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24 - The Voice of Poetry in Cultivating Cosmopolitan and Democratic Imagination

from Part Three - Key Topics and Concepts

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 April 2023

By
David T. Hansen  and
Yuval Dwek
Edited by
Julian Culp ,
Johannes Drerup  and
Douglas Yacek
Julian Culp
Affiliation:
The American University of Paris, France
Johannes Drerup
Affiliation:
Universität Dortmund
Douglas Yacek
Affiliation:
Universität Dortmund
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Summary

This chapter illuminates the irreplaceable value of poetry in cultivating a cosmopolitan and democratic imagination. The authors contend that poetry evokes unanticipated or overlooked ideas, emotions, and possibilities; it provokes people to look beyond their settled views. Poetry uniquely fuels their ability to engage new thoughts, values, and practices. This ever-renewing quality of mind can, in turn, help people reimagine the nature and value of education continuously as circumstances and the needs they call out evolve. The authors suggest that these imaginative capacities are significant given the cosmopolitan and democratic challenges, and prospects, generated by an intensifying process of political, economic, and cultural globalization. The chapter features a reading of Walt Whitman’s well-known epic poem, “Song of Myself” (first published in 1855), which the authors show both articulates and enacts the most profound promise in a cosmopolitan and democratic imagination.

Keywords

bearing witnesscosmopolitan imaginationdemocratic imaginationhuman naturelifelong educationpoetryWalt Whitmanwisdom
Type
Chapter
Information
The Cambridge Handbook of Democratic Education , pp. 395 - 415
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2023

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