"Transfiguring America" is the product of more than ten years of
research and numerous published articles on Margaret Fuller,
arguably America's first feminist theorist and one of the most
important woman writers in the nineteenth century. Focusing on
Fuller's development of a powerful language that paired cultural
critique with mythmaking, Steele shows why her writing had such a
vital impact on the woman's rights movement and modern conceptions
of gender.
This groundbreaking study pays special attention to the ways in
which Fuller's feminist consciousness and social theory emerged out
of her mourning for herself and others, her dialogue with
Emersonian Transcendentalism, and her eclectic reading in occult
and mythical sources. "Transfiguring America" is the first book to
provide detailed analyses of all of Fuller's major texts, including
her mystical "Dial" essays, correspondence with Emerson, "Summer on
the Lakes, " 1844 poetry, "Woman in the Nineteenth Century, " and
"New York Tribune" essays written both in New York and Europe.
Starting from her own profound sense of loss as a marginalized
woman, Fuller eventually recognized the ways in which the
foundational myths of American society, buttressed by conservative
religious ideologies, replicated dysfunctional images of manhood
and womanhood. With "Woman in the Nineteenth Century, " after
exploring the roots of oppression in her essays and poetry, Fuller
advanced the cause of woman's rights by conceptualizing a more
fluid and equitable model of gender founded upon the mythical
reconfiguration of human potential. But as her horizons expanded,
Fuller demanded not only political equality for women, but also
emotional, intellectual, and spiritual freedom for all victims of
social oppression.
By the end of her career, Steele shows, Fuller had blended
personal experience and cultural critique into the imaginative
reconstruction of American society. Beginning with a fervent belief
in personal reform, she ended her career with the apocalyptic
conviction that the dominant myths both of selfhood and national
identity must be transfigured. Out of the ashes of personal turmoil
and political revolution, she looked for the phoenix of a
revitalized society founded upon the ideal of political
justice.
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