Emerson's Protégés: Mentoring and Marketing Transcendentalism's Future
In the late 1830s, Ralph Waldo Emerson, American essayist, poet, lecturer, and leader of the Transcendentalist movement, publicly called for a radical nationwide vocational reinvention, and an idealistic group of collegians eagerly responded. Assuming the role of mentor, editor, and promoter, Emerson freely offered them his time, financial support, and anti-materialistic counsel, and profoundly shaped the careers of his young acolytes—including Henry David Thoreau, renowned journalist and women’s rights advocate Margaret Fuller, and lesser-known literary figures such as Samuel Ward and reckless romantic poets Jones Very, Ellery Channing, and Charles Newcomb.
 
Author David Dowling’s history of the professional and personal relationships between Emerson and his protégés—a remarkable collaboration that alternately proved fruitful and destructive, tension-filled and liberating—is a fascinating true story of altruism, ego, influence, pettiness, genius, and the bold attempt to reshape the literary market of the mid-nineteenth century.
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Emerson's Protégés: Mentoring and Marketing Transcendentalism's Future
In the late 1830s, Ralph Waldo Emerson, American essayist, poet, lecturer, and leader of the Transcendentalist movement, publicly called for a radical nationwide vocational reinvention, and an idealistic group of collegians eagerly responded. Assuming the role of mentor, editor, and promoter, Emerson freely offered them his time, financial support, and anti-materialistic counsel, and profoundly shaped the careers of his young acolytes—including Henry David Thoreau, renowned journalist and women’s rights advocate Margaret Fuller, and lesser-known literary figures such as Samuel Ward and reckless romantic poets Jones Very, Ellery Channing, and Charles Newcomb.
 
Author David Dowling’s history of the professional and personal relationships between Emerson and his protégés—a remarkable collaboration that alternately proved fruitful and destructive, tension-filled and liberating—is a fascinating true story of altruism, ego, influence, pettiness, genius, and the bold attempt to reshape the literary market of the mid-nineteenth century.
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Emerson's Protégés: Mentoring and Marketing Transcendentalism's Future

Emerson's Protégés: Mentoring and Marketing Transcendentalism's Future

by David O. Dowling
Emerson's Protégés: Mentoring and Marketing Transcendentalism's Future

Emerson's Protégés: Mentoring and Marketing Transcendentalism's Future

by David O. Dowling

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Overview

In the late 1830s, Ralph Waldo Emerson, American essayist, poet, lecturer, and leader of the Transcendentalist movement, publicly called for a radical nationwide vocational reinvention, and an idealistic group of collegians eagerly responded. Assuming the role of mentor, editor, and promoter, Emerson freely offered them his time, financial support, and anti-materialistic counsel, and profoundly shaped the careers of his young acolytes—including Henry David Thoreau, renowned journalist and women’s rights advocate Margaret Fuller, and lesser-known literary figures such as Samuel Ward and reckless romantic poets Jones Very, Ellery Channing, and Charles Newcomb.
 
Author David Dowling’s history of the professional and personal relationships between Emerson and his protégés—a remarkable collaboration that alternately proved fruitful and destructive, tension-filled and liberating—is a fascinating true story of altruism, ego, influence, pettiness, genius, and the bold attempt to reshape the literary market of the mid-nineteenth century.

Product Details

ISBN-13: 9780300197440
Publisher: Yale University Press
Publication date: 08/26/2014
Pages: 352
Product dimensions: 6.00(w) x 9.30(h) x 1.10(d)

About the Author

David Dowling is assistant professor in the University of Iowa’s School of Journalism and Mass Communication and author of several books, most recently Literary Partnerships and the Marketplace: Writers and Mentors in Nineteenth-Century America. He lives in Iowa City.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments ix

List of Abbreviations xi

Introduction. Embodying "The Newness" 1

Part I Prized Progeny

1 Emerson's Hero: Mentoring Margaret Fuller 33

2 Heruy David Thoreau: A Poet's Apprenticeship 66

Part II Trafficking in Art

3 Christopher Cranch: Finding the Painter in the Poet 101

4 Samuel Gray Ward: A Financier's Aesthetic 136

Part III Reckless Romantics

5 Ellery Charming: Saturday Afternoon Professor; or, Concord's Mad Poet 171

6 Jones Very: A Poet's Zeal 206

7 Charles King Newcomb: Emerson's Dark Apprentice 238

Conclusion. Awaiting Ascent: Emerson's Dilemma 261

Notes 287

Index 323

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