Transcendentalist Hermeneutics: Institutional Authority and the Higher Criticism of the BibleDuke University Press, 1990 M11 15 - 207 páginas American literary historians have viewed Ralph Waldo Emerson’s resignation from the Unitarian ministry in 1832 in favor of a literary career as emblematic of a main current in American literature. That current is directed toward the possession of a self that is independent and fundamentally opposed to the “accoutrements of society and civilization” and expresses a Transcendentalist antipathy toward all institutionalized forms of religious observance. In the ongoing revision of American literary history, this traditional reading of the supposed anti-institutionalism of the Transcendentalists has been duly detailed and continually supported. Richard A. Grusin challenges both traditional and revisionist interpretations with detailed contextual studies of the hermeneutics of Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau, and Theodore Parker. Informed by the past two decades of critical theory, Grusin examines the influence of the higher criticism of the Bible—which focuses on authorship, date, place of origin, circumstances of composition, and the historical credibility of biblical writings—on these writers. The author argues that the Transcendentalist appeal to the authority of the “self” is not an appeal to a source of authority independent of institutions, but to an authority fundamentally innate. |
Contenido
Introduction | 1 |
Chapter One Emersons Resignation from the Ministry The True Doctrine Respecting Forms | 9 |
Chapter Two The Divinity School Address Controversy There Is No Dead Letter but a Perpetual Scripture | 55 |
Chapter Three Thoreaus Mythological Interpretation Seeing through The Mist of Prejudice | 81 |
Interpretation Intuition and Maternal Authority | 115 |
Notes | 151 |
179 | |
187 | |
Otras ediciones - Ver todas
Transcendentalist Hermeneutics: Institutional Authority and the Higher ... Richard A. Grusin Vista previa limitada - 1991 |
Términos y frases comunes
absolute religion American argues autobiography belief Bible biblical authors biblical criticism biblical interpretation bread and wine Calvinist Channing character Christ Christianity claim Coleridge communion constitutes contends correct interpretive principles death dedication deism Discourse discussion Divinity School Address doctrines Ellen's England Ernesti eyes fact faith forms Gospels Harvard Harvard Divinity School Hebrew poetry Herder's hermeneutics higher criticism historical authority Hollifield human nature institutions interpretation of Scripture intuitive apprehension Jesus language ledger letter literary Locke's Lord's Supper Lowth's man's mankind maternal meaning mind minister ministry mist of prejudice moral improvement moral truth mother mythical interpretation myths Norton notions Old Testament one's pantheism passage poetical preached professional reading religious revelation role Sabbath sacramental Second Church soul spiritual Strauss Stuart sublime suggests symbol temperance Theodore Parker theological Thoreau thought tion Transcendentalist Trinitarian true truth of Christianity understanding Unitarian Unitarian Supper West Roxbury Whicher words Zwingli