locais de expressão, muitas vezes estranhas ao quadro literário do Velho Mundo, mas reforçadas pela pretensão de se fazer valer (não sem contradições) uma literatura de caráter nacional. Para tanto, nossa análise toma não apenas a longa tradição de estudos hitmanianos, que atualmente têm se dedicado à revisão histórica de Leaves of Grass centrada quase que exclusivamente na experiência social norte-americana, mas a própria tradição crítica brasileira, na qual se consolidou um importante corpo de conceitos e debates acerca da posição periférica das literaturas do Novo Mundo em relação à Europa, o que nos permite tanto colocar a literatura de Whitman em um quadro mais abrangente de formação literária como observar ali algumas questões comuns às experiências brasileira e norte- americana para a consolidação de seu sistema literário, tais como o caráter empenhado da elite literária; a busca de novas formas; a representação e afirmação, na lírica, do indivíduo e da natureza do país; as questões éticas e econômicas ligadas ao problema da escravidão; e a relação ambígua e contraditória com os movimentos literários europeus.
The purpose of this dissertation is to analyze some of the decisive moments in the making of North American poetry, determined by the development, from 1855 to 1867, of the four initial editions of Walt Whitman\'s Leaves of Grass. The choice of these remarkable moments serves to underline the engaged feature of Whitman´s poetical accomplishment, which implied not the mere transposition of European literary thought into the New World, but mainly the formal constitution of a national poetry fit for the social environment of the United States. In this sense, the analysis of these four Leaves of Grass´ editions (1855, 1856, 1861, 1867) presupposes two complementary ways: firstly the acknowledgment of Whitman´s poetry as a response to the social tensions in North American midnineteenth century, when modernity, led by free labor and industrialization, collides with colonial and pre-modern social structures, based upon slavery and the very descentralized commercial Republic constitution; secondly the literary configuration of these tensions, in which we observe elements of the literary Romanticism dialetically linked to local forms of expression, some of them alien to the literary achievements of the Old World, but reinforced by the founding project of a national literature. To attend these questions, this dissertation recovers the long tradition of Walt Whitman studies - dedicated in the present time to the historical revisioning of the poet´s works centered almost exclusively in the North American social experience - by the light of the Brazilian critical tradition, in which very important concepts and debates over the periferical position of New World literatures were consolidated. This theoretical perpective allows us not only to place Leaves of Grass in a wider perspective of New World literatures but also to build a indirect comparative view that rests upon some important questions to the North American and Brazilian literary traditions, as the engaged ethos of their literary elites; the search for new literary forms; the lyrical affirmative representation of national individuals; the economical and ethical responses to slavery; and the ambiguous and contradictory relation with European literary movements.

Walt Whitman has long been celebrated as a Romantic writer who celebrates the self, reveres Nature, claims unity in all things, and sings praises to humanity. However, some of what Whitman has to say has been overlooked. Whitman often questioned the goodness of humanity. He recognized evil in various shapes. He pondered death and the imperturbability of Nature to human death. He exhibited nightmarish imagery in some of his works and gory violence in others. While Whitman has long been called a celebratory poet, he is nevertheless also in part a writer of the Dark Romantic.

Este trabalho está focalizado na tradução criativa da poesia de Walt Whitman para o português. O termo utilizado para nos referir a este processo é recriação, ou seja, uma tradução que vai além da tradução literal (que privilegia apenas os significados), buscando um trabalho de reconstrução conjunta de significados e significantes, dada a relação profunda existente entre ambos (o capítulo 3 trata desse método de tradução criativa, aqui indicado, além de abordar temas relacionados a este na poesia, como verso livre, ritmo, metro, etc.). Esse termo foi emprestado de meus mestres neste tipo de tradução, que são os poetas Concretistas brasileiros: Haroldo de Campos, Augusto de Campos e Décio Pignatari. Em inglês, utilizamos essa palavra com hífen, “re-creation” (e seus derivados), devido ao fato de que “recreation” indica apenas recreação, divertimento, e não um “criar de novo”. É preciso lembrar que o precursor neste campo tradutório, da tradução a qual também é criação, foi Ezra Pound, que nos trouxe a idéia de renovação constante da poesia via tradução, e recebe atenção mais aprofundada nas seções 3.2 e 3.3. Há outras traduções da obra de Whitman em português, inclusive uma edição completa de Folhas de Relva pela Martin Claret (2005), das quais fornecemos um histórico na seção 2.2, entretanto, nenhuma delas foi feita de modo semelhante ao nosso. Deste modo, o trabalho que apresentamos aqui é inédito, embora não seja completo. No corpo desta tese, no capítulo 4, apresentamos a recriação de vinte peças literárias, entre poemas e livros, do conjunto de Folhas de Relva, que é o volume que engloba a poesia completa de Whitman. Dentro das recriações apresentadas aqui, está o poema “Do Berço Infindamente Embalando,” que faz parte de Detrito-Marinho, o qual havia sido acrescentado como anexo em minha Dissertação de Mestrado. O poema foi revisado e corrigido e foi incluído aqui para que a seção Detrito- Marinho ficasse completa. Na seção 2.1 há uma explicação da história editorial de Folhas de Relva. Além do contexto histórico dessa publicação, o capítulo 2 apresenta uma análise crítica da obra e do autor e discute um símbolo central nas Folhas, que é o cálamo. A recriação do livro “Cálamo”, bem como de “Descendentes de Adão” e “Canção de Mim Mesmo,” integra o texto da minha dissertação de mestrado (SARAIVA, 1995).
This work focuses on the creative translation of Walt Whitman’s poetry into Portuguese. The term that we use to refer to this process is re-creation, which is a type of translation that goes beyond literal translation (which favors the signified), searching for a work of conjoined reconstruction of signified and signifiers, due to the profound relation that exists between them (chapter 3 explains this method of creative translation; it also discusses the themes that are related to this in poetry, such as free verse, rhythm, meter, etc.). The term re-creation was borrowed from our masters in this type of translation, the Brazilian Concretist poets: Haroldo de Campos, Augusto de Campos and Décio Pignatari. In English, we use this word hyphenated, “re-creation” (and its derivatives), due to the fact that “recreation” indicates only diversion, an activity that is performed for relaxation and pleasure, and not “creating again”. It is necessary to remember that the precursor in this translatorial field, of translation which is also creation, was Ezra Pound, who brought us the idea of constant renewing of poetry via translation, and who is given more attention in sections 3.2 and 3.3. There are other translations of Whitman’s works in Portuguese, including a complete edition of Leaves of Grass by Martin Claret publishing house (2005), of which we provide an account in section 2.2, however, none of them was carried out in a similar way to our own. Thus, the work we present here is original, although it is not complete. In the body of this dissertation, in chapter 4, we present the re-creation of twenty literary pieces, among poems and books, from Leaves of Grass, which is the volume that assembles the complete poetry of Whitman. Within the re-creations presented here, there is the poem “Out of the Cradle Endlessly Rocking”, which is part of Sea-Drift, and which had been added as an annex to our Master’s thesis. This poem has been revised and corrected, and has been included here in order for the Sea-Drift cluster to be complete. In section 2.1 there is an explanation about the publishing history of Leaves of Grass. In addition to the historical context of this publication, chapter 2 presents a critical analysis of the works, author, and a central symbol in the Leaves, which is the calamus root. The re-creation of “Calamus”, as well as of “Children of Adam” and “Song of Myself” appears in our Master’s thesis (SARAIVA, 1995).

Cette these examine le theme du rivage dans la poesie americaine de walt whitman a george oppen. Espace de fondation en amerique, le rivage constitue le point de depart du grand periple whitmanien a travers le continent americain. Chez hart crane, c'est un point de jonction entre la mer et le continent. Pour george oppen, c'est un point de rupture, qui creuse la distance entre le poete et l'espace. Chez ces trois poetes, le rivage n'est pas seulement un paysage. Il suggere aussi une pratique d'ecriture fondee sur la fluidite. Cette these s'appuie egalement sur des recits d'explorateurs du seizieme et du dix-septieme siecle pour montrer la centralite du rivage dans la pensee et la litterature americaines.

Thesis (D.M.A.)--University of North Texas, 2003.
Original copy accompanied by 3 recitals, recorded Apr. 27, 2000, Nov. 28, 2000, and Oct. 31, 2001; videocassette not dated. Lacking in UMI copy. Includes bibliographical references (p. 141-149).

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Bachelors
Arts and Sciences
English Literature

Este trabalho analisa a produção de Álvaro de Campos – heterônimo de Fernando Pessoa – em relação a duas linhas de força: a poesia de Walt Whitman e a filosofia de Friedrich Nietzsche. Busca comprovar que os poemas da segunda fase, a eufórica, em virtude do prolífico diálogo com o bardo norte-americano e o filósofo, estão investidos de uma vontade de potência, a qual se manifesta, especialmente, no ímpeto sensacionista de experimentar tudo e na analogia entre o poeta e Deus. Herdeiro do Decadentismo, Campos não consegue manter o discurso vitalista e dinamista e, frequentemente, um tom depressivo invade os textos. Nessas ocasiões, o eu lírico, em vez de estar marcado pela vontade de potência, assume uma feição decadente, que predominará na fase posterior. Pretendemos demonstrar que, apesar do cansaço, do tédio, da letargia e da lucidez, há, no Campos disfórico, uma vontade de potência. A fim de examinarmos os poemas do poeta eufórico, nos apoiaremos no conceito de intertextualidade, recorrendo aos estudos de Kristeva, Bakhtin, Laurent Jenny, Gerárd Genette, Leyla Perrone-Moisés e Tiphaine Samoyault. Com vistas à percepção do modo como o heterônimo ressignifica o legado de Whitman e Nietzsche, seguiremos, na análise, a metodologia comparatista de busca das analogias e das diferenças. Serão de grande valia as formulações de George Steiner, Eduardo Lourenço e Octavio Paz, entre outros. Na mesma proporção, serão importantes, para a compreensão do Campos disfórico, as colocações de Nietzsche acerca do niilismo e os argumentos de Steiner a respeito da tristeza inerente ao pensamento. Urdida com os influxos de Nietzsche e Whitman, a vontade de potência leva Campos, tal como os antecessores, a considerar-se divino. Entretanto, por ser demasiado consciente, Campos não pode persistir na embriaguez do Sensacionismo. Resta-lhe, então, manifestar a vontade de potência através da ideia de permanência da obra.
This paper analyzes the production of Álvaro de Campos - heteronym of Fernando Pessoa - in relation to two strong lines: the poetry of Walt Whitman and the philosophy of Friedrich Nietzsche. It seeks to prove that the poems of the second phase, the euphoric, are invested with a power to will which is manifested especially in the sensationist impetus to try everything and in the analogy between the American bard and the philosopher. Heir to the Decadentism, Campos cannot keep the vitalist and dynamistic discourse and often a depressing tone pervades his texts. On these occasions, the lyrical, rather than being marked by the will to power, assumes a decadent feature, which will predominate in the later stage. We intend to show that, despite the fatigue, boredom, lethargy and lucidity, there is in the dysphoric Campos a power to will. In order to examine the poems of the euphoric poet we will seek support in the concept of intertextuality, using the studies of Kristeva, Bakhtin, Laurent Jenny, Gérard Genette, Leyla Perrone-Moisés and Tiphaine Samoyault. With the objective of perceiving how the heteronym gives new meaning to legacy of Whitman and Nietzsche, we will follow in the analysis, the comparative methodology of search of analogies and differences. Of great value will be the approaches of George Steiner, Eduardo Lourenço and Octavio Paz, among others. In the same proportion, will be important for the understanding of the dysphoric Campos, the collocations of Nietzsche on nihilism and Steiner's arguments about the inherent sadness in thought. Warped with inflows of Nietzsche and Whitman, the will to power leads Campos, like his predecessors, to consider himself divine. However, because he is too conscious Campos cannot persist in the intoxication of Sensationism. Then, he left with expressing the will to power through the idea of the permanence of the work.
Este trabajo analiza la producción de Álvaro de Campos – heterónimo de Fernando Pessoa – en relación a dos líneas de fuerza: la poesía de Walt Whitman y la filosofía de Friedrich Nietzsche. Busca comprobar que los poemas de la segunda fase, la eufórica, a causa del prolífico diálogo con el bardo norte-americano y el filósofo, están investidos de una voluntad de potencia, la cual se manifiesta, especialmente, en el ímpetu sensacionista de probarlo todo y en la analogía entre el poeta y Dios. Heredero del Decadentismo, Campos no consigue mantener el discurso vitalista y dinamista y, frecuentemente, un tono depresivo invade los textos. En esas ocasiones, el yo lírico, en lugar de presentar voluntad de potencia, manifiesta rasgos decadentes, que dominarán en la fase siguiente. Pretendemos mostrar que, no obstante el cansancio, el hastío, el abatimiento y la lucidez, hay, en el Campos depresivo, una voluntad de potencia. A fin de examinar los poemas del poeta eufórico, nos basaremos en el concepto de intertextualidad, recurriendo a los estudios de Kristeva, Bakhtin, Laurent Jenny, Gerárd Genette, Leyla Perrone-Moisés y Tiphaine Samoyault. Con el objetivo de percibir el modo como el poeta resignifica la herencia de Whitman y Nietzsche, adoptaremos, en el análisis, la metodología comparatista de la búsqueda de las analogías y de las diferencias. Serán muy valiosos los aportes de George Steiner, Eduardo Lourenço y Octavio Paz, entre otros. Del mismo modo, serán importantes, en el abordaje del Campos depresivo, las aserciones de Nietzsche con respecto al nihilismo y los argumentos de Steiner en relación a la tristeza inherente al pensamiento. Entretejida con los influjos de Whitman y Nietzsche, la voluntad de potencia conduce Campos, a ejemplo de los antecesores, a considerarse divino. Sin embargo, demasiado consciente, Campos no puede seguir en la ebriedad del Sensacionismo. Quédale, pues, manifestar la voluntad de potencia a través de la idea de permanencia de la obra.

Dans l’Amérique et les Caraïbes des XIXe et XXe siècles, l’œuvre du poète national est au cœur d’un trafic d’images qui nourrit un lien social fragile dans un temps où les collectivités reposent moins sur un lien direct entre leurs membres que sur un lien imaginé. Prenant ses distances vis-à-vis des représentations en circulation à son époque, comme les représentations exotiques de la nature, le poète offre une vision démocratique ambitieuse pour l’avenir de la communauté à travers des images nouvelles du territoire, du peuple, de l’esclavage et de l’histoire. L’ethos auctorial encourage l’appropriation de ce discours par le lecteur en désignant le poète comme figure de référence. Mais c’est surtout à travers son procédé d’écriture qui met à mal les normes littéraires de son temps que celui-ci est à même d’influer sur la société. Plutôt qu’ils ne parviennent à saisir l’esprit de leur peuple, Whitman, Martí et Césaire participent par leur travail sur le fragment, les formes populaires ou le tremblement du sens à la création d’un devenir collectif
In 19th and 20th centuries America and West Indies, the national poet’s works lay at the centre of a traffic of images. This traffic feeds the fragile social ties of young collectivities, at a time when communities are bound by imagination rather than by direct contact between their members. Distancing themselves from the representations of the community circulating at that time, like the exotic images of the New World’s nature, the poet offers an ambitious democratic vision for the future which is channeled through images of the territory, the people, slavery and history. The poet’s ethos encourages the reader to appropriate this discourse by presenting the author as a role model. However, it is mainly thanks to his style, at odds with the literary norms of his time, that the poet is able to act upon society. Whitman, Martí and Césaire do not so much contrive to capture their people’s spirit, as they participate through their work on the fragment, on popular poetical forms or on the destabilizing of meaning, in the creation of a common devenir

Cette thèse examine la présence de la musique dans la polygraphie poétique de Walt Whitman, de Antônio Francisco da Costa et Silva et de Léopold Sédar Senghor. Bien qu'ils soient de différentes époques, qui s'étendent du XIX siècle au XXème ; de différentes cultures (américaine, brésilienne, française et senegalaise) ; et encore de différentes langues (anglais, portugais et français), ils témoignent de procédures similaires de création, en ce sens que les trois font appel à un lexique sonore musical comme élément essentiel dans la composition de leurs œuvres. Ici la musique n'est point un ornament. Cet art dynamogénique constitue le point de départ pour le dialogue entre les trois auteurs. Chez eux, les formes musicales débouchent sur un univers sonore musical appuyé sur l'intertextualité. En conséquence, en l'une ou l'autre, la musique s'affirme nettement une pratique alternative pour l'étude et pour l'analyse des textes sur une base d'opération interartistique. Cette thèse se fonde également sur une approche quanti qualitative. Cette recherche a utilisé le logiciel Stablex. Ce programme prend en charge le traitement thématique et automatique des textes et possibilite une analyse de centaines de poèmes mis ensuite en tableaux synoptiques et en tableaux de concordance avec la fréquence des occurrences dûment validées en contexte. Le passage par l'informatique a ainsi fourni de précieux repères numériques à valeur descriptif, sur le vocabulaire socio sémantique et musical de la poésie de Whitman, de Da Costa e Silva et de Senghor. Peut-être aussi sur la pente de leur imaginaire respectif
This thesis examines the presence of the music in the poligraphic poetics of Walt Whitman, Antonio Francisco da Costa e Silva and Léopold Sédar Senghor ; They are different about time of literary production , about culture and about language, but they are also similar in the creative process in requesting the sound-musical lexicon as integrant and essential element, not characterized as a literary decoration. As an art of dynamogenic character music constitutes the starting point for the dialogue among the three authors selected in the sense of the musical forms, of the mentions to the sound-musical universe and of the intertextuality with musical works. So, music appears as an alternative for studying and for analysing literary works founded in the interartistic relationship. This thesis leans on in the quantiqualitative approach, requiring the computational program called Stablex, appropriate for the treatment an automatic processing of texts for the lexical and textual analysis. This program also makes possible the simultaneous work with hundreds of texts, supplying statistical-descriptive information, besides lexicons and tables, determining the importance and weight of the items selected for the research in an objective and scientific way

viii, 233 p. A print copy of this thesis is available through the UO Libraries. Search the library catalog for the location and call number.
This dissertation argues that certain iconic poems have shaped the canon of American poetry. Not merely "canonical" in the usual sense, iconic poems enjoy a special cultural sanction and influence; they have become discourses themselves, generating our notions about American poetry. By "iconic" I mean extraordinarily famous works like Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's "Paul Revere's Ride," Walt Whitman's "Song of Myself," and Claude McKay's "If We Must Die," that do not merely reside in the national memory but that have determined each poet's reception and thus have shaped the history of American poetry. Through case studies, I examine longstanding assumptions about these poets and the literary histories and myths surrounding their legendary texts. In carefully historicized readings of these and other iconic poems, I elucidate the pressure a single poem can exert on a poet's reputation and on American poetry broadly. I study the iconic poem in the context of the poet's corpus to demonstrate its role within the poet's oeuvre and the role assigned to it by canon makers. By tracing a poem's reception, I aim to identify the national, periodic, political, and formal boundaries these poems enforce and the distortions they create. Because iconic poems often direct and justify our inclusions and exclusions, they are of particular use in clarifying persistent obstacles to the canon reformation work of the last thirty years. While anthologies have become more inclusive in their selections and self-conscious about their ideological motives, many of the practices regarding individual poets and poems have remained unchanged over the last fifty years. Even as we include more poets in the canon, we often ironically do so by isolating a particular portion of the career, impulse in the work, or even a single poem, narrowing rather than expanding the horizon of our national literature. Through close readings situated in historical and cultural contexts, I illustrate the varying effects of iconic poems on the poet, other poems, and literary history.
Committee in charge: Dr. Karen J. Ford, Chair; Dr. John T. Gage, Member; Dr. Ernesto J. Martinez, Member; Dr. Leah W. Middlebrook, Outside Member

Toni Morrison, in Playing in the Dark, observes the pervasive silence that surrounds race in nineteenth-century canonical literature. Observing the ways in which the “Africanist” African-American presence pervades this literature, Morrison has called for an investigation of the ways in which whiteness operates in American canonical literature. This thesis takes up that challenge. In the first section, from Chapters One through Three, I explore how whiteness operates through the representation of the African-American figure in the works of three eminent nineteenth-century American writers, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Walt Whitman, and Mark Twain. The texts studied in this regard are: Uncle Tom’s Cabin, Leaves of Grass, and Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. This section is not concerned with whether these texts constitute racist literature but with the ways in which the study of race, particularly whiteness, reveals the contradictions and insecurities that attend (white American) identity. As such, Morrison’s own fiction, written in response to white historical representations of African-Americans also deserves attention. The second section of this thesis focuses on Morrison’s attempt to produce an authentically “black” literature. Here I look at two of Morrison’s least studied but arguably most contentious novels particularly because of what they reveal of Morrison’s complex position on race. In Chapter Four I focus on Tar Baby and argue that this novel reveals Morrison’s somewhat essentialist position on blackness and racial, cultural, and gendered identity, particularly as this pertains to responsibilities she places on the black woman as culture-bearer. In Chapter Five I argue that Paradise, while taking a particularly challenging position on blackness, reveals Morrison’s evolving position on race, particularly her concern with the destructive nature of internalized racism. This thesis concludes that while racial identities have very real material consequences, whiteness and blackness are ideological and social constructs which, because of their constructedness, are fallible and perpetually under revision.

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)

Kwok, Yat Kam.
Thesis (M.Phil.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 2007.
Includes bibliographical references (leaves 105-109).
Abstracts in English and Chinese.
Abstract --- p.i
論文摘要 --- p.iii
Acknowledgments --- p.iv
Introduction --- p.1
Chapter Chapter One: --- A Romantic Poet with a Roving Vision: Walt Whitman's Poems --- p.20
Chapter Chapter Two: --- A Medley of Images: Stephen Crane's Youthful War --- p.45
Chapter Chapter Three: --- Survivors under Siege: Ambrose Bierce's Modern War --- p.71
Conclusion --- p.100
Works Cited --- p.105