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Emerson, Thoreau, Fuller, and Transcendentalism

Emerson, Thoreau, Fuller, and Transcendentalism a. Editions and Collections The critical reassessment of Emerson’s later work will be greatly enhanced by the new Collected Works edition of The Conduct of Life (Harvard), with Douglas Emory Wilson’s text and informative textual introduction, Joseph Slater’s extensive and well-judged informational notes, and Barbara L. Packer’s fine historical introduction. Although the seed for The Conduct of Life was sown very early in Emerson’s career, as Packer explains, the work was largely formulated in the turbulent but highly creative period between the publication of ‘‘Experience’’ in 1844 and the outbreak of the Civil War. Noting the irony that the book ‘‘should have acquired in our day a reputation for aloofness and unconcern with events,’’ Packer e√ectively reconstructs the book’s direct connection to the electoral strife of the 1850s and the national agony over divergent values and policies that led to the Civil War. Packer links Emerson’s acute awareness of this strife to his continuing meditations on fate and free will, which the rapidly evolving science of these years had intensified. Emerson’s rage at Daniel Webster and the Fugitive Slave Law, his careful reconstruction of a ‘‘higher law’’ legal theory, his recognition of the growing impotency of the traditional http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png American Literary Scholarship Duke University Press

Emerson, Thoreau, Fuller, and Transcendentalism

Robinson, David M.
American Literary Scholarship , Volume 2003 (1) – Jan 1, 2005
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Publisher
Duke University Press
Copyright
Copyright 2005 by Duke University Press
ISSN
0065-9142
eISSN
1527-2125
DOI
10.1215/00659142-2003-1-3
Publisher site
See Article on Publisher Site

Abstract

a. Editions and Collections The critical reassessment of Emerson’s later work will be greatly enhanced by the new Collected Works edition of The Conduct of Life (Harvard), with Douglas Emory Wilson’s text and informative textual introduction, Joseph Slater’s extensive and well-judged informational notes, and Barbara L. Packer’s fine historical introduction. Although the seed for The Conduct of Life was sown very early in Emerson’s career, as Packer explains, the work was largely formulated in the turbulent but highly creative period between the publication of ‘‘Experience’’ in 1844 and the outbreak of the Civil War. Noting the irony that the book ‘‘should have acquired in our day a reputation for aloofness and unconcern with events,’’ Packer e√ectively reconstructs the book’s direct connection to the electoral strife of the 1850s and the national agony over divergent values and policies that led to the Civil War. Packer links Emerson’s acute awareness of this strife to his continuing meditations on fate and free will, which the rapidly evolving science of these years had intensified. Emerson’s rage at Daniel Webster and the Fugitive Slave Law, his careful reconstruction of a ‘‘higher law’’ legal theory, his recognition of the growing impotency of the traditional

Journal

American Literary Scholarship – Duke University Press

Published: Jan 1, 2005

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