COD 2026 - D1253

Webinar - I contain multitudes! An analysis of Whitman's variety of literary resources and themes in interaction

AS & A Level

1 sessions, start: 09-Apr

Course detail

Year: 2026
Level: Distance
Language: English
Status: Ended
Lugar: Distance
Facilitator/s: Eugenio López Arriazu PhD
Print course
ESSARP Schools
Free of charge
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Sessions

Sessions Dates Start Finish
1 09 April 2026 10:00 am 12:00 pm

Facilitator/s

Eugenio López Arriazu

Eugenio is a Ph. D. in Literature from UBA. He graduated from I. S. P. Joaquín V. González as a teacher of English as a Foreign Language, and from the Facultad de Filosofía y Letras, UBA, as Licenciado en Letras and Profesor de Lengua y Literatura. He currently teaches American Literature and Slavic Literatures at the UBA. He has taught Introduction to Literature, American Literature, and English Literature I and II at several Teacher Training and Translator Training Institutions, as well as Literatures in English and Literary Theory at the Diplomatura Superior en Cs. del Lenguaje, I.S.P.J.V. González.
AS & A Level
- Acquaint participants with the historical context of the texts.
- Acquaint participants with the themes, proceedings and style of the poems.
- Establish relations with our current reality
- Foster critical thinking
-Guide participants to use bibliography and literary theory to develop personal positions.
Walt Whitman’s life (May 31, 1819 – March 26, 1892) nearly spans the century and bears witness to the great changes that ran through it (the Civil War, the conquest of the West, industrialization and the railroads, the rise of mass society). Together with Melville, Emerson, Thoreau, and Hawthorne, he created a national literature that F. O. Matthiessen called the “American Renaissance”. This seminar proposes to analyze Whitman’s poetry in order to show how his themes and literary resources contribute to the formation of such a national literature in an inextricable way, i.e., there’s no possibility of separating form and content: his forms shape the content, content directs form.

Set AS & A poems to analyze:

A Noiseless Patient Spider
As I Ebb’d with the Ocean of Life
Beat! Beat! Drums!
How Solemn as One by One
I Hear America Singing
I Saw in Louisiana a Live-Oak Growing
I Sing the Body Electric
In Paths Untrodden
O Captain! My Captain!
O Me! O Life!
Out of the Cradle Endlessly Rocking
Out of the Rolling Ocean the Crowd
Pioneers! O Pioneers!
The Wound-Dresser
Whoever You Are Holding Me Now in Hand
Since this will be an on-line course, participants will be provided with material for analysis and discussion of the poems by e-mail. As usual, the coordinator will play the role of facilitator in order to elicit from participants their own criticism of the texts. The analysis of the poems will be, therefore, carried out not only through dialogue with the participants, but by the implementation of group-work, whose conclusions will be debated later with the whole group. Group-work will be carried out on-line in break-out groups monitored by the facilitator.
Borges, J. L. (1969) “Prólogo”. En Hojas de Hierba. Buenos Aires: Editorial Juárez.
Deleuze, G. (1996) “Whitman”. En Crítica y clínica. Barcelona: Anagrama.
Kazin, A. (1987) Una procesión: cien años de literatura norteamericana. México: FCE.
Matthiessen, F. O. (1941) American Renaissance. London: OUP.
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