Aesthetics in Walt Whitman's Song of Myself

Abstract

This thesis argues in poem Song of Myself by Whitman the ethic and value to provide an enriched experience to the reader mobilizes aesthetics. The aesthetic experience in the poem Song of Myself comes from firstly, the poem being an autonomous entity enriched with a veracity of creative apprentice, secondly; the poem with the mould of inhibiting the intactness intricately woven to fathom authenticity, thirdly; a mature handling of craft ship for the sake of the art, fourthly the patience to adhere a work of an art and the pleasure derived from such work crafting it. The thesis uses tools of aesthetics from Kantian notion of disinterestedness: as a contemplative attention without any personal stake on art into representation. Hegelian conception of historical dialectics with art as a complete process not open to future innovation. Ranciere's notion into politics of aesthetics in history, Santayana's notion on sanity of judgment and distinction of taste in poetry and Adorno's notion of aesthetic dialectics.