George B. Hutchinson

272 Pages·2006·13.1 MB·English

Literary Shamanism and the Crisis of the Union
George B. Hutchinson
Literary Shamanism and the Crisis of the Union

GEORGE HUTCHINSON

EXAMINING WHITMAN'S CAREER AS A FORM OF PROPHETIC
role-playing, George Hutchinson develops an interdisciplinary
and cross-cultural method to illuminate the interrelations be­
tween the poet's mysticism, his aesthetic, his psychological
conflicts, and his participation in the social drama of his age.
The book sets Leaves of Grass against the background of a
family romance of national identity, a developing civil religion,
and socioeconomic transformations that brought the psychic
trauma and fears of spiritual decay to mid-nineteenth-century
Americans. Such stresses impelled religious phenomena tend­
ing toward prophecy, spiritual possession, and ecstaticism in a
multifaceted movement to revitalize American culture.
Within this context, Hutchinson examines Whitman's devel­
opment of a prophetic role and a corresponding aesthetic,
showing the pattern of affliction, crisis, self-training, and
mastery of the techniques of ecstacy that anthropologists have
noted in shamanism and prophetic movements throughout the
world. Viewing the ecstatic performance as a means of revitaliz­
ing a cultural identity under stress, Hutchinson reveals the
ecstatic structures, functions, and techniques that are fun­
damental to Whitman's creativity. Close readings of the great
poems and poem clusters of 1855,1860,1865-67, and 1871-72
reveal Whitman's adaptations of the ecstatic role-playing pro­
cess to master crises of faith—crises precipitated by historical
developments but having profound psychic and spiritual
resonances.
By drawing upon anthropological insights into ecstatic
prophecy as it relates to social change, Hutchinson implicitly
demonstrates a new approach to American Studies and to the
connections between literature and social history while
addressing the major issues in Whitman scholarship.
GEORGE HUTCHINSON is assistant professor of English at the
University of Tennessee, Knoxville.
ISBN 0-8142-0412-0
Book and jacket design by Arrow Graphics and Typography.
Cover photograph courtesy of the Collection of Rare Books,
Duke University.

Xhe Ecstatic QUhitman

Ecstatic QVhitman
Literary Shamanism & the Crisis of
the Union
George B. Hutchinson
Ohio State University Press Columbus
Copyright © 1986 by the Ohio State University Press
All Rights Reserved
Library of Congress Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
Hutchinson, George, 1953­
The ecstatic Whitman.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
1. Whitman, Walt, 1819-1892—Criticism and interpretation.
2. Shamanism in literature. 3. Prophecies
in literature. 4. Ectasy in literature. 5. United
States in literature. I. Title.
PS3242.S52H88 1986 811'.3 86-877
ISBN 0-8142-0412-0
To Momma Anne and Poppa George