The "Windy City" In His American Dream

Carl Sandburg is a poet controversial. Scholars generally do not agree on the quality or the definition of his work. However, they agree that his most productive writing occurred during his Chicago year. Consequently, Chicago Poems, which draws more attention from critics than any other of his collections, has been apt to be interpreted by various approaches. Scholars have studied Chicago Poems mainly from formal, symbolic, historical, thematic aspects, covering approaches such as New Criticism, Marxism, influential sources, and motif study. The present paper applies text analysis and culture reading to make a survey of the city motif in Chicago Poems.To the poet, the city Chicago offered variety, complexity and contradiction, options, and above all, the possibilities of growth and change. The city also showed its poet with dreams, which are vital and necessary for artistic inspiration and stimulus. Therefore, Sandburg's Chicago complex has also been mentioned but remained on the relation of the poet and his background. The present paper intends to correlate the poet's city complex not only with his career but also with the American tradition of literature as well as the currents of ideas and thoughts in America. Thus the city motif could be highlighted as a proper reflection of the poet's poetic creation and as a key to the comprehension of his poetry. It is argued that from the inspirations and stimuli of the Biblical archetype of city and the American tradition of urban dream, Carl Sandburg located a real but poetical city in his Chicago Poems as a motif that reflected the poet's awareness of the increasingly urban life, in aid of expressing in his historical context his ambivalent emotion——the corrupted present and the possibly glorious future.The thesis begins with a brief introduction of the unique influence of Carl Sandburg and his Chicago Poems. Then it takes up a literature review of the researches and perspectives on this volume of poems by other scholars in the past. And Chapter One makes brief explanations of some important terms applied in the present paper.Afterwards, Chapter Two involves close reading and text analysis of some typical poems in Chicago Poems. Through abundant and typical text analysis of Chicago Poems, it is found that the "city" tends to appear again and again in the poetic limelight. Attention is focused on it so frequently that it could be proved to be recurring motif to stress Sandburg's "Chicago complex."Based on the text analysis in the previous chapter, Chapter Three is devoted to the survey of the causes of the city motif. Culture reading and history reading would be applied in the analysis that Sandburg's city motif involves biblical archetype, tradition of American dream and Sandburg's own historical context. Combined the important elements that formed the city motif, the present author could explain, to some extent, for the misread Sandburg his ambivalent emotion towards his historical context and his American urban dream in the "Windy City"——Chicago.Chapter four brings the whole thesis to a conclusion. Involving ambivalent emotion in his attitude toward the city Chicago, Sandburg uses his psychic energy in finding positive solutions to the urban problem. Moreover, hurling his criticism at the city enabled him to cope with the reality of the city in a healthy and constructive way. That is why the reader can find a miserable but optimistic city in Chicago Poems. This "Windy City" in his American dream also invested Sandburg with a special kind of moral energy that allowed him to continue in his search for aesthetic ideals and truth.