휘트먼의 민주주의, 개인주의, 코스모폴리타니즘

• 영문명: Whitman’s Democracy, Individualism, Cosmopolitanism
• 발행기관: 한국아메리카학회
• 저자명: 한광택(Kwangtaek Han)
• 간행물 정보: 『미국학논집』제48집 3호, 183~204쪽, 전체 22쪽
• 주제분류: 인문학 > 기타인문학
• 파일형태: PDF
• 발행일자: 2016.12.30

영문 초록

By focusing on the poetic way in which Walt Whitman in Leaves of Grass envisions the ideal harmony of democracy and individualism by means of incorporating the two ideologies into a cosmopolitan vision, this essay examines how it ironically proves their essential, constitutive incompatibility. For Whitman who desires to make himself the bard of American democracy, I argue, free and equal individuals are the important foundational ground for celebrating the American values and ideals of democracy and individualism. However, democracy and individualism, though they seem to share the same conceptual principles, are in effect incompatible due to their irreconcilable ideological antagonism, which Whitman comes to recognize and attempts to overcome by way of offering a series of imaginary depictions of a cosmopolitan world in which free and equal individuals can travel facing no hostility in other regions or countries. Whitman suggests such Kantian cosmopolitanism in the future tense as a sole solution to the unbridgeable gap between democracy and individualism, which however indicates ironically its substantial impossibility in the present tense.

키워드

Walt Whitman Leaves of Grass Democracy Liberalism Individualism Cosmopolitanism Internal Contradiction