Endless Experiments: Essays on the Heroic Experience in American Romanticism

abstract achieved affirmation Ahab Ahab's American Grain artist attempt awareness beans beautiful thing becomes begins Bulkington Cetology conception consciousness continue create creation creative death describes despair divine dream dualism dualities Emerson encounter endless equivalent response essay essential eternal example exists experience external reality fact failure final flux grass Herman Melville hero heroic human idea ideal imagination Ishmael journey land language Leaves of Grass living Melville ment metaphor mind Moby Dick Narrative nature never object Paterson perceived Perry Miller Poe's poem poet poet's poetic poetry pond position possible pure Pym's Queequeg quest realizes rejected represents retreat reveal Romantic Romanticism seems sense society solipsistic Song soul spiritual Starbuck stasis Stevens suggests symbol Thoreau thought tion tragic transcendent Transcendentalists truth ultimate unity vision Walden Wallace Stevens Walt Whitman whale Whitman William Carlos Williams Williams's words world soul writes