Committee Chair
Stuart, Christopher
Committee Member
Smith, Joyce; North, Susan; Elwell, Jeff; Walker, J. Randy
College
College of Arts and Sciences
Publisher
University of Tennessee at Chattanooga
Place of Publication
Chattanooga (Tenn.)
Abstract
Christopher Maurer, a leading biographer and critic of Federico Garcia Lorca, describes the Spaniard’s Poet in New York using the adjective “Whitman-esque.” Indeed, the poet’s posthumous collection lambasts the rampant materialism and putrid urbanization of New York through extensive divergent shifts in style and tone from Lorca’s earlier work that point toward the influence of Walt Whitman: radical line lengths, exclamatory prose, and lengthy catalogues. This study proposes that the influence of Whitman upon Lorca is more than cosmetic or strictly imitative. Using the writings of the American anthropologist Ernest Becker as a methodology, I propose that further similarities between Whitman and Lorca can be found in their psychological reactions to death anxiety, as exemplified in their poems on the body. While Whitman imagines achieving immortality through construction of a transcendentalist “over-soul,” Lorca envisions an unending dance with death through the Andalusian ideology of “duende.” Through analysis of the poet’s body, the homosexual body, and the African-American body, I identify the means through which Whitman and Lorca downplay their fears of mortality.
Degree
M. A.; A thesis submitted to the faculty of the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga in partial fulfillment of the requirements of the degree of Master of Arts.
Date
5-2014
Subject
Human body in literature
Name
García Lorca, Federico, -- 1898-1936 -- Criticism and interpretation; Whitman, Walt, -- 1819-1892 -- Influence
Document Type
Masters theses
DCMI Type
Text
Extent
vi, 71 leaves
Language
English
Rights
https://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en
License
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/
Recommended Citation
St. John, David E., "In reality meager: eluding death anxiety in Walt Whitman and Federico Garcia Lorca's poetics of the body" (2014). Masters Theses and Doctoral Dissertations.
https://scholar.utc.edu/theses/112
Department
Dept. of English