American metempsychosis : Emerson, Whitman, and the new poetry / John Michael Corrigan.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Corrigan, John Michael.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Emerson, Ralph Waldo, 1803-1882--Criticism and interpretation.

Emerson, Ralph Waldo.

Whitman, Walt, 1819-1892--Criticism and interpretation.

Whitman, Walt.

American literature--19th century--History and criticism.

American literature.

National characteristics, American, in literature.

Self-consciousness (Awareness) in literature.

Transmigration in literature.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (256 p.)

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

New York : Fordham University Press, 2012.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

The “transmigration of souls is no fable. I would it were, but men and women are only half human.” With these words, Ralph Waldo Emerson confronts a dilemma that illuminates the formation of American individualism: to evolve and become fully human requires a heightened engagement with history. Americans, Emerson argues, must realize history’s chronology in themselves—because their own minds and bodies are its evolving record. Whereas scholarship has tended to minimize the mystical underpinnings of Emerson’s notion of the self, his depictions of “the metempsychosis of nature” reveal deep roots in mystical traditions from Hinduism and Buddhism to Platonism and Christian esotericism. In essay after essay, Emerson uses metempsychosis as an open-ended template to understand human development. In Leaves of Grass, Walt Whitman transforms Emerson’s conception of metempsychotic selfhood into an expressly poetic event. His vision of transmigration viscerally celebrates the poet’s ability to assume and live in other bodies; his American poet seeks to incorporate the entire nation into his own person so that he can speak for every man and woman.

Contents:

Front matter

Contents

Acknowledgments

Introduction

1. The Metempsychotic Mind

2. The Double Consciousness

3. Reading the Metempsychotic Text

4. Writing the Metempsychotic Text

5. The New Poetry

Conclusion

Notes

Bibliography

Index

Notes:

Description based upon print version of record.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Description based on publisher supplied metadata and other sources.

ISBN:

9786613888860

9780823242368

0823242366

9780823242375

0823242374

9781283576413

1283576414

9780823246625

0823246620

OCLC:

808367423