Emerson, Thoreau, and the Role of the Cultural CriticSUNY Press, 2001 M01 1 - 174 pages Emerson, Thoreau, and the Role of the Cultural Critic offers an important reinterpretation of the central works of two key figures in American letters. Drawing upon the work of several important contemporary thinkers--including Michael Walzer, Alisdair MacIntrye, Charles Taylor, and Stanley Cavell--Sam McGuire Worley argues that the mature thought of Emerson and Thoreau is deeply imbedded in community, and that their best social criticism is immanent rather than transcendent in character. Their encounters with specific historical figures such as Daniel Webster, Theodore Parker, and John Brown reveal a political philosophy that cannot easily be labeled liberal or conservative, and a meticulous reconsideration of their political writings and their encounter with abolitionism show both to be working with as complex and ironic a vision of self and community as can be found in antebellum American letters. |
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American Antislavery Writings appears argue argument authority autonomy becomes Cambridge chapter character Chicago Press Civil claims classic liberalism communitarian complex Concord Constitution contemporary cultural criticism Daniel Webster democracy democratic dialectic earlier Emerson and Thoreau Emersonian emphasis essay figure freedom Fugitive Slave Law genius Harper's Ferry Harvard University Press Henry David Thoreau Henry Thoreau hero higher laws human Ibid ideas identity ideology immanent criticism individual intellectual interpretation Joel Porte John Brown Journals language Lawrence Buell leader leadership lecture liberal live Merrimack Rivers metaphors moral Napoleon nature Neufeldt offers Parker passage philosophy Plato political Princeton principles problem Ralph Waldo Emerson reading reflections relation relationship representation representative rhetoric role romantic Rousseau seems Self-Reliance sense skepticism slavery social criticism society sort specific Stanley Cavell Stone Face suggests Swedenborg theory thinking thought tion tradition transcendent transcendental transcendentalist truth understanding utopian values Walden Walzer words York