David Dowling
- Published in print:
- 2014
- Published Online:
- January 2015
- ISBN:
- 9780300197440
- eISBN:
- 9780300206760
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Yale University Press
- DOI:
- 10.12987/yale/9780300197440.003.0008
- Subject:
- Literature, American, 19th Century Literature
This chapter focuses on Ralph Waldo Emerson's mentorship of poet Charles King Newcomb. Before analyzing Newcomb's poetry and his immersion into transcendentalism, it considers Emerson's attraction to ...
More
This chapter focuses on Ralph Waldo Emerson's mentorship of poet Charles King Newcomb. Before analyzing Newcomb's poetry and his immersion into transcendentalism, it considers Emerson's attraction to Newcomb's Coleridgean aesthetics and mysticism, including his sense of hell and sin. It then examines Newcomb's “The Two Dolons” and concludes by describing the poet's stay at Brook Farm in West Roxbury, Massachusetts as an experiment in communal living.Less
This chapter focuses on Ralph Waldo Emerson's mentorship of poet Charles King Newcomb. Before analyzing Newcomb's poetry and his immersion into transcendentalism, it considers Emerson's attraction to Newcomb's Coleridgean aesthetics and mysticism, including his sense of hell and sin. It then examines Newcomb's “The Two Dolons” and concludes by describing the poet's stay at Brook Farm in West Roxbury, Massachusetts as an experiment in communal living.
David Dowling
- Published in print:
- 2014
- Published Online:
- January 2015
- ISBN:
- 9780300197440
- eISBN:
- 9780300206760
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Yale University Press
- DOI:
- 10.12987/yale/9780300197440.001.0001
- Subject:
- Literature, American, 19th Century Literature
In the late 1830s, Ralph Waldo Emerson, American essayist, poet, lecturer, and leader of the Transcendentalist movement, publicly called for a radical nationwide vocational reinvention, and an ...
More
In the late 1830s, Ralph Waldo Emerson, American essayist, poet, lecturer, and leader of the Transcendentalist movement, publicly called for a radical nationwide vocational reinvention, and an idealistic group of collegians eagerly responded. Assuming the role of mentor, editor, and promoter, Emerson freely offered them his time, financial support, and antimaterialistic counsel, and profoundly shaped the careers of his young acolytes—including Henry David Thoreau, renowned journalist and women's rights advocate Margaret Fuller, and lesser-known literary figures such as Samuel Ward and reckless romantic poets Jones Very, Ellery Channing, and Charles Newcomb. This book's history of the professional and personal relationships between Emerson and his protégés—a remarkable collaboration that alternately proved fruitful and destructive, tension-filled and liberating—is a fascinating true story of altruism, ego, influence, pettiness, genius, and the bold attempt to reshape the literary market of the mid-nineteenth century.Less
In the late 1830s, Ralph Waldo Emerson, American essayist, poet, lecturer, and leader of the Transcendentalist movement, publicly called for a radical nationwide vocational reinvention, and an idealistic group of collegians eagerly responded. Assuming the role of mentor, editor, and promoter, Emerson freely offered them his time, financial support, and antimaterialistic counsel, and profoundly shaped the careers of his young acolytes—including Henry David Thoreau, renowned journalist and women's rights advocate Margaret Fuller, and lesser-known literary figures such as Samuel Ward and reckless romantic poets Jones Very, Ellery Channing, and Charles Newcomb. This book's history of the professional and personal relationships between Emerson and his protégés—a remarkable collaboration that alternately proved fruitful and destructive, tension-filled and liberating—is a fascinating true story of altruism, ego, influence, pettiness, genius, and the bold attempt to reshape the literary market of the mid-nineteenth century.
