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Literary Transcendentalism
Style and Vision in the American Renaissance
Lawrence Buell (Author)
9780801491528
Paperback / softback, published 31 March 1975
336 pages
22.9 x 15.2 x 2.4 cm, 0.454 kg
Buell's solid grasp of the religiousness of the transcendental literary discipline is a welcome insight. Buell finds that truth and beauty are two sides of the same transcendental coin, and this perception shapes a very fine book. Buell's wide-ranging, flexible, catholic approach is a match for the diversity and variety of his materials. Lawrence Buell's Literary Transcendentalism is one of the best studies of the literature of the American renaissance to appear in quite some time; it takes what might well be thought academy-worn subjects and says interesting and suggestive things about them. It is the best book I know on the subject of transcendental aesthetics.
Broader in scope than any previous literary study of the transcendentalists, this rewarding book analyzes the theories and forms characteristic of a vital group of American writers, as well as the principles and vision underlying transcendentalism. All the movement's major literary figures and forms are considered in detail. Lawrence Buell combines intellectual history and critical explication, giving equal attention to general trends and to particular works and individuals. His chapters on conversation, religious discourse, catalog rhetoric, and literary travelogue treat intensively topics that have been relatively neglected. His analyses of Ellery Channing's poetry and the use of persona in Emerson and Very are also innovative. In the final section, he offers the first systematic account of the autobiographical tradition in transcendentalist writing. This incisive and sympathetic overview of transcendentalist writing and thought will attract readers interested in American culture, and it will suggest new critical approaches to nonfiction.
Introduction Part I. Background and General Principles Part II. The Living Word Part III. Word and World: Nature as a Model for Literary Form Part IV. The First Person Index
1. The Emergence of the Transcendentalist Aesthetic from American Unitarianism
2. Transcendentalist Literary Method: Inspiration versus Craftsmanship
3. From Conversation to Essay
4. From Sermon to Scripture
5. Emerson and the Idea of Microcosmic Form
6. Catalogue Rhetoric
7. Thoreau and the Literary Excursion
8. Thoreau's A Week
9. Ellery Channing: The Major Phase of a Minor Poet
10. Transcendentalist Self-Examination and Autobiographical Tradition
11. Emerson and Thoreau: Soul versus Self
12. Transcendental Egoism in Very and Whitman