LibGuides: ENG5A: American Literature 1620-1865 (Hooper): Ralph Waldo Emerson

Historical/Social Perspective

Ronan, John. "Self-reliance in Emerson's Sermons and Essays: First Series." Nineteenth-Century Prose 40.2 (2013): 181+. Literature Resource Center. Web. 2 Nov. 2015.

This essay argues that Emerson developed most of the basic elements of his principal Transcendentalist doctrine of self-reliance during his tenure as Unitarian minister of Boston's Second Church between 1829 and 1832 (Abstract from publisher).

Meola, Frank M. “Emerson Between Faith and Doubt.” New England Review (10531297), vol. 32, no. 3, Summer 2011, pp. 111–123. EBSCOhost.

Williamson, Amy, and J.Wesley Null. “Ralph Waldo Emerson’s Educational Philosophy as a Foundation for Cooperative Learning.” American Educational History Journal, vol. 35, no. 1/2, Spring/Summer2008 2008, pp. 381–392. EBSCOhost.

Stack, George J. "The Emerson enigma." Nineteenth-Century Prose, vol. 30, no. 1-2, 2003, p. 433+. Gale Literature Resource Center.

Michael, John. "Democracy, aesthetics, individualism: Emerson as public intellectual." Nineteenth-Century Prose, vol. 30, no. 1-2, 2003, p. 195+. Gale Literature Resource Center.

Biographical Perspective

Leer, David Van. "Emerson, Ralph Waldo (1803-1882)." Benet's Reader's Encyclopedia of American Literature. George B. Perkins, Barbara Perkins, and Phillip Leininger. Vol. 1. New York: HarperCollins, 1991. 304. Literature Resource Center. Web. 2 Nov. 2015.

Six page overview of Emerson's life

eBooks from the Gavilan Collection

Emerson by Lawrence Buell
Call Number: eBook
ISBN: 9780674016279
Publication Date: 2004-09-30
"An institution is the lengthened shadow of one man," Ralph Waldo Emerson once wrote--and in this book, the leading scholar of New England literary culture looks at the long shadow Emerson himself has cast, and at his role and significance as a truly American institution. On the occasion of Emerson's 200th birthday, Lawrence Buell revisits the life of the nation's first public intellectual and discovers how he became a "representative man." (abstract by publisher)
Emerson's Liberalism by Neal Dolan
Call Number: eBook
ISBN: 9780299228040
Publication Date: 2009-05-01
Neal Dolan offers the first comprehensive and historically informed exposition of all of Ralph Waldo Emerson's writings as a contribution to the theory and practice of liberal culture. Rather than projecting twentieth-century viewpoints onto the past, he restores Emerson's great body of work to the classical liberal contexts that most decisively shaped its general political-cultural outlook—the libertarian-liberalism of John Locke, the Scottish Enlightenment, the American founders, and the American Whigs (abstract from publisher).
A Historical Guide to Ralph Waldo Emerson by Joel Myerson (Editor)
Call Number: eBook
ISBN: 9780195120936
Publication Date: 2000-01-13
In the "Emerson in His Time" section, chapters include
--"The Age of the First Person Singular": Emerson and Individualism
--Emerson, Nature, and Natural Science
--Emerson and Religion
--Emerson and Antislavery
--Emerson in the Context of the Woman's Rights Movement
Emerson in Context by Wesley T. Mott (Editor)
Call Number: eBook
ISBN: 9781107028012
Publication Date: 2013-12-09
This collection of essays maps the vital contextual backgrounds to Ralph Waldo Emerson's life and work. The volume begins with a detailed chronology of Emerson's life and publishing history, setting the stage for a wide-ranging discussion of his geographic and environmental contexts from early and later life, including his travels and intellectual encounters with the United States, Europe and Asia. It goes on to survey the intellectual terrain of the nineteenth century, exploring Emerson's relationship with key philosophical, aesthetic, theological, scientific, familial, social and political contexts and issues. Finally, it assesses the popular and critical receptions that have solidified Emerson's legacy as a towering figure in American literature, criticism and culture today.

Radio Feature

Literary Criticism

Birnbaum, Milton. "II. The Kaleidoscopic Emerson. (Bicentennial Essays: Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882))." Modern Age 45.1 (2003): 27+. Literature Resource Center. Web. 2 Nov. 2015.

Just when interest in Emerson seems to wane, he rises like the proverbial phoenix. In the 1990's, at least two books (not to mention the ceaseless flow of articles and doctoral dissertations) concerning Emerson were published: Robert D. Richardson, Jr.'s Emerson: the Mind on Fire (1995) and Carlos Baker's Emerson Among the Eccentrics: A Group Portrait (1852). Richardson's subtitle is uniquely appropriate. It indicates that sparks from Emerson's "mind on fire," like those from any fire fueled by the shifting winds of critics and different generations, continue to fly in all directions (abstract from publisher).

Griffith, Clark. "Emersonianism" and "Poeism" Some Versions of the Romantic Sensibility." Modern Language Quarterly 22.2 (1961): 125. Professional Development Collection. Web. 2 Nov. 2015.

Examines the influence of authors Ralph Waldo Emerson and Edgar Allan Poe on American romanticism. Definition of the concepts of 'Emersonianism' and 'Poeism'; Emersonianism in Herman Melville's novel 'Moby Dick'; Differences between Poeism and Emersonianism; Poeism in author Nathaniel Hawthorne's work (abstract from publisher).

Hansen, Andrew C. "Reading Sonic Culture in Emerson's "Self-Reliance." Rhetoric & Public Affairs 11.3 (2008): 417-437. Political Science Complete. Web. 2 Nov. 2015.

In "Self-Reliance," Emerson alludes to the voice almost 80 times, mentioning it in over half of the essay's paragraphs. Unpacking these references, one finds an implicit rhetorical theory of sound and voice drawn from assumptions of nineteenth-century Americans' conceptions of sound. Emerson's sonic allusions reveal a conceptualization of the essence and rhetorical nature of voice that helps explain Emerson's notion of self-reliance and oratorical exchanges. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Leise, Christopher. "The Eye-Ball and The Butterfly: Beauty and the Individual Soul in Emerson And Hawthorne."Philological Quarterly 4 (2013): 471. Literature Resource Center. Web. 2 Nov. 2015.

This essay examines "Emerson and Hawthorne’s competing definitions of beauty."

Richards, Jason. "Emerson and the Gothic." Nineteenth-Century Prose 40.1 (2013): 61+. Literature Resource Center. Web. 2 Nov. 2015.

Although typically recognized for his Transcendental idealism, Ralph Waldo Emerson was also deeply engaged with the Gothic, a literary mode that prior to the Civil War ran parallel to Transcendentalism but is rarely used in the same breath with Emerson, or any other Transcendentalist for that matter. Exploring his relationship with the Gothic, this essay shows how Emerson, who began writing under a long Calvinist shadow, reproduces the gloom-and-doom rhetoric of the Puritans while simultaneously drawing inspiration from European Gothics like Goethe, Coleridge, and Lord Byron (abstract from author).

Books in the Gavilan Library

The Cambridge Companion to Ralph Waldo Emerson by Joel Porte (Editor); Saundra Morris (Editor)
Call Number: PS1638 .C32 1999 (Main Stacks)
ISBN: 0521499461
Publication Date: 1999-04-28
The Cambridge Companion to Ralph Waldo Emerson is intended to provide a critical introduction to Emerson's work. The tradition of American literature and philosophy as we know it at the end of the twentieth century was largely shaped by Emerson's example and practice (abstract from publisher).
Emerson by Lawrence Buell
Call Number: PS1638 .B84 2003
ISBN: 0674011392
Publication Date: 2003-05-25
"An institution is the lengthened shadow of one man," Ralph Waldo Emerson once wrote--and in this book, the leading scholar of New England literary culture looks at the long shadow Emerson himself has cast, and at his role and significance as a truly American institution. On the occasion of Emerson's 200th birthday, Lawrence Buell revisits the life of the nation's first public intellectual and discovers how he became a "representative man." (abstract by publisher)