Crises of Relationship: Developing Relational Models for the Study of the American Renaissance

Abstract

If studies of American Renaissance have been haunted, until very recently, by pervasive presence of an Emerson-ghost, signs of that haunting persist in critical replication of Emerson's possessive investment in individualism. Mystifying social and ideological origins of self, Emerson—described by Harold Bloom as our brave ghostly father '—repressed necessities of life in favor of his vision of liberatory power. But perhaps greatest blind spot in Emerson's own theory of selfhood was occluded recognition that disseminating his paradigm of personal independence depended on readers and listeners imitating example of his exemplary persona, which was predicated upon assumption that the individual can speak universal and, hence, all others.2 By focusing on moments of solitary insight in his writing, Emerson mystified intersubjective aspects of rhetorical relationship between his authoritative persona and members of his audience. According to Joyce Warren, similar omissions have characterized canonical American literature, which has, for most part, focused on individual, especially a universalized individual who is white and male. Reading beyond Emerson, we need to reconstruct what disappears in Emersonian rhetorical model—a community of interpersonal relationships that Warren locates at center of nine