Emerson's Sublime Science

Emerson's Sublime Science explores relationships among Emerson's poetics, theory of the sublime, and engagement with electromagnetism. The book illustrates how Davy's chemistry and Faraday's physics revealed to Emerson a sublime universe in which matter is boundless electrical force. It argues that Emerson translated this discovery into a sublime writing style crafted to galvanize readers with the insight that matter is energy. In illuminating Emerson's project, this study also uncovers connections among British Romanticism, American Romanticism, and nineteenth-century science.

List of contents

Acknowledgements Abbreviations Introduction: Poetry Realized in Nature Sublime Science The Hermetic Current Electric Cosmos Electric Words The Electric Field of Nature Scientific Edification Conclusion: Innocence and Experience Notes Index

About the author

Eric Wilson is Associate Professor of English at Wake Forest University.

Summary

Emerson's Sublime Science explores relationships among Emerson's poetics, theory of the sublime, and engagement with electromagnetism. The book illustrates how Davy's chemistry and Faraday's physics revealed to Emerson a sublime universe in which matter is boundless electrical force.

Report

'Wilson's book is interesting in the way it combines a close reading of Emerson's Nature (1836) with a wide range of philosophical ideas and a survey of scientific developments from Renaissance hermeticism via electromagnetism to quantum theory.' - Ginette Verstraete, Ambix 49

Product details

• Authors: Wilson, e Wilson, E. Wilson, Eric Wilson
• Publisher: Springer Palgrave Macmillan
• Languages: English
• Product format: Hardback
• Released: 01.01.1999
• EAN: 9780333718926
• ISBN: 978-0-333-71892-6
• No. of pages: 204
• Dimensions: 138 mm x 16 mm x 216 mm
• Weight: 360 g
• Illustrations: XII, 204 p.
• Series: Romanticism in Perspective:Texts, Cultures, Histories; Romanticism in Perspective: Te; Romanticism in Perspective:Texts, Cultures, Histories; Romanticism in Perspective: Te
• Subject: Humanities, art, music > Linguistics and literary studies > General and comparative literary studies