Ralph Waldo Emerson

This is someone I should study. I must examine his categorical rejection of “imitation,” particularly of European models — an articulation of 1840s US literary nationalism. His program for self-reliance is apparently obedience to higher law. “Plinlimmon’s snake oil,” someone said in reference to Emerson. Tell me about that. Plinlimmon is a character in Melville’s … More Ralph Waldo Emerson

Flash!

This, concisely, was the message of Reeducation: you must be a child. But that is not true. Axé.

Subject

Biographical criticism is the dominant mode for Vallejo as well; it is as though people thought that if they could find out who he was they might then understand his poetry. This is true in one way: if you cannot understand that this writing does not come entirely out of a Western experience, and if … More Subject