Emerson and the lyric essay in Maggie Nelson’s Bluets

Walton, Georgia (2023) Emerson and the lyric essay in Maggie Nelson’s Bluets. English, 72 (276-27). 55–67. ISSN 0013-8215

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Abstract

This article examines the previously underacknowledged influence of nineteenth-century writer Ralph Waldo Emerson on the contemporary essayist and memoirist Maggie Nelson, in particular the 2009 book-length essay Bluets. Nelson’s hybrid texts have often been seen as key examples of the quintessentially contemporary genre of the lyric essay. My argument here complicates the claims of originality that have been made for this genre and instead identifies Nelson’s formal concerns as the product of a profound engagement with a nineteenth-century model. Through my analysis of Bluets, I suggest that Emerson’s influence is key to understanding Nelson’s formal hybridity and, in turn, her particular representation of the relationship between the subject and the world. Through her engagement with Emerson, Nelson arrives at an understanding of subjecthood that is based on a radical dependency but that is also individually defined and self-sufficient

Item Type:
Journal Article
Journal or Publication Title:
English
Uncontrolled Keywords:
/dk/atira/pure/subjectarea/asjc/1200/1208
Subjects:
?? literature and literary theory ??
ID Code:
204892
Deposited By:
Deposited On:
26 Sep 2023 14:35
Refereed?:
Yes
Published?:
Published
Last Modified:
16 Jul 2024 00:12