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Zusatztext This 'biography in letters' supplements the traditional biographical narrative with letters taken from a vast body of correspondence! resulting in a study that refuses to single out the life and work of Ralph Waldo Emerson! providing instead a portrait of an illustrious nineteenth-century family. Informationen zum Autor Ronald A. Bosco is Distinguished Professor of English at the University at Albany, State University of New York. Joel Myerson is Carolina Distinguished Professor of American Literature, Emeritus, University of South Carolina. Klappentext The Emerson Brothers: A Fraternal Biography in Letters is a narrative and epistolary biography drawn from the unpublished lifelong correspondence exchanged among four brothers: Charles Chauncy! Edward Bliss! Ralph Waldo! and William Emerson. This is an extensive correspondence! for notcounting Waldo's previously published letters! there are 768 letters exchanged among the brothers and an additional 483 unpublished letters from the brothers to their aunt Mary Moody Emerson! mother Ruth Haskins Emerson! and Charles' fiancee Elizabeth Hoar! among others. While lesser figures might have faltered under the burden of having been born an Emerson! with social! political! and ecclesiastic roots extending back to the first century of New England settlement! the brothers' letters reveal that all were invigorated by a shared sense of origin and aspired tomake a significant reputation for themselves. Across six richly developed chapters! the signal events and friendships that shaped the Emerson brothers' lives are strung together to reveal a remarkable family culture. For the first time! The Emerson Brothers treats the illustrious history of theEmerson family in America as a foreshadowing of expectations the brothers inherited; defines the extent of Waldo's debt to William for his encounter with German Biblical Criticism; develops Charles' and Edward's incredibly promising but ultimately tragic lives; examines the profound emotional andintellectual impact of Aunt Mary on the younger Emersons; considers the three-year courtship between Charles and Elizabeth Hoar in the context of Waldo's own marriages; and studies the brothers' preoccupation with financial security for "thefamily" (revealing! too! that finances were at least aspowerful a motivation behind Waldo's 1832 resignation from Boston's Second Church as were the death of his first wife and his religious doubts). This biography approaches Waldo's inner life in a way that makes him a f Zusammenfassung The Emerson Brothers: A Fraternal Biography in Letters is a narrative and epistolary biography based upon the lifelong correspondence exchanged among the four Emerson brothers: Charles Chauncy, Edward Bliss, Ralph Waldo, and William Emerson, as well as Charles' 181 letters to his fiancée Elizabeth Hoar (one of the few extended series of courtship letters surviving from this period) and 86 letters from the brothers to their paternal aunt Mary MoodyEmerson in which they discuss their moral and theological upbringing and views. Often composed as "round robin" exchanges among and between the brothers, the Emerson brothers' correspondence is the last great untapped body of personal writings remaining in manuscript from within the Emerson family. These lettersilluminate aspects of Waldo's character and personal and intellectual development that, lacking access to the letters, even his most sympathetic biographers and critics have thus far failed to appreciate fully; reveal that all of the brothers were invigorated by their shared sense of origin as well as by a sense of duty to improve upon their ancestors' literary and intellectual work; shine new light on Waldo's debt to William for his first serious encounters with German Higher Criticism in themidUL1820s; present new evidence about the devastation Waldo felt at the death in 1831 of his first wife, a correction to Waldo's o...
