In this Book
- A Political Companion to Ralph Waldo Emerson
- Book
- 2011
- Published by: The University Press of Kentucky
- Series: Political Companions to Great American Authors
From before the Civil War until his death in 1882, Ralph Waldo Emerson was renowned—and renounced—as one of the United States' most prominent abolitionists and as a leading visionary of the nation's liberal democratic future. Following his death, however, both Emerson's political activism and his political thought faded from public memory, replaced by the myth of the genteel man of letters and the detached sage of individualism. In the 1990s, scholars rediscovered Emerson's antislavery writings and began reviving his legacy as a political activist. A Political Companion to Ralph Waldo Emerson is the first collection to evaluate Emerson's political thought in light of his recently rediscovered political activism.
What were Emerson's politics? A Political Companion to Ralph Waldo Emerson authoritatively answers this question with seminal essays by some of the most prominent thinkers ever to write about Emerson—Stanley Cavell, George Kateb, Judith N. Shklar, and Wilson Carey McWilliams—as well as many of today's leading Emerson scholars. With an introduction that effectively destroys the "pernicious myth about Emerson's apolitical individualism" by editors Alan M. Levine and Daniel S. Malachuk, this volume reassesses Emerson's famous theory of self-reliance in light of his antislavery politics, demonstrates the importance of transcendentalism to his politics, and explores the enduring significance of his thought for liberal democracy.
Including a substantial bibliography of work on Emerson's politics over the last century, A Political Companion to Ralph Waldo Emerson is an indispensable resource for students of Emerson, American literature, and American political thought, as well as for those who wrestle with the fundamental challenges of democracy and liberalism.
A vocal abolitionist before and during the Civil War, Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882) was scorned by the South and embraced by the North as one of the nation's most prominent antislavery activists. After his death, however, the image of Emerson as a political thinker and activist faded from public memory, and he was remembered as a remote literary figure known for his writing on transcendentalism. An authoritative guide to the political thought of a revered American philosopher, A Political Companion to Ralph Waldo Emerson includes seminal essays by Stanley Cavell, George Kateb, Judith Shklar, and Wilson Carey McWilliams, as well as new analyses of Emerson's recently rediscovered abolitionism in relation to his theory of self-reliance, the politics of his transcendentalism, and his theory of liberal democracy. Editors Alan M. Levine and Daniel S. Malachuk introduce the collection by reviewing the prior scholarship and explaining the political significance of Emerson's support of abolition. A Political Companion to Ralph Waldo Emerson engages scholars of diverse perspectives in a comprehensive survey of the philosopher's political writings, making it an indispensable resource for students of American literature and politics.
Table of Contents
- Series page
- p. ii
- TItle page
- p. iii
- Copyright page
- p. iv
- Series Foreword
- pp. vii-viii
- Acknowledgments
- pp. ix-x
- Abbreviations
- p. xi
- Selected Bibliography
- pp. 451-462
- Contributors
- pp. 463-466