Comments on: Philip Gura’s American Transcendentalism

By: Zeke

Zeke — Fri, 18 Jan 2008 22:25:16 +0000

Don’t know if anyone will see this question, but I hope someone does and can help me out. My explorations of the Transcendentalists now lead me to want to learn more about Walt Whitman. I have never gotten his poetry, though recently, thanks to my reading and our discussions, some of it is beginning to make sense to me. Anyway, I know little about him and would like a good biography to add to those I’ve now read of the other luminaries we have discussed. I’d like something that could also help lead me into the poetry iteself.

I notice a couple of recent and well reviewed ones at Amazon. One by Justin Kaplan and one, which looks a bit more challenging, by David Reynolds.

I’d welcome recommendations–or any guidance on how to get into Whitman.

By: bft

bft — Wed, 26 Dec 2007 21:14:32 +0000

In the midst of the Popular Racism of “Fate” (I suppose a hundred years later Emerson would have set his essay amid a different set of Popular Science topics) where the Irish and certain others are said to have a lot of guano in their makeup and “A learned physician tells us the fact is invariable with the Neapolitan, that when mature he assumes the forms of the unmistakable scoundrel,” which Emerson allows “is a little overstated,—but may pass,” maybe in the service of a nonracist larger point, there is this juxtaposition of superiorities that I had not expected to see: “Dante and Columbus were Italians, in their time; they would be Russians or Americans to-day.” What Russians were people admiring in those days?

By: allison

allison — Tue, 25 Dec 2007 18:45:34 +0000

Funny, my Jewish friends are offended by the attempts to equate or conflate or compare, or whatever, Chanukah with Christmas just because they fall in the same time of the calendar year. They would prefer if non-Jews would show an interest in Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur, as these are their high holidays. Chanuka was a blip on their annual screen until the commercialization of Christmas.

Yes, my daughter was up quite early this morning. Very excited that Santa ater her cookies and drank her milk, and left a “Thank you” note. Even more excited about her roller skates! (There’s a fun santa story behind that.)

Merry Christmas to those that celebrate.

By: Zeke

Zeke — Tue, 25 Dec 2007 12:58:47 +0000

In addition to calling his wife Asia, didn’t RWE also alter her name from Lydia to Lydian because it sounded more classical. This kind of troubled me when I learned it, and I hope she received it as also being “affectionate.” In contrast, I was touched to learn that Lydian insisted on naming their daughter Ellen as a reminder of Emerson’s beloved deceased wife Ellen Tucker. This struck me as awfully generous of spirit.

Allison–At the Unitarian Christmas Eve service we attended last night, the minister made the point that meaning of Christmas starts before (though definitely includes) the birth of Jesus. She also incorporated Chanuka in a way that makes it more than a story of triumphant “rightuous” in warfare. (Even if your 8 y.o. was still awake as you wrote your message at 10:56 last night, I bet she has already been up for a while as I type mine on this bright, crisp Christmas morning in N.H.

By: allison

allison — Tue, 25 Dec 2007 02:55:02 +0000

So often light is dimmed through the filter of time.

Thanks for the Asia, reminder. I was intrigued to see that the Transcendentalists were inspired, at least partly, by Vedic thought. More reading to do….

(as I sit here waiting for my 8 y.o. daughter to fall asleep so that the magic of Santa can arrive in our house, where we celebrate Christmas as a time to appreciate each other for the light we bring into a world that can, at times, seem so dark.)

By: Philip Gura

Philip Gura — Tue, 25 Dec 2007 02:33:05 +0000

I have just been reading the new (January) Smithsonian, an essay by Lance Morrow on the late Norman Mailer. It is interesting as a dismissal of Mailer’s final importance (read it to learn why), and in the course of the piece Morrow makes this interesting observation. “His [Mailer's] ego was first of all a reflection of his character as an American. . . . in his own ways he embodied America’s worst faults: self-indulgence, bullying, sense of entitlement, irrelevant belligerence, the obnoxious American self-importance that is a corrupted Emersonianism–Emerson without the sweetness, the calm, the brains, the transcendence.”

I cite this because it reinforces one of the points I tried to make in the interview, that Transcendentalism has come down to us in diluted, caricatured form. Mailer no doubt saw hiself in the Emersonian tradition; yet, as Morrow points out, there is so much more to RWE than what debased popular culture has made of him.

By the way, I do not know the origin of the name of Emerson’s home (“Bush”), but I remind readers that he affectionately called his second wife “Asia,” from his interest in and respect for the wisdom of that continent.

By: Sutter

Sutter — Tue, 25 Dec 2007 01:40:20 +0000

Oops — a more “instrumentalisT” spin. Sorry about that.

By: allison

allison — Tue, 25 Dec 2007 00:41:13 +0000

Sutter, I like where you’re going. I’m going to give it thought and I look forward to the replies of others.

By: allison

allison — Tue, 25 Dec 2007 00:39:11 +0000

hey nother, perhaps we need to define “social justice”.

Beyond that, I think that in the pursuit of truth and a connection to the higher self, one hears a calling along the way. One does not have to claim enlightenment or transcendence. One only has to act upon the truth heard from the heart.

By: Sutter

Sutter — Mon, 24 Dec 2007 23:35:48 +0000

I just listened to the interview while taking a long walk in Rockland County, NY – a great “setting” for this talk. I’m a little bit late to the table, but wanted to put a more instrumentalism spin on the thread. Professor Gura worries — rightly, I think — that communities like this one are by dar the exception rather than the rule. Similarly, Chris notes the rigid, dogmatic forms that spirituality has assumed in our public discourse. Under these circumstances, it seems to me that it’s critical to push back and fight the turn away from openness in our public life, and to reject the close-mindedness that tars those who even ask some questions (much less those who answer those questions in unpopular ways). Without that kind of “meta-change,” we court a brittle and hollow poliitcs (perhaps I should say an even MORE brittle and hollow politics).

So, my question for Professor Gura (whose book is now on its way to me), Chris, and others is: What do the Transcendentalists have to say about fomenting openness and contemplation? To mangle the words of Richard Rorty, can’t it be said that if we take care of wisdom, self-governance will take care of itself? How can we channel the Concord gang (and, yes, the others too) to promote robust self-governance?