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" I shun father and mother and wife and brother, when my genius calls me. I would write on the lintels of the door-post, Whim. I hope it is somewhat better than whim at last, but we cannot spend the day in explanation. "
Select Writings of Ralph Waldo Emerson - Page 116
by Ralph Waldo Emerson - 1888 - 351 pages
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Considering the Radiance: Essays on the Poetry of A.R. Ammons

David Burak, Roger Gilbert - 2005 - 380 pages
...seem trivial, even annoying. Emerson goes still further in his great essay "Self-Reliance," declaring, "I shun father and mother and wife and brother when my genius calls me." At its most extreme, the logic of the Emersonian self demands a solitude so absolute it leaves no room...
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Philip Roth's Rude Truth: The Art of Immaturity

Ross Posnock, Associate Professor of English Ross Posnock - 2006 - 334 pages
...tea? I say, let the world go to hell as long as I can always have my tea" (86). When Emerson writes, "I would write on the lintels of the door-post, Whim....last, but we cannot spend the day in explanation," his bluntness enacts what he praises — the impatient, fierce, unrepentant judgments of nonchalant...
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Liberty: God's Gift to Humanity

Chana B. Cox - 2006 - 302 pages
...the church, and to assume the position of priest at the family altar?" In contrast, Emerson writes, "I shun father and mother and wife and brother, when...would write on the lintels of the door-post, Whim" and "Do not tell me, as a good man did to-day, of my obligation to put all poor men in good situations....
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Stanley Cavell's American Dream: Shakespeare, Philosophy, and Hollywood Movies

Lawrence F. Rhu - 2006 - 284 pages
...merely a whim does not deter him from following it out and seeing where it will take him. He hopes "it is somewhat better than whim at last, but we cannot spend the day in explanation." Taking his cue from Emerson's active shunning of family ties, Cavell links this turning away with another...
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Beautiful Enemies: Friendship and Postwar American Poetry

Andrew Epstein - 2006 - 376 pages
...authentically in loosing the grip of our personal attachments" (36). As Emerson explains in "Self-Reliance," "I shun father and mother and wife and brother, when my genius calls me" (EL, 262). But -what a terrible, -wrenching burden such a vision entails. As George Kateb observes:...
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Wittgenstein's private language

Stephen Mulhall - 2006
...Cavell has much to say about Emerson's allusion to a mezuzah, when in 'Self-Reliance' he declares: 'I shun father and mother and wife and brother when...last, but we cannot spend the day in explanation.' And what is it, for Emerson, for one's genius to call? 'To believe your own thought, to believe that...
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Strong Liberalism: Habits of Mind for Democratic Citizenship

Jason A. Scorza - 2008 - 290 pages
...nonconformity is based more on inspiration, spontaneity, and even whim than on calculation. So, Emerson writes, "I would write on the lintels of the door-post, Whim....than whim at last, but we cannot spend the day in explanation."21 Nonconformity often is manifested in fairly mundane ways, such as when an individual...
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Emerson and Eros: The Making of a Cultural Hero

Len Gougeon - 2012 - 280 pages
...another rebellious hero, Jesus Christ, "The doctrine of hatred must be preached as the counteraction of the doctrine of love when that pules and whines....mother and wife and brother, when my genius calls me." 77 This personal rebellion is only one of many factors that would impact Emerson's emergence as poet,...
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Beyond the Philosopher's Fear: A Cavellian Reading of Gender, Origin and ...

Ludger H. Viefhues-Bailey - 2007 - 210 pages
...Cavell's vision of language come together in his reading of Emerson's notion of genius and declaration, 'I shun father and mother and wife and brother when...would write on the lintels of the door-post, Whim" (IQO, p. 1 14). Cavell writes 'the point I emphasize here is only that the life-giving power of words,...
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Power Prevails: A Self-Transformation Manifesto

Brad Castro - 2007 - 102 pages
...crowd, the call to duty and accountability. Again, as Ralph Waldo Emerson tells us in SelfReliance, "I shun father and mother and wife and brother when my genius calls me." And your genius w/7/ call you. It's been calling you your whole life, in fact. Haven't you heard it?...
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