"Fantastic Traveler"

The unconventional view and the persuit of freedom and selfhood in vagabond way sound the keynote of MuDan's and Whitman's poems. However, they are doomed to be on the way only. The space change in vagabond life always embodies in the emergency of new things and goals, even it takes their whole lives to persue the called Poetic Dwelling endlessly, there is still no final destination for them.Nearly at the same time, MuDan and Whitman steered to be a spiritual vagrant, and unexpectly, they were stating the theme of vagabond life in a similar way, too. That is, during the way of finding the essence of life, both of them are trying to rebel against convention not only by confirming the image of body but also being vagrant. Though they have many similarities, in order to be a stronger, MuDan has to establish his own originality by sacrificing the elder one——Whitman.In chapter one, this thesis stated the reasons for Whitman's and MuDan's Metaphysical and Immetaphysical conciousness of wandering. Both of them were forced to vagabondize to survived themselves, and with broadening the views, they started to introspect their lives to seek the balance between the ideal and the real.In chapter two, this thesis scrutinize the version of Whitman's and MuDan's poems on the theme of wandering. By using Whitman's theory of organic origins, this chapter sorts through the two poets'different attitudes to spiritual vagabond lives seperatly, the contents focus on the course from the yonger ego expansion to self-reflection by midlife frustration till later conventional self-reflection.This thesis discussed the following issues in chapter three and chapter four, viz. relying on surveying the different expressing ways on the image of flesh in wandering to expond the relationship between Whitman and MuDan, accordingly analyze their unlike aesthetic styles, for their inner connection are parts of the research of their poems.