Building their own Waldos : Emerson's first biographers and the politics of life-writing in the Gilded Age / by Robert D. Habich.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Habich, Robert D., 1951-

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Authors, American--Biography--History and criticism.

Authors, American.

American prose literature--History and criticism.

American prose literature.

Biography as a literary form.

Emerson, Ralph Waldo, 1803-1882.

Emerson, Ralph Waldo.

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

Physical Description:

1 online resource (217 p.)

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

Iowa City : University of Iowa Press, 2011.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

By the end of the nineteenth century, Ralph Waldo Emerson was well on his way to becoming the "Wisest American" and the "Sage of Concord," a literary celebrity and a national icon. With that fame came what Robert Habich describes as a blandly sanctified version of Emerson held widely by the reading public. Building Their Own Waldos sets out to understand the dilemma faced by Emerson's early biographers: how to represent a figure whose subversive individualism had been eclipsed by his celebrity, making him less a representative of his age than a caricature of it.

Contents:

Introduction: building their own Waldos

A genre in transition: biography in the 1880s

An act of wholesome and pure-hearted admiration: Emerson's first biographer, George Willis Cooke

Biographers and the pornographer: Conway, Ireland, and "Emerson and his friends"

Diagnosing the gentle iconoclast: Dr. Holmes on Emerson

Authorizing Emerson's biography: Cabot and/or Edward Emerson

Shelf life: the legacy of Emerson's first biographies.

Notes:

Description based upon print version of record.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

9781587299636

1587299631

OCLC:

719387781