“HOT LITTLE PROPHETS”:READING, MYSTICISM, AND WALT WHITMAN’S DISCIPLES
A DissertationbySTEVEN JAY MARSDENSubmitted to the Office of Graduate Studies of Texas A&M Universityin partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHYAugust 2004Major Subject: English
“HOT LITTLE PROPHETS”:READING, MYSTICISM, AND WALT WHITMAN’S DISCIPLES
A DissertationbySTEVEN JAY MARSDENSubmitted to Texas A&M Universityin partial fulfillment of the requirementsfor the degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHYApproved as to style and content by:____________________________ ____________________________M. Jimmie Killingsworth William Bedford Clark (Chair of Committee) (Member)____________________________ ____________________________Michael Hand Jerome Loving(Member) (Member)____________________________ _____________________________Janet McCann Paul Parrish(Member) (Head of Department)August 2004Major Subject: English
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ABSTRACT
“Hot Little Prophets”: Reading, Mysticism, andWalt Whitman’s Disciples. (August 2004)Steve
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Jay Marsden, B.A., Western Illinois University;M.A., Northern Illinois UniversityChair of Advisory Committee: Dr. M. Jimmie KillingsworthWhile scholarship on Walt Whitman has often dealt with “mysticism” as animportant element of his writings and worldview, few critics have acknowledged theimportance of Whitman’s disciples in the development of the idea of secularcomparative mysticism. While critics have often speculated about the religion Whitmanattempted to inculcate, they have too often ignored the secularized spirituality that thepoet’s early readers developed in response to his poems. While critics have postulatedthat Whitman intended to revolutionize the consciousness of his readers, they havelargely ignored the cases where this kind of response demonstrably occurred.“Hot Little Prophets” examines three of Walt Whitman’s most enthusiastic earlyreaders and disciples, Anne Gilchrist, Richard Maurice Bucke, and Edward Carpenter.This dissertation shows how these disciples responded to the unprecedented reader-engagement techniques employed in Whitman’s Leaves of Grass, and how their readingsof that book (and of Whitman himself) provided them with new models of identity,
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Hot Little Prophets
“HOT LITTLE PROPHETS”:
READING, MYSTICISM, AND WALT WHITMAN’S DISCIPLES
A Dissertation
by
STEVEN JAY MAR... (More)
READING, MYSTICISM, AND WALT WHITMAN’S DISCIPLES
A Dissertation
by
STEVEN JAY MAR... (More)
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