“THE PRAIRIE-GRASS DIVIDING” AND “LOCATIONS AND TIMES": WHITMAN’S OLFACTION-CENTERED THINKING IN HIS POETICS AND EPISTEMOLOGY
“THE PRAIRIE-GRASS DIVIDING” AND “LOCATIONS AND TIMES": WHITMAN’S OLFACTION-CENTERED THINKING IN HIS POETICS AND EPISTEMOLOGY

Summary/Abstract: Although various critics have noted Whitman’s interest in the five senses in his poetry, the role olfaction plays has not been fully explored. I examine “The Prairie-Grass Dividing” and “Locations and Times” – the only two poems which explicitly bear the term “correspond”, and the term “odor.” Throughout the investigation, this essay aims to show that olfaction is at the center of Whitman’s poetics – which consists of a dilation-respiration-olfaction scheme – and of his epistemology – based on the olfaction-mediated correspondence between the material and the spiritual.

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