"The Brain—is wider than the Sky—": Nature and the Sublime American Self in Emerson and Whitman

Tez Türü: Yüksek Lisans

Tezin Yürütüldüğü Kurum: Boğaziçi Üniversitesi, Fen-Edebiyat Fakültesi, Batı Dilleri Ve Edebiyatları Bölümü, Türkiye

Tez Danışmanı: Cevza Sevgen

Tezin Onay Tarihi: 2005

Tezin Dili: İngilizce

Özet:

This thesis' primary focus is on the relationship between nature and the development of a distinctly American selfhood, as revealed through the works of Ralph Waldo Emerson and Walt Whitman. The primary framework through which this relationship will be viewed is that of the notion of the Sublime, which over the centuries developed from being a mere rhetorical mode into being a manner of ontological exploration and discovery. In the work of Emerson and Whitman, this manner became tied up with the then developing idea of a uniquely American self. This tying-up in turn allowed an oppositional conception concerning the relation of that self to American nature to evolve, and it is this oppositional conception, the way in which it was developed, and its ultimate consequences that this thesis explores.