03827nam 2200757Ia 450 991046356440332120211006012212.097866138888600-8232-4236-60-8232-4237-41-283-57641-40-8232-4662-010.1515/9780823242375(CKB)3240000000065561(EBL)3239614(OCoLC)808367423(SSID)ssj0000581983(PQKBManifestationID)11330758(PQKBTitleCode)TC0000581983(PQKBWorkID)10540084(PQKB)11142706(MiAaPQ)EBC3239614(OCoLC)830023250(MdBmJHUP)muse14128(DE-B1597)555084(DE-B1597)9780823242375(Au-PeEL)EBL3239614(CaPaEBR)ebr10539030(CaONFJC)MIL388886(MiAaPQ)EBC976992(Au-PeEL)EBL976992(OCoLC)801363548(EXLCZ)99324000000006556120111101d2012 uy 0engur|nu---|u||utxtccrAmerican metempsychosis[electronic resource] Emerson, Whitman, and the new poetry /John Michael Corrigan1st ed.New York Fordham University Press20121 online resource (256 p.)Description based upon print version of record.0-8232-4234-X Includes bibliographical references and index.Front matter --Contents --Acknowledgments --Introduction --1. The Metempsychotic Mind --2. The Double Consciousness --3. Reading the Metempsychotic Text --4. Writing the Metempsychotic Text --5. The New Poetry --Conclusion --Notes --Bibliography --IndexThe “transmigration of souls is no fable. I would it were, but men and women are only half human.” With these words, Ralph Waldo Emerson confronts a dilemma that illuminates the formation of American individualism: to evolve and become fully human requires a heightened engagement with history. Americans, Emerson argues, must realize history’s chronology in themselves—because their own minds and bodies are its evolving record. Whereas scholarship has tended to minimize the mystical underpinnings of Emerson’s notion of the self, his depictions of “the metempsychosis of nature” reveal deep roots in mystical traditions from Hinduism and Buddhism to Platonism and Christian esotericism. In essay after essay, Emerson uses metempsychosis as an open-ended template to understand human development. In Leaves of Grass, Walt Whitman transforms Emerson’s conception of metempsychotic selfhood into an expressly poetic event. His vision of transmigration viscerally celebrates the poet’s ability to assume and live in other bodies; his American poet seeks to incorporate the entire nation into his own person so that he can speak for every man and woman.American literature19th centuryHistory and criticismNational characteristics, American, in literatureSelf-consciousness (Awareness) in literatureTransmigration in literatureElectronic books.American literatureHistory and criticism.National characteristics, American, in literature.Self-consciousness (Awareness) in literature.Transmigration in literature.810.9/353Corrigan John Michael1027659MiAaPQMiAaPQMiAaPQBOOK9910463564403321American metempsychosis2443235UNINA