WHITMAN, WORDSWORTH AND THE CITIES: POETRY, URBANISM AND IDENTITY

Abstract

The present article intends to explore the issue of the imagined poetic city present in the poetry of Walt Whitman and William Wordsworth as a site of multiple belongings. From their poetry, we interrogate how notions of identity and belonging are illustrated by their depictions of the geographical space within their cities, respectively New York and London. Our readings take us to question the role of the (imagined) place created between the poet and the reader, and if the city is a real place or a non-place, where identities and memories are created to produce a third space.