The keys of power : the rhetoric and politics of transcendentalism / Nathan Crick.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Crick, Nathan, author.

Series:

Studies in rhetoric/communication

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Transcendentalism (New England).

Transcendentalists (New England).

Transcendentalism.

Physical Description:

xii, 277 pages ; 24 cm.

Place of Publication:

Columbia, South Carolina : University of South Carolina Press, [2017]

Summary:

Nathan Crick has crafted a new critical rhetorical history of American Transcendentalists that interprets a selection of their major works between the years 1821 and 1852 as political and ethical responses to the growing crises of their times. In The Keys of Power, Crick argues that one of the most enduring legacies of the Transcendentalist movement is the multifaceted understanding of transcendental eloquence as a distinct rhetorical genre concerned primarily and self-consciously with questions of power. Crick examines the Transcendentalist understanding of how power is constituted in both the self and in society, conceptualizing the relationships among technology, nature, language, and identity; critiquing the ethical responsibilities to oneself, the other, and the state; and defining and ultimately praising the unique role that art, action, persuasion, and ideas have in the transformation of the structure of political culture over historical time. This exercise in narrative rhetorical theory and criticism interprets some of the major writings and speeches by those associated with the Transcendentalist movement-Sampson Reed, Amos Bronson Alcott, Orestes Brown-son, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Margaret Fuller, Henry David Thoreau, and Frederick Douglass-by placing diem within a specific political and social history. This rhetoric of Transcendentalism provides insights into the "keys of power"-that is, the means of persuasion for our modern era-that remain vital tools for individuals seeking to reconcile power and virtue in their struggle to make manifest a rusher ideal in the world. Book jacket.

Contents:

1 "Eloquence is the language of love": Sampson Reed and the Calling of Genius 12

2 "Jesus was a teacher": The Dialogic Rhetoric of Amos Bronson Alcott 37

3 "To break the fetters of the bound": Orestes Brownson and the Ideology of Democratic Radicalism 66

4 "The transformation of genius into practical power": Ralph Waldo Emerson and the Power of Eloquence 104

5 "The cause of tyranny and wrong everywhere the same": The Revolutionary Nationalism of Margaret Fuller 147

6 "The perception and the performance of right": Henry David Thoreau and the Rhetoric of Action 188.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Other Format:

Online version: Crick, Nathan, author. Keys of power

ISBN:

9781611177787

1611177782

OCLC:

984898530