월트 휘트먼과 죽음 = Walt Whitman and Death

다국어 초록 (Multilingual Abstract)

Death is one of the most frequent themes both in western and oriental literary works. In western world where Christianity has been the dominant religious tenet, a number of literary works of art have dealt with death in terms of otherworldliness. For example, John Donne, the seventeen-century British poet, vividly personifies death in his poetical works; Emily Dickinson, the nineteen-century American poet, presupposes the advent of death, its weight and the life after death. Yet oriental literary writers have not paid much too their attention to death as much as western writers. Such a tendency comes from the belief of oriental thinkers: death is a cycle of a huge stream in the universe. The Hindu followers and ancient Chinese thinkers took it for granted that death is a natural phenomenon. Considering death not as a coda of life but as a process, they did not express fear or dread toward death. Although Walt Whitman was born into puritan society, his attitude toward death seems to come close to that of oriental thinkers. He wrote a number of poems about death from his early career of poet, interpreting death as a process of large cycle: his recognition of death as a natural phenomenon culminates in “The Sleepers.” This essay seeks to examine his works on death with special focus on “The Sleepers.”

참고문헌 (Reference)

1 이 인복, "한국문학에 나타난 죽음의식의 사적 연구" 열화당 1987

2 이강수, "장자" 길 2005

3 존 바우커, "세계종교로 보는 죽음의 의미" 청년사 2005

4 홍 인표, "맹자" 서울대학교출판부 1996

5 김학주, "논어" 서울대학교출판부 2007

6 Killingsworth,M.J., "Whitman’s Poetry of the Body:Sexuality,Politics,and the Text" U of North Carolina P 1989

7 Larson Kerry C., "Whitman’s Drama of Consensus" U of Chicago P 1988

8 Miller, Edwin H., "Walt Whitman’s Poetry" Houghton Mifflin Co. 1968

9 Chase,Richard, "Walt Whitman Reconsidered" William Sloane Associates,Inc.Publishers 1955

10 Whitman, Walt, "Leaves of Grass" Norton 1973

11 Warren, James Perrin, "Catching the Sign: Catalogue Rhetoric in ‘The Sleeper.’" 5 (5): 16-34, 1987