1.

Record Nr.

UNINA9910826358403321

Autore

Habich Robert D. <1951->

Titolo

Building their own Waldos : Emerson's first biographers and the politics of life-writing in the Gilded Age / / by Robert D. Habich

Pubbl/distr/stampa

Iowa City, : University of Iowa Press, 2011

ISBN

1-58729-963-1

Edizione

[1st ed.]

Descrizione fisica

1 online resource (217 p.)

Disciplina

814/.3

B

814.3

Soggetti

Authors, American - Biography - History and criticism

American prose literature - History and criticism

Biography as a literary form

Lingua di pubblicazione

Inglese

Formato

Materiale a stampa

Livello bibliografico

Monografia

Note generali

Description based upon print version of record.

Nota di bibliografia

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Nota di contenuto

Introduction: building their own Waldos -- A genre in transition: biography in the 1880s -- An act of wholesome and pure-hearted admiration: Emerson's first biographer, George Willis Cooke -- Biographers and the pornographer: Conway, Ireland, and "Emerson and his friends" -- Diagnosing the gentle iconoclast: Dr. Holmes on Emerson -- Authorizing Emerson's biography: Cabot and/or Edward Emerson -- Shelf life: the legacy of Emerson's first biographies.

Sommario/riassunto

By the end of the nineteenth century, Ralph Waldo Emerson was well on his way to becoming the "Wisest American" and the "Sage of Concord," a literary celebrity and a national icon. With that fame came what Robert Habich describes as a blandly sanctified version of Emerson held widely by the reading public. Building Their Own Waldos sets out to understand the dilemma faced by Emerson's early biographers: how to represent a figure whose subversive individualism had been eclipsed by his celebrity, making him less a representative of his age than a caricature of it.