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Article: Consuming text: transubstantiation and ingestion in the interpretation of Emerson. (Ralph Waldo Emerson)
- Article from:
- Criticism
- Article date:
- January 1, 1996
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 1996 Wayne State University Press. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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Just over thirty years ago, in the preface of "the first selection of Emerson criticism ever made," Stephen Whicher lamented what he termed the "relegation" of Emerson "to the large shelf of moral tonics, from Plutarch to Tupper, whom past ages highly valued but for whom ours has lost the taste."(1) While the devaluation Whicher describes is undoubtedly worthy of note, that condition (at least since the publication of Freedom and Fate, if not before) has been somewhat redressed, as attested by the flourishing of what Lawrence Buell has called the "Emerson industry.(2) In the past thirty years, Emerson has been repeatedly revalued, by an array of assayers measuring with a ...