Date of Award
2012
Document Type
Thesis
Publication Status
Version of Record
Submission Date
October 2026
Abstract
This thesis examines Walt Whitman's use of the body in his poetry as a location for spiritual experience, and how his use of the body bears strong connection to its use by medieval Persian Sufi poets. The first chapter focuses upon Sufi poetry's role as a shared point of interest between Whitman and his onetime mentor Ralph Waldo Emerson. Their differing philosophies regarding the cultivation of the soul caused them to absorb Sufi ideas into their own bodies of work in separate ways, and contributed to the split that eventually occurred between them. The second chapter focuses upon connections between Whitman's poetry and that of Jalaluddin Rumi, one of the greatest Sufi poets yet an oftoverlooked figure in Whitman scholarship. The final chapter examines multiple ways in which Whitman expresses the divine nature of the body in several poems from Leaves of Grass, and how those expressions reflect Sufi influences.
Extent
vi, 54 p.
Recommended Citation
Frabrizio, Ryan., "ecstatic Whitman" (2012). Electronic Theses and Dissertations 2010 - 2019. 504.
https://digitalcommons.fau.edu/etd_general_6/504
Identifier
FADT3342049
Comments
by Ryan Fabrizio.|Thesis (M.A.)--Florida Atlantic University, 2012.|Includes bibliography.|Electronic reproduction. Boca Raton, Fla., 2012. Mode of access: World Wide Web.|by Ryan Fabrizio.