...: Emerson’s Evo- lutionary Existentialism” (HudR 57: 71–95) portrays Emerson as an unacknowledged “co-father of existentialism with Kierkegaard,” whose rejection of historical Christianity marked the beginning of a process of secularization and naturalization that was furthered in Heidegger...

... works. Ben Click, the incoming editor of the Mark Twain Annual [MTA], organizes the journal s rst special issue, Mark Twain and Nature ( ), and notes in his introduction, Twain s writing about the natural world has been given little scholarly attention, no doubt owing to his towering presence...

... of Emerson as a self-created Romantic visionary who merely rejected the past William Rossi’s ‘‘Emerson, Na- ture, and Natural Science’’ (pp. 101–50) perceptively revisits the school of natural theology from which Emerson’s thinking about nature emerged, finding the roots of his interest in ‘‘natural law...

... for individual self-culture and American Literary Scholarship (2020) doi 10.1215/00659142-9580484 © 2022 by Duke University Press 4 Emerson, Thoreau, Fuller, and Transcendentalism freedom in nature, more as an organized effort to transform society. Buehrens emphasizes the radicalism of Boston Unitarians...

... in- ferred by critics but never stated explicitly in the text. Polk’s commentary asks why Faulkner left the matter to inference, and whether it was the fact’s clarity itself that is at issue in the novel. (For an extensive analysis of this question, see David Evans, ‘‘Taking the Place of Nature...

... questions of artistic value. This process of recovering neglected works has opened the canon, and critics are thus able to define, redefine, and question literary movements such as realism and naturalism. Despite this shift canonical authors are not ignored, but they are studied in new ways; often the focus...

... chief modern invention” as well as the key to his appeal both then and now. In the midst of his critique of the dualistic framework underlying Carolyn Porter’s claim that Emerson argues passive submission to the higher authority of Spirit in Nature, Voelz asks rhetorically, “What if we take...

... in the Burns episode, permanently altering the nature of the antislavery movement. b. Biographical Recovery Our understanding of the context of Tran- scendentalism has been greatly extended by Phyllis Cole s Mary Moody Emerson and the Origins of Transcendentalism: A Family History (Oxford) and Joan Goodwin s...

... that Cavell’s work makes possible for philosophy is keep- ing alive the question of an ongoing inquiry into the nature of philo- sophical investigation itself.” To illustrate, he broadens consideration of Emerson’s applicability across disciplines in “Not Following Emerson: Intelligibility and Identity...

... of an essential female nature thus undermining his principle of the unity of humankind. Such essays, when compared with Fuller’s Woman, show him ‘‘not overly concerned about, or sensitive to, the particulars of women’s embodied oppression Emerson’s racial politics are similarly tarnished by his re...

... this docility, awaking the active soul, first, to natural and aesthetic experience, and then, through the demands of friendship and the provocations of conversation, to wider forms of virtue, including responsible citizenship. Here Zakaras follows Stanley Cavell, whose conception of Emerso- nian...

... that “language is a form of action,” explaining that Goethe and Humboldt offered versions of this essentially Kantian con- ception. Emerson’s discussion of “the synthetic activity of the mind” in Nature reflects this idea and elaborates his theory that poetic language is “fluxional” or transitional...

... us of the systematic and comprehensive nature of Emerson’s philosophical positions, often obscured by Emerson’s cultivation of the image of an undisciplined poet who disdains consistency. Emerson’s Ethics is a major contribution to the growing recognition that the conduct of life...

... ‘to express ourselves’ ” we claim “our self-presence/ reliance,” a process which is, given the nature of language as a medium of communication, inescapably social. The ability to inhabit language in a distinctive way, to “come into ourselves by coming into our words,” is the act of self-discovery...

... in [the writ- ers’] own terms, within their own historical moments.” The chapter on Emerson traces the evolution (more precisely, the dismantling) of his peace principles from the early idealism of Nature (1836) through an enthusiasm for the Union cause during the Civil War. Holding with John Carlos...

..., journalism, fiction, public speaking, political activism—through which to engage with and change the world.” Both had “roots in the Enlightenment theories of human liberty and natural law,” and both thought some kind of revo- lutionary change was inevitable, ultimately leading to a nearly common...

...,” an impor- tant unifying concept between the two philosophers. Saito notes the importance of both “attained and unattained perfection” in Dewey’s thinking, explaining that in texts such as Democracy and Education (1916) and Human Nature and Conduct (1922) Dewey posits ends...

... Reconstruction a√ord Crane a good deal of material to investigate. The nature of race and its relation to American citizenship naturally play a central role here, as do the implica- tions of di√erence generally considered. If the various kinds of di√erence are underwritten by a power beyond the realm...

... in the 1930s and 1940s. Finally, there is abundant evidence of the continuing vitality of multicultural, gender, and gay and lesbian studies, and scholars continue to debate the nature and parameters of ‘‘ecocriticism i Robert Frost Two significant studies of Frost’s poetry concern his preoccupation...

... in a remarkably creative and far-sighted fusion of natural history and ethical theory. Jeffrey S. Cramer’s I to Myself: An Annotated Selection from the Journal of Henry D. Thoreau (Yale) provides a generous selection from Thoreau’s Journal, with extensive annotations. Cramer draws from the 1906 Houghton...