Description
First published in 1986. This outstanding collection of major essays by some of America’s finest literary scholars and critics provides students of American literature with a unique perspective of America’s Romantic literature. Some of these essays make connections between authors or define Romanticism in terms of one of the works; others address major issues during the period; others offer a framework for specific works; and, finally, some give interpretations for the reader. All of the essays offer distinctive voices that will engage students in this rich and memorable period of American literature.
Table of Contents
Foreword; Part 1: Introduction; 1. A National Literature and Romantic Individualism (1826-1861); Part 2: Emerson, Essays; 2. I, Eye, Ay – Emerson’s Early Essay on "Nature": Thoughts on the Machinery of Transcendence 3. Emerson: The Unconquered Eye and the Enchanted Circle 4. The Problem of Emerson; Part 3: Thoreau, Walden; 5. The Successive Versions of Walden 6. Scatology and Eschatology: The Heroic Dimensions of Thoreau’s Wordplay 7. Portions; Part 4: Poe, Short Stories; 8. The House of Poe 9. Poe’s "Ligeia": I Have Been Faithful to You in My Fashion 10. The Psychology of "The Murders in the Rue Morgue"; Part 5: The Scarlett Letter; 11. Form and Content in The Scarlet Letter 12. The Scarlet Letter: Through the Old Manse and the Custom House 13. The Ruined Wall; Part 6: Melville, Moby-Dick; 14. The Universal Thump: Jehovah’s Winter World 15. The Nature and Forms of Despair 16. Infants, Boys, and Men, and Ifs Eternally – Moby-Dick; Part 7: Whitman, Leaves of Grass; 17. Singing for Soul and Body 18. Walt Whitman and the American Tradition 19. An Analysis of "Song of Myself" 20. When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom’d
