The dissertation aims to explore two overlooked motifs in the criticism of Walt Whitman: the influence of Jefferson on Whitman and Whitman’s olfactory tropes. The central hypothesis of the dissertation is that Whitman’s poetic enterprise is to be studied within the framework of the American experiment of self-government. I propose that this hypothesis provides us with a framework to link Whitman and Jefferson as well as to better understand Whitman’s olfactory tropes. In other words, just as the American Revolution is a theater of Jefferson’s American experiment of self-government so is Leaves of Grass a theater of Whitman’s American experiment of synthesizing three kinds of self-government – personal self-governing, self-government in poeticization, and political self-government. I propose that at the heart of this synthesis is Whitmanian pride – a motif of nearly all his verse –, invigorating pride to continue the American experiment. I propose to show that Whitman’s olfactory tropes – the main elements of his “new decorums” – are the vehicle for such pride in his poems. Olfactory tropes represent pride via the “pride-respiration-olfaction scheme” and the notion of “odor experience peculiar to Whitman,” both of which will be introduced in the dissertation. Whitman’s adoption of olfaction as the medium for pride is all the more noteworthy because his so-doing occasions olfaction’s shift from the periphery to the center among the five senses. I propose that conflating poetics and politics in this manner is Whitman’s poetic-political experiment par excellence.
Since the politics and poetics of Whitman go hand in hand, my methodological framework lies in New Historicism, especially in what David Simpson calls “analytic” historicism. The dissertation prioritizes the 1855 edition of Leaves of Grass since it features two aspects of Whitman’s poetics – the initial formation and the experimental nature of it. The dissertation aims to show that it is when viewed from the perspective of the American experiment that Whitman’s choice of his medium, his choice of the subject matter, and his way of poeticization – including his employment of olfactory tropes – cohere.