The Cambridge Companion to Ralph Waldo Emerson is intended to provide a critical introduction to Emerson's work. The tradition of American literature and philosophy as we know it at the end of the twentieth century was largely shaped by Emerson's example and practice. This volume offers students, scholars, and the general reader a collection of fresh interpretations of Emerson's writing, milieu, influence, and cultural significance. All essays are newly commissioned for this volume, written at an accessible yet challenging level, and augmented by a comprehensive chronology and bibliography.

Joel Porte offers a timely reassessment of nineteenth century literature, focusing on the general question of the American Romantic ego and its varying modalities of self-creation, self-display, self-projection, and self-concealment. The book begins by exploring the status of the "text" in nineteenth-century American writing, the relationship of "rhetorical" reading to historical context, and the nature of "Romanticism" in an American setting. Porte then concentrates on the great authors of the period through a series of thematically linked but critically discrete essays on Brown, Irving, Parkman, Cooper, Poe, Emerson, Hawthorne, Thoreau, Melville, Frederick Douglass, Stowe, Whitman, and Dickinson. Throughout his important new study, Porte offers provocative reassessments of familiar texts while at the same time casting an illuminating critical eye on less well-known territory. Readers of this book will come away with increased respect for the achievement of American Romantic writers.

Joel Porte offers a timely reassessment of nineteenth century literature, focusing on the general question of the American Romantic ego and its varying modalities of self-creation, self-display, self-projection, and self-concealment. The book begins by exploring the status of the "text" in nineteenth-century American writing, the relationship of "rhetorical" reading to historical context, and the nature of "Romanticism" in an American setting. Porte then concentrates on the great authors of the period through a series of thematically linked but critically discrete essays on Brown, Irving, Parkman, Cooper, Poe, Emerson, Hawthorne, Thoreau, Melville, Frederick Douglass, Stowe, Whitman, and Dickinson. Throughout his important new study, Porte offers provocative reassessments of familiar texts while at the same time casting an illuminating critical eye on less well-known territory. Readers of this book will come away with increased respect for the achievement of American Romantic writers.

The Portrait of a Lady is arguably Henry James' most appealing and accessible novel. The introduction to this volume of specially written essays situates the novel in its cultural and historical context and discusses the important revisions that James later made to the text. The essays that follow address the novel's place in the tradition of modern narrative, its relation to popular women's fiction on the question of marriage, the influence of Henry James' brother William, and the character of the heroine seen from a psychoanalytic point of view.

The Portrait of a Lady is arguably Henry James' most appealing and accessible novel. The introduction to this volume of specially written essays situates the novel in its cultural and historical context and discusses the important revisions that James later made to the text. The essays that follow address the novel's place in the tradition of modern narrative, its relation to popular women's fiction on the question of marriage, the influence of Henry James' brother William, and the character of the heroine seen from a psychoanalytic point of view.

Emerson and Thoreau are the most celebrated odd couple of nineteenth-century American literature. Appearing to play the roles of benign mentor and eager disciple, they can also be seen as bitter rivals: America's foremost literary statesman, protective of his reputation, and an ambitious and sometimes refractory protege. The truth, Joel Porte maintains, is that Emerson and Thoreau were complementary literary geniuses, mutually inspiring and inspired.
In this book of essays, Porte focuses on Emerson and Thoreau as "writers. "He traces their individual achievements and their points of intersection, arguing that both men, starting from a shared belief in the importance of "self-culture," produced a body of writing that helped move a decidedly provincial New England readership into the broader arena of international culture. It is a book that will appeal to all readers interested in the writings of Emerson and Thoreau.

This long-awaited volume offers the general reader the heart of Emerson's journals, that extraordinary series of diaries and notebooks in which he poured out his thoughts for more than fifty years, beginning with the "luckless ragamuffin ideas" of his college days. Emerson as revealed in his journals is more spontaneous, more complex, more human and appealing than he appears in the published works. This man is the seeker rather than the sage; he records the turmoil, struggle, and questioning that preceded the serene and confident affirmations of the essays. He is honest, earthy, tough-minded, self-critical ("I am a lover of indolence, & of the belly"), warm in his enthusiasms, a witty and sharp observer of people and events. Everything is grist for his mill: personal experiences, his omnivorous reading, ruminations on matters large and small, his doubts and perplexities, public issues and local gossip. There are abrupt shifts in subject and tone, reflecting the variousness of his moods and the restless energy of his mind. Drawing from Harvard's sixteen-volume scholarly edition of the journals-but omitting the textual apparatus that makes it hard to read-Joel Porte presents a sympathetic selection that brings us close to Emerson the man.