“육체적 몸”으로의 접촉: 월트 휘트먼의 시각적 촉각성

Abstract

Among the entire nineteenth century writers, Whitman is believed to be a unique poet who adopted the sense of touch as a primary motif. From the beginning of his career, Whitman reveals his strong tactile desire by means of contacting and touching with the whole corporeal body. His invariable affection for touching is vividly apparent in his representative collection of poems entitled Leaves of Grass. He claims that we should touch the “body of books,” not merely reading his poems with eyes. It is not difficult to find words referring to tactility such as “body”, “contact”, “kiss”, “rapport”, “adhesiveness”, “touch”, “press”, etc. in his poetry and prose. These words are indivisibly related to the sense of sight, which he believes overwhelms other senses. His visual representation with the whole corporeal body strongly evokes tactility, which means visual tactility. Whitman's desire for touching is clearly revealed with “an unseen hand” in the eleventh section of “Song of Myself.” Above all, his visual tactility is best embodied in his contemporary painter, Thomas Eakins, transcending the bounds of genres and media. Eakins creates a tactile image in a painting entitled The Swimming Hole of 1885 which accords with Whitman's desire for touching through “an unseen hand.”Whitman perceptively notes the power of healing touch with the “whole corporeal body” by direct contact with all nature including human beings. He emphasizes that the “magnetic touch of hands” acting as the invisible physician is the most powerful remedy. Most of all, in Whitman's imagination, contacting with the night leads to the healing and communication of human beings as it functions as the best healing agent transcending the limits of all the physicians and the priests. Accordingly, for Whitman, the true healer means a man with the “magnetic touch of hands” helping the sick to heal, not merely to cure.