Gender Discourses of Antebellum America: A Comparative Reading of Margaret Fuller’s Woman in the Nineteenth Century and Walt Whitman’s Leaves of Grass

Abstract

This paper investigates gender discourse of antebellum America. Under the ideology of the “Cult of True Womanhood,” Fuller reimagines gender essentialism by proposing an androgynous model of Man and Woman that transcends binary oppositions. On the other hand, Whitman transforms Fuller’s proto-feminist framework into a poetic embodiment of body-soul unity and the fluidity of masculine and feminine energies. Specifically, this paper contrasts Fuller’ fluid approach and Whitman’s holistic vision with Charles Fourier’s utopian discourse, arguing that both writers transcend Fourier’s materialist conception of gender by forging a unique American model of gender identity. Furthermore, it explores how Whitman appropriates and expands Fuller’s fluid gender ideals to embrace a unified gender identity that harmonizes both masculine and feminine energies, thereby crafting a new myth of American manhood and womanhood rooted in the amatory harmony of soul, body, and spirit. Ultimately, through a comparative reading of Fuller’s and Whitman’s gender discourse, this paper demonstrates how both writers envision the androgynous ideal as not abstract but transformative cultural and political possibility in antebellum America, thereby contributing to a broader literary and philosophical redefinition of gender identity and roles.