Emerson’s Sublime Science

217 Pages·1999·12.05 MB·English

by  Eric Wilson (auth.)

ROMANTICISM IN PERSPECTIVE:
TEXTS, CULTURES, HISTORIES
General Editors:
Marilyn Gaull, Professor of English,
Temple University/New York University
Stephen Prickett, Regius Professor of English Language and Literature,
University of Glasgow
This series aims to offer a fresh assessment of Romanticism by
looking at it from a wide variety of perspectives. Both
comparative and interdisciplinary, it will bring together cognate
themes from architecture, art history, landscape gardening,
linguistics, literature, philosophy, politics, science, social and
political history and theology to deal with original, contentious or
as yet unexplored aspects of Romanticism as a Europe-wide
phenomenon.
Titles include
Richard Cronin (editor)
1798: THE YEAR OF THE LYRICAL BALLADS
Peter Davidhazi
THE ROMANTIC CULT OF SHAKESPEARE: Literary
Reception in Anthropological Perspective
David Jasper
THE SACRED AND SECULAR CANON IN ROMANTICISM
Preserving the Sacred Truths
Malcolm Kelsall
JEFFERSON AND THE ICONOGRAPHY OF ROMANTICISM
Folk, Land, Culture and the Romantic Nation
Andrew McCann
CULTURAL POLITICS IN THE 1790s: Literature, Radicalism
and the Public Sphere
Ashton Nichols
THE REVOLUTIONARY T: Wordsworth and the Politics of
Self-Presentation
Jeffrey C. Robinson
RECEPTION AND POETICS IN KEATS: 'My Ended Poet'
Anya Taylor
BACCHUS IN ROMANTIC ENGLAND: Writers and Drink,
1780-1830
Michael Wiley
ROMANTIC GEOGRAPHY: Wordsworth and
Anglo-European Spaces
Eric Wilson
EMERSON'S SUBLIME SCIENCE
Romanticism in Perspective
Series Standing Order ISBN 978-0-333-71490-4
(outside North America only)
You can receive future titles in this series as they are published by placing a standing order.
Please contact your bookseller or, in case of difficulty, write to us at the address below with
your name and address, the title of the series and the ISBN quoted above.
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Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire R02l 6XS, England
Em.erson' s Sublim.e
Science
Eric Wilson
Assistant Professor of English
Wake Forest University
First published in Great Btitain 1999 by
MACMILLAN PRESS LTD
Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 6XS and London
Companies and representatives throughout the world
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
ISBN 978-1-349-40409-4 ISBN 978-0-230-38971-7 (eBook)
DOI 10.1057/9780230389717
First published in the United States of America 1999 by
ST. MARTIN'S PRESS, INC.,
Scholarly and Reference Division,
175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010
ISBN 978-0-312-21775-4
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Wilson, Eric, 1967-
Emerson's sublime science 1 Eric Wilson.
p. cm. - (Romanticism in perspective: texts, cultures,
histories)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-0-312-21775-4
1. Emerson, Ralph Waldo, 1803-1882-Knowledge-Science.
2. Literature and science-United States-History-19th century.
3. Sublime, The, in literature. 4. Romanticism-United States.
5. Electromagnetism. I. Title. II. Series.
PS1642.S3W55 1998
814'.3-dc21 98-28416
CIP
© Eric Wilson 1999
Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 1999 978-0-333-71892-6
All rights reserved. No reproduction, copy or transmission of this publication may be made
without written permission.
No paragraph of this publication may be reproduced, copied or transmitted save with
written permission or in accordance with the provisions of the Copyright, Designs and
Patents Act 1988, or under the terms of any licence permitting limited copying issued by
the Copyright Licensing Agency, 90 Tottenham Court Road, London WIP 9HE.
Any person who does any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to
criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.
The author has asserted his right to be identified as the author of this work in accordance
with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
This book is printed on paper suitable for recycling and made from fully managed and
sustained forest sources.
109876543 2 I
08 07 06 05 04 03 02 01 00 99
To Sandi Hamilton
To her may all things live, from pole to pole,
Their life the eddying of her living soul!

Contents
Acknowledgments ix
Abbreviations xi
Introduction: Poetry Realized in Nature 1
1 Sublime Science 17
2 The Hermetic Current 50
3 Electric Cosmos 76
4 Electric Words 98
5 The Electric Field of Nature 128
6 Scientific Edification 153
Conclusion: Innocence and Experience 176
Notes 180
Index 202
Vll

Acknowledgments
Many people have helped to make this project possible over the last
several years. Several mentors at the Graduate Center of the City
University of New York were generous in their support and helpful
in their comments. Joan Richardson, the director of my dissertation,
was my enthusiastic guide throughout the entire writing process,
from beginning to end; her generous character and insightful advice
consistently energized the manuscript. Joseph Wittreich, William
Kelly, and Angus Fletcher were always there to offer encourage
ment, support, and expertise at crucial stages during the composing
process and throughout my years as a graduate student.
Other mentors inspired the book in profound ways. My conversa
tions with James Hans and Philip Kuberski over the years have
widened and deepened my sense of poetry, language, and thought.
Allen Mandelbaum, who kindly agreed to look at my manuscript,
provided more helpful advice in an hour than many could in a
lifetime. Likewise, I have received kind support from one of the
most powerful Emerson scholars of our age, Robert D. Richardson, Jr.
I am also indebted to several friends and colleagues whose critical
acumen and intellectual goodwill have buoyed me again and again.
Philip Arnold, Ken Cooper, and Terry Price have been my interlo
cutors since I began to take literature seriously; they have influenced
this study in myriad ways. Granville Ganter helped me more than
he'll ever know by perceptively reading the manuscript at a critical
stage. Over the last three years, I have had many fruitful talks about
Emerson with Ralph Black. I am also appreciative of my former
colleagues at St John's University, especially Greg Maertz, whose
critical insight helped the book considerably in its final stage, and
Steve Sicari, whose benevolent presence and intelligent conversa
tion always leave me with a new, exhilarating thought.
I offer special thanks to Marilyn Gaull, the co-general editor of the
Romanticism in Perspective series. She has enthusiastically encour
aged me from the time that we met, giving a young scholar the
opportunities and the confidence he needs to push his first book
through to completion.
Special appreciation goes to my parents, Glenn and Linda Wilson,
without whose support I would never have accomplished anything.
ix