월트 휘트먼의 작품에 나타난 고유한 장소성 —브루클린을 중심으로

Abstract

Whitman’s strong emotional bond with Brooklyn as a meaningful place is explicitly revealed throughout his poetry and prose. His proclamation, “I was of old Brooklyn,” and, “I too lived, Brooklyn of ample hills was mine,” in Leaves of Grass proves this fact. As a journalist before becoming a poet, Whitman invariably emphasizes the indigenous placeness of Brooklyn in Brooklyn Daily Eagle from 1846. He recognizes Brooklyn as a “healthy place,” differentiated from New York with its “impure spots.” In Whitman’s imagination, New York, with its unhealthy places such as the notorious Five Points slum, is identified with “Gomorrah.” Due to this fact, the word New York is not sublimated into his poetry. For Whitman, New York signifies placelessness, devoid of a spirit of place and a sense of place. Unlike New York, Brooklyn as a “healthy place” plays a pivotal role in his imagination. In an editorial “An Old Brooklyn Landmark Going,” he claims that the “past history” of Brooklyn is indivisibly connected with its “locality” and its “natural surroundings.” Consequently, in his poems such as “The Centenarian Story,” Whitman steadily reminds the “present and future generations” of the placeness of Brooklyn Heights. Furthermore, in the editorials such as “City Intelligence: Brooklyn ‘Lungs’—Washington Park,” and “Fort Greene Park,” the poet has an insight into the placeness of Fort Greene. Most of all, Whitman’s leading role in the construction of Fort Greene Park is worthwhile to note because his vision for the park is far ahead of Central Park created by Frederick Law Olmsted. The meaningful places such as Brooklyn Heights and Fort Greene that Whitman recurrently highlights are the manifestations of the indigenous placeness of Brooklyn.