A Power to Translate the World
New Essays on Emerson and International Culture
9781611688290
9781611688306
Distributed for Dartmouth College Press
A Power to Translate the World
New Essays on Emerson and International Culture
This thought-provoking collection gathers a roster of seasoned Emerson scholars to address anew the way non-American writers and texts influenced Emerson, while also discussing the manner in which Emerson’s writings influenced a diverse array of non-American authors. This volume includes new, original, and engaging research on crucial topics that have for the most part been absent from recent critical literature. While the motivations for this project will be familiar to scholars of literary studies and the history of philosophy, its topics, themes, and texts are distinctly novel. A Power to Translate the World provides a touchstone for a new generation of scholars trying to orient themselves to Emerson’s ongoing relevance to global literature and philosophy.
368 pages | 6 1/4 x 9 1/4 | © 2016
Literature and Literary Criticism: General Criticism and Critical Theory
Table of Contents
Introduction: Thinking Through International Influence—David LaRocca and Ricardo Miguel-Alfonso • EMERSON BEYOND BORDERS IN HIS TIME • The Anti-Slave from Emerson to Obama—Donald E. Pease • Emerson, the Indian Brahmo Samaj, and the American Reception of Gandhi—David M. Robinson • Transcendentalist Triangulations: The American Goethe and His Female Disciples—Monika M. Elbert • Emerson, Great Britain, and the International Struggle for the Rights of the Workingman—Len Gougeon • An “Extempore Adventurer” in Italy: Emerson as International Tourist, 1832–1833—Robert D. Habich • EMERSON AND GLOBAL MODERNITY • “Eternal Allusion”: Maeterlinck’s Readings of Emerson’s Somatic Semiotics—David LaRocca • Emerson in Germany, 1850–1933: Appreciation and Appropriation—Herwig Friedl • Transcendental Modernism: Vicente Huidobro’s Emersonian Poetics—Ricardo Miguel-Alfonso • Rilke and Emerson: The Case against Influence as Such—Richard Deming • Emerson; or, The Critic—The Arnoldian Ideal—K. L. Evans • The “Whole” Conduct of Life: Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry James—Daniel Rosenberg Nutters • EMERSON AND THE FAR EAST • Emerson and Japan: Finding a Way of Cultural Criticism—Naoko Saito • Emerson and China—Neal Dolan and Laura Jane Wey • Confucius and Emerson on the Virtue of Self-Reliance—Mathew A. Foust • EMERSON AND THE NEAR EAST • Emerson and Some Jewish Questions—Kenneth S. Sacks • Emerson and Jewish Readers—David Mikics • Middle Eastern–American Literature: A Contemporary Turn in Emerson Studies—Roger Sedarat • Acknowledgments • Abbreviations • Contributors • Index