Stephen Mulhall
- Published in print:
- 1999
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780198238508
- eISBN:
- 9780191679643
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198238508.001.0001
- Subject:
- Philosophy, History of Philosophy, Aesthetics
The author of the book presents a full-length philosophical study of the work of Stanley Cavell, best known for his highly influential contributions to the fields of film studies, Shakespearian ...
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The author of the book presents a full-length philosophical study of the work of Stanley Cavell, best known for his highly influential contributions to the fields of film studies, Shakespearian literary criticism, and the confluence of psychoanalysis and literary theory. It is not properly appreciated that Cavell's project originated in his interpretation of Austin's and Wittgenstein's philosophical interest in the criteria governing ordinary language, and is given unity by an abiding concern with the nature and the varying cultural manifestations of the sceptical impulse in modernity. This book elucidates the essentially philosophical roots and trajectory of Cavell's work, traces its links with Romanticism and its recent turn towards a species of moral pefectionism associated with Thoreau and Emerson, and concludes with an assessment of its relations to liberal-democratic political theory, Christian religious thought, and feminist literary studies.Less
The author of the book presents a full-length philosophical study of the work of Stanley Cavell, best known for his highly influential contributions to the fields of film studies, Shakespearian literary criticism, and the confluence of psychoanalysis and literary theory. It is not properly appreciated that Cavell's project originated in his interpretation of Austin's and Wittgenstein's philosophical interest in the criteria governing ordinary language, and is given unity by an abiding concern with the nature and the varying cultural manifestations of the sceptical impulse in modernity. This book elucidates the essentially philosophical roots and trajectory of Cavell's work, traces its links with Romanticism and its recent turn towards a species of moral pefectionism associated with Thoreau and Emerson, and concludes with an assessment of its relations to liberal-democratic political theory, Christian religious thought, and feminist literary studies.
Matthew Mutter
- Published in print:
- 2008
- Published Online:
- September 2008
- ISBN:
- 9780195342536
- eISBN:
- 9780199867042
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195342536.003.0004
- Subject:
- Religion, Religion and Society
This chapter discusses Ralph Waldo Emerson's prophetic announcement of both the decay of orthodox, institutional religion and the ascent of a solitary spirituality founded upon the intuition of the ...
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This chapter discusses Ralph Waldo Emerson's prophetic announcement of both the decay of orthodox, institutional religion and the ascent of a solitary spirituality founded upon the intuition of the “moral sentiment.” Matthew Mutter argues that this dual expectation is made possible by a radicalization of the Puritan project of integrating the sacred and the secular. This radicalization ultimately placed the burden of sacred order on the vision of the perceiving individual, which in turn diminished the significance of outward social and political arrangements. Attention is given to Emerson's misapprehension of the actual trends in nineteenth‐century American religious life, to the differences between Emerson's prophetic stance and those of Whitman, Thoreau, Melville and Lincoln, and to the effects of the Civil War on Emerson's thought and American public religion in general. The conclusion looks at Emerson's legacy in American religious history.Less
This chapter discusses Ralph Waldo Emerson's prophetic announcement of both the decay of orthodox, institutional religion and the ascent of a solitary spirituality founded upon the intuition of the “moral sentiment.” Matthew Mutter argues that this dual expectation is made possible by a radicalization of the Puritan project of integrating the sacred and the secular. This radicalization ultimately placed the burden of sacred order on the vision of the perceiving individual, which in turn diminished the significance of outward social and political arrangements. Attention is given to Emerson's misapprehension of the actual trends in nineteenth‐century American religious life, to the differences between Emerson's prophetic stance and those of Whitman, Thoreau, Melville and Lincoln, and to the effects of the Civil War on Emerson's thought and American public religion in general. The conclusion looks at Emerson's legacy in American religious history.
John Gatta
- Published in print:
- 2004
- Published Online:
- January 2005
- ISBN:
- 9780195165050
- eISBN:
- 9780199835140
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/0195165055.001.0001
- Subject:
- Religion, Religion and Literature
Since colonial times, the sense of encountering an unseen, transcendental Presence within the natural world has been a characteristic motif in American literature and culture. In this book, the ...
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Since colonial times, the sense of encountering an unseen, transcendental Presence within the natural world has been a characteristic motif in American literature and culture. In this book, the author suggests that the religious import of environmental literature has yet to be fully recognized or understood. Whatever their theology, American writers have perennially construed the nonhuman world to be a source, in Rachel Carson’s words, of “something that takes us out of ourselves.”Reflecting recent practice of “ecocriticism,” Making Nature Sacred explores how the quest for natural revelation has been pursued through successive phases of American literary and intellectual history. And it shows how the imaginative challenge of “reading” landscapes has been influenced by biblical hermeneutics. Though focused on adaptations of Judeo-Christian tradition that view nature as religiously iconic, it also samples Native American, African American, and Buddhist forms of ecospirituality. It begins with Colonial New England writers such Anne Bradstreet and Jonathan Edwards, re-examines pivotal figures such as Henry Thoreau and John Muir, and takes account of writings by Mary Austin, Rachel Carson, and many others along the way. The book concludes with an assessment of the “spiritual renaissance” underway in current environmental writing. Such writing is represented by prose writers such as Wendell Berry, Annie Dillard, John Cheever, Marilynne Robinson, Peter Matthiessen, and Barry Lopez; and by noteworthy poets including Patiann Rogers, Wendell Berry, Gary Snyder, Mary Oliver, and Denise Levertov. American writers testify overall that our ecological predicament must be understood not merely as a technical challenge, but as a genuine crisis of spirit and imagination.Less
Since colonial times, the sense of encountering an unseen, transcendental Presence within the natural world has been a characteristic motif in American literature and culture. In this book, the author suggests that the religious import of environmental literature has yet to be fully recognized or understood. Whatever their theology, American writers have perennially construed the nonhuman world to be a source, in Rachel Carson’s words, of “something that takes us out of ourselves.”
Reflecting recent practice of “ecocriticism,” Making Nature Sacred explores how the quest for natural revelation has been pursued through successive phases of American literary and intellectual history. And it shows how the imaginative challenge of “reading” landscapes has been influenced by biblical hermeneutics. Though focused on adaptations of Judeo-Christian tradition that view nature as religiously iconic, it also samples Native American, African American, and Buddhist forms of ecospirituality. It begins with Colonial New England writers such Anne Bradstreet and Jonathan Edwards, re-examines pivotal figures such as Henry Thoreau and John Muir, and takes account of writings by Mary Austin, Rachel Carson, and many others along the way. The book concludes with an assessment of the “spiritual renaissance” underway in current environmental writing. Such writing is represented by prose writers such as Wendell Berry, Annie Dillard, John Cheever, Marilynne Robinson, Peter Matthiessen, and Barry Lopez; and by noteworthy poets including Patiann Rogers, Wendell Berry, Gary Snyder, Mary Oliver, and Denise Levertov. American writers testify overall that our ecological predicament must be understood not merely as a technical challenge, but as a genuine crisis of spirit and imagination.
Jonathan McKenzie
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- May 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780813166308
- eISBN:
- 9780813166384
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- University Press of Kentucky
- DOI:
- 10.5810/kentucky/9780813166308.001.0001
- Subject:
- Political Science, Political Theory
This book provides a fresh interpretation of Henry Thoreau’s political theory through a comprehensive interpretation of public and private writings. While recent critics have opened new vistas in ...
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This book provides a fresh interpretation of Henry Thoreau’s political theory through a comprehensive interpretation of public and private writings. While recent critics have opened new vistas in Thoreau interpretation, little attention has been paid to Thoreau’s journals and correspondence. This book argues that these private sources enhance our understanding of Thoreau’s political theory by highlighting its place within his overall philosophical mission. In particular, this book attends to the resonances between Thoreau’s overall political-theoretical mission of privatism and the Socratic practice of philosophy as a way of life. Through analyses of Thoreau’s reflective simplification, his philosophy of time, his place in the reform movements of the nineteenth century, his understanding of wildness as freedom, and his virtue-making of political indifference, this book rethinks the basic structure of Thoreau’s overall project.Less
This book provides a fresh interpretation of Henry Thoreau’s political theory through a comprehensive interpretation of public and private writings. While recent critics have opened new vistas in Thoreau interpretation, little attention has been paid to Thoreau’s journals and correspondence. This book argues that these private sources enhance our understanding of Thoreau’s political theory by highlighting its place within his overall philosophical mission. In particular, this book attends to the resonances between Thoreau’s overall political-theoretical mission of privatism and the Socratic practice of philosophy as a way of life. Through analyses of Thoreau’s reflective simplification, his philosophy of time, his place in the reform movements of the nineteenth century, his understanding of wildness as freedom, and his virtue-making of political indifference, this book rethinks the basic structure of Thoreau’s overall project.
John Gatta
- Published in print:
- 2004
- Published Online:
- January 2005
- ISBN:
- 9780195165050
- eISBN:
- 9780199835140
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/0195165055.003.0007
- Subject:
- Religion, Religion and Literature
Walden Pond, the obvious focal point of Thoreau’s worship and spiritual discovery, qualifies thereby as a sacred place in the author’s celebrated account of “where he lived.” Thoreau’s ...
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Walden Pond, the obvious focal point of Thoreau’s worship and spiritual discovery, qualifies thereby as a sacred place in the author’s celebrated account of “where he lived.” Thoreau’s place-centered spirituality is both active and contemplative, with the contemplative dimension vividly conveyed through his description of morning meditation in the chapter “Sounds.” Thoreau, despite his elusive and inconsistent theology, sometimes confirms belief in a personal Deity and typically envisions nature as a divine Creation. In the famous sandbank cosmogony that appears at the climax of the chapter “Spring,” Thoreau combines a numinous vision of continuous creation with an evolutionary dynamic informed by recent scientific discoveries in biology, geography, and geology. Thoreau imagined nature’s wildness, which enables us to “witness our own limits transgressed,” as wedded thereby to our sense of the sacred.Less
Walden Pond, the obvious focal point of Thoreau’s worship and spiritual discovery, qualifies thereby as a sacred place in the author’s celebrated account of “where he lived.” Thoreau’s place-centered spirituality is both active and contemplative, with the contemplative dimension vividly conveyed through his description of morning meditation in the chapter “Sounds.” Thoreau, despite his elusive and inconsistent theology, sometimes confirms belief in a personal Deity and typically envisions nature as a divine Creation. In the famous sandbank cosmogony that appears at the climax of the chapter “Spring,” Thoreau combines a numinous vision of continuous creation with an evolutionary dynamic informed by recent scientific discoveries in biology, geography, and geology. Thoreau imagined nature’s wildness, which enables us to “witness our own limits transgressed,” as wedded thereby to our sense of the sacred.
Mike W. Martin
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- May 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780199845217
- eISBN:
- 9780199933068
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199845217.003.0011
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Moral Philosophy, General
Simplicity is a recurring theme in discussions of happiness, from Socrates and the Stoics to Thoreau to contemporary self-help books, but it contains complexities of its own. If simplicity is merely ...
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Simplicity is a recurring theme in discussions of happiness, from Socrates and the Stoics to Thoreau to contemporary self-help books, but it contains complexities of its own. If simplicity is merely reducing complexity by cutting back on the number of our concerns, then it might be prudent or foolish. If instead it is the virtue of identifying and living by what is most important, removing undesirable distractions in order to stay focused on essentials, then it is akin to wisdom. Happiness is one important value, and hence enters into defining simplicity. The question then arises how happiness relates to familiar “simplicity themes” such as greater mindfulness, frugality, and conservation. Simplicity is best subsumed under the wider rubric of coping with complexity in good lives.Less
Simplicity is a recurring theme in discussions of happiness, from Socrates and the Stoics to Thoreau to contemporary self-help books, but it contains complexities of its own. If simplicity is merely reducing complexity by cutting back on the number of our concerns, then it might be prudent or foolish. If instead it is the virtue of identifying and living by what is most important, removing undesirable distractions in order to stay focused on essentials, then it is akin to wisdom. Happiness is one important value, and hence enters into defining simplicity. The question then arises how happiness relates to familiar “simplicity themes” such as greater mindfulness, frugality, and conservation. Simplicity is best subsumed under the wider rubric of coping with complexity in good lives.
Richard Higgins and Robert D. Richardson
- Published in print:
- 2017
- Published Online:
- September 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780520294042
- eISBN:
- 9780520967311
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- University of California Press
- DOI:
- 10.1525/california/9780520294042.001.0001
- Subject:
- Literature, American, 19th Century Literature
Thoreau and the Language of Trees is the first in-depth study of Thoreau’s passionate engagement with trees and his writing about them. It explores his keen eye for trees as a naturalist, his ...
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Thoreau and the Language of Trees is the first in-depth study of Thoreau’s passionate engagement with trees and his writing about them. It explores his keen eye for trees as a naturalist, his creative response to them as a poet, his philosophical understanding of them, the joy they gave him and the spiritual bond he felt with them. It includes excerpts from Thoreau’s extraordinary writing about trees from 1837 to 1861, illustrated with Higgins’s photography. The excerpts show his detailed observations on trees, his sense of loss at the ravaging of the forest during his life and the delight he took in the splendor of Concord’s woods and meadows. They also show his response to individual trees: an iconic Concord elm, a stand of old-growth oaks he discovered, his beloved white pines, trees made new by snow and trees as ships at sea. Higgins shows that Thoreau probed the complex lives of trees in the forest as a scientist and, as a poet and spiritual seeker, saw them as miracles that encapsulate all that is good about nature.Less
Thoreau and the Language of Trees is the first in-depth study of Thoreau’s passionate engagement with trees and his writing about them. It explores his keen eye for trees as a naturalist, his creative response to them as a poet, his philosophical understanding of them, the joy they gave him and the spiritual bond he felt with them. It includes excerpts from Thoreau’s extraordinary writing about trees from 1837 to 1861, illustrated with Higgins’s photography. The excerpts show his detailed observations on trees, his sense of loss at the ravaging of the forest during his life and the delight he took in the splendor of Concord’s woods and meadows. They also show his response to individual trees: an iconic Concord elm, a stand of old-growth oaks he discovered, his beloved white pines, trees made new by snow and trees as ships at sea. Higgins shows that Thoreau probed the complex lives of trees in the forest as a scientist and, as a poet and spiritual seeker, saw them as miracles that encapsulate all that is good about nature.
Dana Phillips
- Published in print:
- 2003
- Published Online:
- September 2007
- ISBN:
- 9780195137699
- eISBN:
- 9780199787937
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195137699.003.0006
- Subject:
- Literature, World Literature
This epilogue reviews some of the issues of most importance in this book, especially those that have been raised but not yet resolved by ecocriticism. In particular, it explores the idea not of ...
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This epilogue reviews some of the issues of most importance in this book, especially those that have been raised but not yet resolved by ecocriticism. In particular, it explores the idea not of wilderness, a central value for many American ecocritics, but of “wildness” of calculated incivility, deliberate irony, imagination, adventurousness, playfulness, and picaresque humor as celebrated by Thoreau in his essay Walking and as exemplified in A. R. Ammons’s book-length poem Garbage.Less
This epilogue reviews some of the issues of most importance in this book, especially those that have been raised but not yet resolved by ecocriticism. In particular, it explores the idea not of wilderness, a central value for many American ecocritics, but of “wildness” of calculated incivility, deliberate irony, imagination, adventurousness, playfulness, and picaresque humor as celebrated by Thoreau in his essay Walking and as exemplified in A. R. Ammons’s book-length poem Garbage.
Michael T. Gilmore
- Published in print:
- 2003
- Published Online:
- September 2007
- ISBN:
- 9780195157765
- eISBN:
- 9780199787784
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195157765.003.0005
- Subject:
- Literature, World Literature
This chapter considers some of the classics of 19th-century American literature: Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter, Melville’s Moby-Dick, Thoreau’s Walden, and James’s The American. These canonical ...
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This chapter considers some of the classics of 19th-century American literature: Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter, Melville’s Moby-Dick, Thoreau’s Walden, and James’s The American. These canonical works toy with the edict of knowability, but unlike popular genres, they ultimately reject complete revelation as an illusion. Their protagonists gravitate to inscrutability and hide in plain sight.Less
This chapter considers some of the classics of 19th-century American literature: Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter, Melville’s Moby-Dick, Thoreau’s Walden, and James’s The American. These canonical works toy with the edict of knowability, but unlike popular genres, they ultimately reject complete revelation as an illusion. Their protagonists gravitate to inscrutability and hide in plain sight.
Maurice S. Lee
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- May 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780199797578
- eISBN:
- 9780199932412
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199797578.003.0005
- Subject:
- Literature, American, 19th Century Literature
This chapter focuses on the radical empiricism of Walden, Thoreau’s journals, and his later scientific writings. As an artist, philosopher, surveyor, fisherman, and naturalist, Thoreau comes to ...
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This chapter focuses on the radical empiricism of Walden, Thoreau’s journals, and his later scientific writings. As an artist, philosopher, surveyor, fisherman, and naturalist, Thoreau comes to accept the uncertainty of chance and its imperatives for the conduct of life, even as—like John Ruskin, Charles Darwin, and William James—he engages in the probabilistic management of nature. Thoreau learns over the course of his career that natural science is not strictly a positivist enterprise but, rather, a probabilistic pursuit in which to measure under conditions of chance is not precisely to know. Thoreau’s disciplined commitments to the handling of chance distance him from the transcendentalism of Ralph Waldo Emerson and help him bridge the worrisome divide between his science and art.Less
This chapter focuses on the radical empiricism of Walden, Thoreau’s journals, and his later scientific writings. As an artist, philosopher, surveyor, fisherman, and naturalist, Thoreau comes to accept the uncertainty of chance and its imperatives for the conduct of life, even as—like John Ruskin, Charles Darwin, and William James—he engages in the probabilistic management of nature. Thoreau learns over the course of his career that natural science is not strictly a positivist enterprise but, rather, a probabilistic pursuit in which to measure under conditions of chance is not precisely to know. Thoreau’s disciplined commitments to the handling of chance distance him from the transcendentalism of Ralph Waldo Emerson and help him bridge the worrisome divide between his science and art.
Kyle Gann
- Published in print:
- 2017
- Published Online:
- January 2018
- ISBN:
- 9780252040856
- eISBN:
- 9780252099366
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- University of Illinois Press
- DOI:
- 10.5406/illinois/9780252040856.001.0001
- Subject:
- Music, History, American
In January 1921, New York insurance company executive Charles Ives mailed self-published scores of a piano sonata he had written to 200 strangers. Unprecedentedly complex and modern beyond any music ...
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In January 1921, New York insurance company executive Charles Ives mailed self-published scores of a piano sonata he had written to 200 strangers. Unprecedentedly complex and modern beyond any music the recipients had seen before, the piece was subtitled “Concord, Mass., 1840-1860,” and the four sonata movements were named for American authors: “Emerson,” “Hawthorne,” “The Alcotts,” “Thoreau.” Ridiculed in the press at first, the Concord Sonata gained admirers (including composers like Copland and Gershwin and writers like Henry Bellamann), and when finally given its complete world premiere by John Kirkpatrick in 1939, it was hailed as “the greatest music composed by an American.” The piece is so complex that it has never been fully analyzed before, and this book is the first to explore and detail its methods on every page. Likewise, Ives wrote a book to accompany the sonata, titled Essays Before a Sonata, purporting to explain his aesthetic thinking, and no one has ever before seriously examined Ives’s aesthetic through-argument.Less
In January 1921, New York insurance company executive Charles Ives mailed self-published scores of a piano sonata he had written to 200 strangers. Unprecedentedly complex and modern beyond any music the recipients had seen before, the piece was subtitled “Concord, Mass., 1840-1860,” and the four sonata movements were named for American authors: “Emerson,” “Hawthorne,” “The Alcotts,” “Thoreau.” Ridiculed in the press at first, the Concord Sonata gained admirers (including composers like Copland and Gershwin and writers like Henry Bellamann), and when finally given its complete world premiere by John Kirkpatrick in 1939, it was hailed as “the greatest music composed by an American.” The piece is so complex that it has never been fully analyzed before, and this book is the first to explore and detail its methods on every page. Likewise, Ives wrote a book to accompany the sonata, titled Essays Before a Sonata, purporting to explain his aesthetic thinking, and no one has ever before seriously examined Ives’s aesthetic through-argument.
Joel Porte
- Published in print:
- 2004
- Published Online:
- October 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780300104462
- eISBN:
- 9780300130577
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Yale University Press
- DOI:
- 10.12987/yale/9780300104462.001.0001
- Subject:
- Literature, American, 19th Century Literature
Ralp Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau are the most celebrated odd couple of nineteenth-century American literature. Appearing to play the roles of benign mentor and eager disciple, they can also ...
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Ralp Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau are the most celebrated odd couple of nineteenth-century American literature. Appearing to play the roles of benign mentor and eager disciple, they can also be seen as bitter rivals: America's foremost literary statesman, protective of his reputation, and an ambitious and sometimes refractory protege. The truth, this book maintains, is that Emerson and Thoreau were complementary literary geniuses, mutually inspiring and inspired. This book focuses on Emerson and Thoreau as writers. It traces their individual achievements and their points of intersection, arguing that both men, starting from a shared belief in the importance of “self-culture”, produced a body of writing that helped move a decidedly provincial New England readership into the broader arena of international culture.Less
Ralp Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau are the most celebrated odd couple of nineteenth-century American literature. Appearing to play the roles of benign mentor and eager disciple, they can also be seen as bitter rivals: America's foremost literary statesman, protective of his reputation, and an ambitious and sometimes refractory protege. The truth, this book maintains, is that Emerson and Thoreau were complementary literary geniuses, mutually inspiring and inspired. This book focuses on Emerson and Thoreau as writers. It traces their individual achievements and their points of intersection, arguing that both men, starting from a shared belief in the importance of “self-culture”, produced a body of writing that helped move a decidedly provincial New England readership into the broader arena of international culture.
Robert Belknap
- Published in print:
- 2004
- Published Online:
- October 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780300103830
- eISBN:
- 9780300127195
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Yale University Press
- DOI:
- 10.12987/yale/9780300103830.001.0001
- Subject:
- Literature, American, 19th Century Literature
“I am no more lonely than the Mill Brook, or a weathercock, or the north star, or the south wind, or an April shower, or a January thaw, or the first spider in a new house,” wrote Henry David Thoreau ...
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“I am no more lonely than the Mill Brook, or a weathercock, or the north star, or the south wind, or an April shower, or a January thaw, or the first spider in a new house,” wrote Henry David Thoreau in Walden. In creating this list, and many others that appear in his writings, Thoreau was working within a little-recognized yet ancient literary tradition: the practice of listing or cataloguing. This book is the first to examine literary lists and the remarkably wide range of ways writers use them. The book first examines lists through the centuries—from Sumerian account tablets and Homer's catalogue of ships to Tom Sawyer's earnings from his fence-painting scheme—then focuses on lists in the works of four American Renaissance authors: Emerson, Whitman, Melville, and Thoreau. Lists serve a variety of functions in Emerson's essays, Whitman's poems, Melville's novels, and Thoreau's memoirs, and the book discusses their surprising variety of pattern, intention, scope, art, and even philosophy. In addition to guiding the reader through the list's many uses, this book explores the pleasures that lists offer.Less
“I am no more lonely than the Mill Brook, or a weathercock, or the north star, or the south wind, or an April shower, or a January thaw, or the first spider in a new house,” wrote Henry David Thoreau in Walden. In creating this list, and many others that appear in his writings, Thoreau was working within a little-recognized yet ancient literary tradition: the practice of listing or cataloguing. This book is the first to examine literary lists and the remarkably wide range of ways writers use them. The book first examines lists through the centuries—from Sumerian account tablets and Homer's catalogue of ships to Tom Sawyer's earnings from his fence-painting scheme—then focuses on lists in the works of four American Renaissance authors: Emerson, Whitman, Melville, and Thoreau. Lists serve a variety of functions in Emerson's essays, Whitman's poems, Melville's novels, and Thoreau's memoirs, and the book discusses their surprising variety of pattern, intention, scope, art, and even philosophy. In addition to guiding the reader through the list's many uses, this book explores the pleasures that lists offer.
Thomas Gardner
- Published in print:
- 2006
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780195174939
- eISBN:
- 9780199850945
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195174939.003.0003
- Subject:
- Literature, Poetry
This chapter presents an interview with Marilynne Robinson where she discusses the main theme that runs throughout her book Housekeeping. What Robinson does in this interview is dramatically expand ...
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This chapter presents an interview with Marilynne Robinson where she discusses the main theme that runs throughout her book Housekeeping. What Robinson does in this interview is dramatically expand the context within which one might approach her novel. Robinson also talks about Dickinson's use of metaphor and describes the differences in metaphorical thinking of Dickinson, Thoreau, and Melville.Less
This chapter presents an interview with Marilynne Robinson where she discusses the main theme that runs throughout her book Housekeeping. What Robinson does in this interview is dramatically expand the context within which one might approach her novel. Robinson also talks about Dickinson's use of metaphor and describes the differences in metaphorical thinking of Dickinson, Thoreau, and Melville.
Stephen Mulhall
- Published in print:
- 1999
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780198238508
- eISBN:
- 9780191679643
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198238508.003.0013
- Subject:
- Philosophy, History of Philosophy, Aesthetics
Cavell's most recent and detailed treatment of the issue of how the individual understands her relationship with others appears in the form of his readings of the work of Thoreau and Emerson, and his ...
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Cavell's most recent and detailed treatment of the issue of how the individual understands her relationship with others appears in the form of his readings of the work of Thoreau and Emerson, and his understanding of this tradition of American Romanticism — a tradition he wishes to reclaim for and as a philosophy in America — makes its spiritual thrust immediately political in its consequences. This chapter focuses on Thoreau, whom Cavell sees as prophetically diagnosing a state of sceptical despair in his fellow Americans; he claims that the majority lead lives of quiet desperation, ones which mock their own potential and constitute a parody of the promise of renewal upon which their nation was founded.Less
Cavell's most recent and detailed treatment of the issue of how the individual understands her relationship with others appears in the form of his readings of the work of Thoreau and Emerson, and his understanding of this tradition of American Romanticism — a tradition he wishes to reclaim for and as a philosophy in America — makes its spiritual thrust immediately political in its consequences. This chapter focuses on Thoreau, whom Cavell sees as prophetically diagnosing a state of sceptical despair in his fellow Americans; he claims that the majority lead lives of quiet desperation, ones which mock their own potential and constitute a parody of the promise of renewal upon which their nation was founded.
Stephen Mulhall
- Published in print:
- 1999
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780198238508
- eISBN:
- 9780191679643
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198238508.003.0014
- Subject:
- Philosophy, History of Philosophy, Aesthetics
This chapter examines Cavell's views on Emerson, seeing him as the founder of the mode of thinking which Thoreau exemplifies. Cavell identifies Emerson as proposing a practice of philosophical ...
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This chapter examines Cavell's views on Emerson, seeing him as the founder of the mode of thinking which Thoreau exemplifies. Cavell identifies Emerson as proposing a practice of philosophical reading as a means of overcoming sceptical despair — an essentially Romantic practice in which recounting criteria forms the central part of a more general attempt to allow oneself to be read by words and the world, and thereby restore their life in all its relative autonomy.Less
This chapter examines Cavell's views on Emerson, seeing him as the founder of the mode of thinking which Thoreau exemplifies. Cavell identifies Emerson as proposing a practice of philosophical reading as a means of overcoming sceptical despair — an essentially Romantic practice in which recounting criteria forms the central part of a more general attempt to allow oneself to be read by words and the world, and thereby restore their life in all its relative autonomy.
Rick Anthony Furtak, Jonathan Ellsworth, and James D. Reid
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- January 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780823239306
- eISBN:
- 9780823239344
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Fordham University Press
- DOI:
- 10.5422/fordham/9780823239306.001.0001
- Subject:
- Philosophy, American Philosophy
Henry David Thoreau's best-known book, Walden, has not been widely recognized as an important philosophical text. Indeed, most academic philosophers would be reluctant to grant Thoreau a place within ...
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Henry David Thoreau's best-known book, Walden, has not been widely recognized as an important philosophical text. Indeed, most academic philosophers would be reluctant to grant Thoreau a place within the philosophical canon at all. The goal of this volume is to remedy this neglect, to explain Thoreau's philosophical significance, and to argue for the lasting value of his polemical conception of how philosophy ought to be lived, practiced, and written. Thoreau sought to establish philosophy as a way of life and to root our philosophical, conceptual affairs in more practical or existential concerns. His work provides us with a sustained meditation on the importance of leading our lives with integrity, avoiding what he calls “quiet desperation.” The contributors to this volume approach Thoreau's multifaceted writings from various angles. They explore his aesthetic views, his naturalism, his theory of self, his ethical principles, and his political stances. Most importantly, they show how Thoreau returns philosophy to its roots as the love of wisdom.Less
Henry David Thoreau's best-known book, Walden, has not been widely recognized as an important philosophical text. Indeed, most academic philosophers would be reluctant to grant Thoreau a place within the philosophical canon at all. The goal of this volume is to remedy this neglect, to explain Thoreau's philosophical significance, and to argue for the lasting value of his polemical conception of how philosophy ought to be lived, practiced, and written. Thoreau sought to establish philosophy as a way of life and to root our philosophical, conceptual affairs in more practical or existential concerns. His work provides us with a sustained meditation on the importance of leading our lives with integrity, avoiding what he calls “quiet desperation.” The contributors to this volume approach Thoreau's multifaceted writings from various angles. They explore his aesthetic views, his naturalism, his theory of self, his ethical principles, and his political stances. Most importantly, they show how Thoreau returns philosophy to its roots as the love of wisdom.
Naoko Saito and Paul Standish (eds)
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- January 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780823234738
- eISBN:
- 9780823240753
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Fordham University Press
- DOI:
- 10.5422/fordham/9780823234738.001.0001
- Subject:
- Philosophy, General
Education emerges as a theme in Cavell's writings in multiple ways, and his coining of the phrase that forms the title of this collection, “philosophy as the education of grownups,” reflects ...
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Education emerges as a theme in Cavell's writings in multiple ways, and his coining of the phrase that forms the title of this collection, “philosophy as the education of grownups,” reflects intersections in thinking that reach back to the origins of philosophical enquiry. It is not only that Cavell engages in a sustained exploration of the nature of philosophy; he is also preoccupied with what it is to teach and to learn, with the kinds of transformation these might imply, with the significance of these things for our lives, language, and politics. While mainstream philosophy tends to have given insufficient attention to the emphasis on education in his work, amongst educators his thought is largely still to be received. In philosophy as in education one increasingly hears Cavell's name, but the work is often cited rather than read. What it means to read Cavell, and simultaneously what it means to read it philosophically, are questions at the heart of our education as grownups. What it means to be a grownup is a matter at the heart of philosophy and of education. The chapters in this collection, refined together through a colloquium dedicated to the project, respond uniquely to these themes. Following a substantial introduction by the editors, the chapters are framed by two new essays by Cavell, and intercalated with extracts from the discussion.Less
Education emerges as a theme in Cavell's writings in multiple ways, and his coining of the phrase that forms the title of this collection, “philosophy as the education of grownups,” reflects intersections in thinking that reach back to the origins of philosophical enquiry. It is not only that Cavell engages in a sustained exploration of the nature of philosophy; he is also preoccupied with what it is to teach and to learn, with the kinds of transformation these might imply, with the significance of these things for our lives, language, and politics. While mainstream philosophy tends to have given insufficient attention to the emphasis on education in his work, amongst educators his thought is largely still to be received. In philosophy as in education one increasingly hears Cavell's name, but the work is often cited rather than read. What it means to read Cavell, and simultaneously what it means to read it philosophically, are questions at the heart of our education as grownups. What it means to be a grownup is a matter at the heart of philosophy and of education. The chapters in this collection, refined together through a colloquium dedicated to the project, respond uniquely to these themes. Following a substantial introduction by the editors, the chapters are framed by two new essays by Cavell, and intercalated with extracts from the discussion.
Stanley Cavell
- Published in print:
- 2001
- Published Online:
- November 2003
- ISBN:
- 9780195139167
- eISBN:
- 9780199833214
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/019513916X.003.0017
- Subject:
- Philosophy, History of Philosophy
In these reflections Cavell touches on three themes not previously developed in his writings. First, two ideas of silence beyond the voices in Wittgenstein’s Investigations: the idea that philosophy ...
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In these reflections Cavell touches on three themes not previously developed in his writings. First, two ideas of silence beyond the voices in Wittgenstein’s Investigations: the idea that philosophy maintains silence, because its virtue is responsiveness to the words of others rather than the provision of theses, and the idea of the silence in which philosophical problems end. Cavell links the second to the idea of the deaths of philosophical attempts to escape the ordinary that one finds in the Investigations, thereby reading Wittgenstein as discovering philosophy as learning how to die. Second, Cavell situates his inheritance of Wittgenstein, Emerson, and Thoreau in an insistence in not forcing an overcoming of the split within philosophy itself, a split he epitomizes in two myths of philosophical reading: philosophy as requiring reading everything (Heidegger) and as requiring reading nothing (Wittgenstein). Finally, Cavell ruminates on the charges of indecorous self-indulgence brought against his writings. He locates this as a reaction to his willingness to recognize, even to cultivate, the unconscious in his philosophical writing, and to acknowledge psychoanalysis as posing an intellectual competitor to the aspirations of philosophy.Less
In these reflections Cavell touches on three themes not previously developed in his writings. First, two ideas of silence beyond the voices in Wittgenstein’s Investigations: the idea that philosophy maintains silence, because its virtue is responsiveness to the words of others rather than the provision of theses, and the idea of the silence in which philosophical problems end. Cavell links the second to the idea of the deaths of philosophical attempts to escape the ordinary that one finds in the Investigations, thereby reading Wittgenstein as discovering philosophy as learning how to die. Second, Cavell situates his inheritance of Wittgenstein, Emerson, and Thoreau in an insistence in not forcing an overcoming of the split within philosophy itself, a split he epitomizes in two myths of philosophical reading: philosophy as requiring reading everything (Heidegger) and as requiring reading nothing (Wittgenstein). Finally, Cavell ruminates on the charges of indecorous self-indulgence brought against his writings. He locates this as a reaction to his willingness to recognize, even to cultivate, the unconscious in his philosophical writing, and to acknowledge psychoanalysis as posing an intellectual competitor to the aspirations of philosophy.
Jonathan McKenzie
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- May 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780813166308
- eISBN:
- 9780813166384
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University Press of Kentucky
- DOI:
- 10.5810/kentucky/9780813166308.003.0001
- Subject:
- Political Science, Political Theory
This chapter summarizes recent attempts to reconfigure Thoreau’s political theory, including the democratic individualist literature and the radically democratic literature. In addition, the chapter ...
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This chapter summarizes recent attempts to reconfigure Thoreau’s political theory, including the democratic individualist literature and the radically democratic literature. In addition, the chapter investigates critical assessments of Thoreau’s Journal. This chapter also introduces a Socratic reading of Thoreau’s Journal and correspondence. Finally, the chapter articulates an outline for a reading of Thoreau as a privatist, one who concerns himself with the vitalization of private life at the expense of public participation.Less
This chapter summarizes recent attempts to reconfigure Thoreau’s political theory, including the democratic individualist literature and the radically democratic literature. In addition, the chapter investigates critical assessments of Thoreau’s Journal. This chapter also introduces a Socratic reading of Thoreau’s Journal and correspondence. Finally, the chapter articulates an outline for a reading of Thoreau as a privatist, one who concerns himself with the vitalization of private life at the expense of public participation.
