{"product_id":"american-metempsychosis-john-michael-corrigan-9780823242344","title":"American Metempsychosis: Emerson, Whitman, and the New Poetry","description":"\u003cp\u003eThe \"transmigration of souls is no fable. I would it were, but men and women are only half human.\" With these words, Ralph Waldo Emerson confronts a dilemma that illuminates the formation of American individualism: to evolve and become fully human requires a heightened engagement with history. Americans, Emerson argues, must realize history's chronology in themselves--because their own minds and bodies are its evolving record. \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eWhereas scholarship has tended to minimize the mystical underpinnings of Emerson's notion of the self, his depictions of \"the metempsychosis of nature\" reveal deep roots in mystical traditions from Hinduism and Buddhism to Platonism and Christian esotericism. In essay after essay, Emerson uses metempsychosis as an open-ended template to understand human development. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eIn Leaves of Grass, Walt Whitman transforms Emerson's conception of metempsychotic selfhood into an expressly poetic event. His vision of transmigration viscerally celebrates the poet's ability to assume and live in other bodies; his American poet seeks to incorporate the entire nation into his own person so that he can speak for every man and woman.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eAuthor:\u003c\/b\u003e John Michael Corrigan\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eISBN-10:\u003c\/b\u003e 082324234X\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eISBN-13:\u003c\/b\u003e 9780823242344\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePublisher:\u003c\/b\u003e American Literatures Initiative\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eLanguage:\u003c\/b\u003e English\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePublished:\u003c\/b\u003e 03\/01\/2012\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePages:\u003c\/b\u003e 254\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eFormat:\u003c\/b\u003e Hardcover\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eWeight:\u003c\/b\u003e 1.05lbs\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eSize:\u003c\/b\u003e 9.10h x 5.90w x 0.90d\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eReview Citation(s): \u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003eChoice\u003c\/i\u003e 01\/01\/2013","brand":"John Michael Corrigan","offers":[{"title":"Hardcover","offer_id":48065190166783,"sku":"9780823242344","price":65.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0662\/2982\/9887\/files\/img_b7b6ca11-b8f3-4b16-97dc-ffaeca0543bc.jpg?v=1768673591","url":"https:\/\/www.whiterainbookhouse.com\/products\/american-metempsychosis-john-michael-corrigan-9780823242344","provider":"WR Book House","version":"1.0","type":"link"}