Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-fbnjt Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-09T21:44:00.526Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

“After a High Negative Way”: Emerson's “Self-Reliance” and the Rhetoric of Conversion

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  10 June 2011

Alan D. Hodder
Alan D. Hodder
Affiliation:
Harvard University
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

The year 1991 marked the sesquicentennial of the publication of the first volume of Emerson's Essays in which appeared, for the first time, “Self-Reliance,” arguably America's most famous essay. Despite the passage of time, this essay has never lost its power to inspire or to enrage. The controversies that continue to swirl around Emerson originate in a few points of contention, but none arouse as much furor as his seemingly innocuous formulation “self-reliance.” From the beginning, Emerson's reception among his readers has been sharply divided. A sampling of studies appearing in the current flood of Emerson criticism suggests that this polarization has never been more characteristic of Emerson's readership than it is currently. On the one hand are those critics of American culture like the late A. Bartlett Giamatti who found Emerson “as sweet as barbed wire” or the sociologist of religion Robert Bellah who located in Emerson the roots of America's most portentous national defects. On the other hand are such notable critics as Harold Bloom, Stanley Cavell, and Richard Poirier who find in Emerson, rightly read and construed, one of the few viable trails left in contemporary culture. The crux of all such articulate responses, whether of detractor or partisan, is the reflexive and seemingly disinterested conception popularized by Emerson as “self-reliance.”

Type
Research Article
Information
Harvard Theological Review , Volume 84 , Issue 4 , October 1991 , pp. 423 - 446
Copyright
Copyright © President and Fellows of Harvard College 1991

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1 See Richard Poirier, “Introduction,” in idem, ed., Ralph Waldo Emerson (Oxford/New York: Oxford University Press, 1990) ix-xx; Bellah, Robert N. et al., Habits of the Heart: Individualism and Commitment in American Life (Berkeley/Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1985)Google Scholar.

2 See esp. Bloom, Harold, The Ringers in the Tower: Studies in the Romantic Tradition (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1971)Google Scholar and idem, Figures of Capable Imagination (New York: Seabury, 1976); Cavell, Stanley, This New Yet Unapproachable America: Lectures after Emerson after Wittgenstein (Albuquerque: Living Batch, 1989)Google Scholar; Poirier, Richard, The Renewal of Literature: Emersonian Reflections (New Haven/London: Yale University Press, 1988)Google Scholar.

3 Emerson, Ralph Waldo, “Self-Reliance1,” in The Collected Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson(ed. Ferguson, Alfred R.; 4 vols.; Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1971-1987) 2. 40Google Scholar.

4 Ibid., 2. 37.

5 Ibid., 2. 41.

6 See Robinson, David M., Apostle ofCulture: Emerson as Preacher and Lecturer (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1982)Google Scholar; and idem, “The Sermons of Ralph Waldo Emerson: An Introductory Historical Essay,” in Albert J. von Frank, ed., The Complete Sermons of Ralph Waldo Emerson (3 vols.; Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 1989) 1. 1-32; Mott, Wesley T., The Strains of Eloquence: Emerson and His Sermons (University Park, PA/London: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1989).Google ScholarSee also Barish, Evelyn, Emerson: The Roots of Prophecy (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1989)Google Scholar; and my own Emerson's Rhetoric of Revelation: “Nature,” the Reader, and the Apocalypse Within (University Park, PA/London: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1989)Google Scholar.

7 One noteworthy treatment of this kind, however, is Joswick, Thomas, “The Conversion Drama of ‘Self-Reliance’: A Logological Study,” American Literature 55 (1983) 507–24CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

8 See esp. Wright, Conrad, The Beginnings of Unitarianism in America (Boston: Starr King, 1955)Google Scholar; Hutchison, William R., The Transcendentalist Ministers: Church Reform in New England Renaissance (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1959)Google Scholar; Howe, Daniel Walker, The Unitarian Conscience: Harvard Moral Philosophy, 1805-1861 (Middletown: Wesleyan University Press, 1970)Google Scholar; and Robinson, , Apostle of CultureGoogle Scholar.

9 See Buell, Lawrence, “The Literary Significance of the Unitarian Movement,” Emerson Society Quarterly: A Journal of the American Renaissance 33 (1987) 212–23;Google Scholaridem, New England Literary Culture: From Revolution Through Renaisssance (Cambridge/London: bridge University Press, 1986); idem, “The Transcendental Movement,” in Joel Myerson, ed., The Transcendentalists: A Review of Research and Criticism (New York: Modern Language Association of America, 1984) 14-16. See also “The Transcendentalists” in Elliott, Emory, ed., Columbia Literary History of the United States (New York: Columbia University Press, 1988) 364–78Google Scholar.

10 Emerson, Ralph Waldo, “The Method of Nature,” in The Collected Works, 1. 135Google Scholar.

11 Waggoner, Hyatt, “‘Grace’ in the Thought of Emerson, Thoreau, and Hawthorne,” Emerson Society Quarterly 54 (1969) 68–72;Google ScholarLowance, Mason Jr, “From Edwards to Emerson to Thoreau: A Revaluation,” American Transcendental Quarterly 17 (1973) 3–12Google Scholar; Williams, David R., “The Wilderness Rapture of Mary Moody Emerson: One Calvinist Link to Transcendentalism,” in Myerson, Joel, ed., Studies in the American Renaissance (Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 1986) 1–16Google Scholar; Cole, Phyllis, “From the Edwardses to the Emersons,” CEA Critic 49 (1987) 70–78;Google ScholarMilder, Robert, “Emerson's Two Conversions,” Emerson Society Quarterly 33 (1987) 20–34Google Scholar.

12 Perry Miller, Preface to “From Edwards to Emerson,” in idem, Errand into the Wilderness (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1956) 184. Miller's, essay was originally published in The New England Quarterly 11 (1940) 589–617CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

13 Cayton, Mary Kupiec, Emerson's Emergence: Self and Society in the Transformation of New England, 1800-1845 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1989) esp. 83–111.Google Scholar

14 See Gilman, William H. et al., eds., The Journals and Miscellaneous Notebooks of Ralph Waldo Emerson (16 vols.; Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1965) 5. 287Google Scholar; see also 9. 233-35.

15 Howe, , Unitarian Conscience, 165Google Scholar.

16 For an instructive explication of Thoreau's reliance on the formal conventions of the New England sermon, see Kevin P. Van Aglen, “True Pulpit Power: ‘Natural History of Massachusetts’ and the Problem of Cultural Identity,” in Myerson, , Studies in the American Renaissance, 119–47Google Scholar.

17 For the best review of the theological wrangling precipitated by Emerson's address to the senior class at Harvard Divinity School in 1838, see Hutchison, , Transcendentalist Ministers, 52–82Google Scholar.

18 Rusk, Ralph L., The Life of Ralph Waldo Emerson (New York: Columbia University Press, 1949) 283–84Google Scholar.

19 See especially Whicher, Stephen E., An Inner Life of Ralph Waldo Emerson (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1953)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

20 The Complete Sermons of Ralph Waldo Emerson (3 vols.; eds. Toulouse, Teresa and Delbanco, Andrew; Columbia, MO/London: University of Missouri Press, 1990) 2. 266–67Google Scholar.

21 Emerson, Ralph Waldo, “Literary Ethics,” in The Collected Works, 1. 110Google Scholar.

22 Emerson, , Journals and Miscellaneous Notebooks, 1. 3–9Google Scholar.

23 Howe, , Unitarian Conscience, 151–73Google Scholar.

24 Channing, William Ellery, Selected Writings (ed. Robinson, David; New York: Paulist Press, 1985) 157Google Scholar.

25 See Emerson, , “Literary Ethics,” 1. 125, 130Google Scholar.

26 Emerson, Ralph Waldo, “Circles,” in The Collected Works, 1. 175Google Scholar.

27 Emerson, , Journals and Miscellaneous Notebooks, 3. 186Google Scholar. See also Milder, “Emerson's Two Conversions.”

28 Emerson, , Journals and Miscellaneous Notebooks, 5. 275, 38Google Scholar.

29 See Emerson, , Journals and Miscellaneous Notebooks, 8. 23:Google Scholar “The Metamorphosis of nature shows itself in nothing more than this that there is no word in our language that cannot become typical to us of nature by giving emphasis. … Swifter than light the World converts itself into that thing you name and all things find their right place under this new and capricious classification.” Quoted in Yoder, R. A., Emerson and the Orphic Poet in America (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1978) 22Google Scholar.

30 See Cohen, Charles Lloyd, God's Caress: The Psychology of Puritan Religious Experience (New York/Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1986) 75 n. 2Google Scholar.

31 See Hooker, Thomas, “The Soules Preparation for Christ” (London, 1638) 168Google Scholar.

32 Edwards, Jonathan, “A Faithful Narrative,” in Goen, C. C., ed., Works ofJonathan Edwards (9 vols.; New Haven/London: Yale University Press, 1972) 4. 166Google Scholar.

33 Stout, Harry, The New England Soul: Preaching and Religious Culture in Colonial New England (New York/Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1986) 32Google Scholar.

34 Emerson, Ralph Waldo, “Nature,” in The Collected Works, 1. 10Google Scholar.

35 See Heimert, Alan, “Puritanism, the Wilderness, and the Frontier,” New England Quarterly 26 (1953) 361–62.CrossRefGoogle ScholarSee also Bercovitch, Sacvan, The Puritan Origins of the American Self (New Haven/London: Yale University Press, 1975) 109, 115, and chap. 4Google Scholar; and Caldwell, Patricia, The Puritan Conversion Narrative: The Beginnings of American Expression (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983) 28, 136Google Scholar.

36 Emerson, , “Nature,” 1. 10Google Scholar.

37 Edwards, , “A Faithful Narrative,” 4. 183Google Scholar.

38 Emerson, Ralph Waldo, 23 October 1840, The Journals of Ralph Waldo Emerson (10 vols.; eds. Emerson, Edward Waldo and Forbes, Waldo Emerson; Boston/New York: Houghton Mifflin, 1911) 5. 480Google Scholar.

39 See Davis, Joe Lee, “Mystical vs. Enthusiastic Sensibility,” JH1 4 (1943) 301–19;Google ScholarMacLear, James Fulton, “‘The Heart of New England Rent’: The Mystical Element in Early Puritan History,” The Mississippi Valley Historical Review 47 (1956) 621–52;CrossRefGoogle ScholarBrauer, Jerald C., “Types of Puritan Piety,” CH 56 (1987) 39–58Google Scholar.

40 Edwards, Jonathan, The Great Awakening, in Works, 4. 168Google Scholar.

41 Edwards, Jonathan, “God Glorified in Man's Dependence,” in Simonson, Harold P., ed., Selected Writings of Jonathan Edwards (New York: Ungar, 1970) 59–60Google Scholar.

42 Ibid., 64.

43 Emerson, , “Self-Reliance,” 2. 40Google Scholar.

44 Ibid.

45 Ibid., 2. 37.

46 Ibid., 2. 38.

47 Ibid.

48 Ibid.

49 Ibid., 2. 39.

50 Ibid.

51 Emerson, , Journals and Miscellaneous Notebooks, 5. 71.Google ScholarSee also, Yoder, , Emerson and the Orphic Poet in America, 38–40;Google ScholarJoswick, , “The Conversion Drama of Self-Reliance,” 523–24Google Scholar.

52 In a paper entitled “Emerson's ‘Negative Theology’” (presented at the Annual Meeting of the Modern Language Association in 1991), T. Paul Kane provides an instructive reconstruction of the Kantian antecedents to this element in Emerson's thought.

53 Emerson, , Journals and Miscellaneous Notebooks, 3. 235–36;Google Scholarsee Plotinus, Enneads 3.8.10; quoted inGoogle ScholarCameron, Kenneth Walter, Emerson the Essayist (2 vols.; Raleigh, NC: Thistle, 1945) 1. 162–63Google Scholar.

54 Coleridge, Samuel Taylor, The Friend (3 vols.; London: Fenner, 1818) 3. paragraph 156; quoted inGoogle ScholarCameron, , Emerson the Essayist, 1. 120Google Scholar.

55 Most recently, see Michael, John, Emerson and Skepticism: The Cipher of the World (Baltimore/London: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1988)Google Scholar.

56 Emerson, , “Religion,” in The Early Lectures of Ralph Waldo Emerson (3 vols.; eds. Spiller, Robert E. and Williams, Wallace E.; Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1972) 3. 285Google Scholar.

57 Emerson, , “Self-Reliance,” 2. 38Google Scholar.

58 Emerson, , “Religion,” 3. 272–85Google Scholar.