| Budget Amount *help |
¥2,600,000 (Direct Cost: ¥2,600,000)
Fiscal Year 1998: ¥1,100,000 (Direct Cost: ¥1,100,000)
Fiscal Year 1997: ¥1,500,000 (Direct Cost: ¥1,500,000)
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| Research Abstract |
Though recognized as radical romantics, Blake and Whitman have never been explored comparatively. They equally present a utopian, postcolonial vision of the world in their poetical works. Closely examining rhetoric and phrasing that are used in their works, I have clarified that such a vision is disturbed by some elements in their anti-colonial discourse.
Blake created a protagonist called Albion, who is supposed to be a universal man. Distinctions between master and slave, white and black, European and non- European are expected to disappear by the creation of the universal man. But Albion is at the same time representative of England, Albion being an old name for England in the first place. Blake' s postcolonial scheme therefore embraces contradictory elements in the configuration of Albion.
Whitman reveals the same kind of contradiction in his depiction of a protagonist called "I." Equivalent to Blake's Albion, Whitman's "I" claims that he is representative of all tribes and all countries but, at the same time, emphasizes a priority of America, The "I" is, after all, a white American male who believes in his own country' s supremacy.
I have thus clarified homogeneity between Blake and Whitman by analyzing the way the two poets powerfully present a postcolonial vision and the way their rhetoric and phrasing betray their own initial scheme.
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