The Regenerate Lyric: Theology and Innovation in American Poetry

by Elisa New

• ISBN13: 9780521107310
• ISBN10: 0521107318
• Edition: 1st
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2009-04-02
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Summary

In her book The Regenerate Lyric, Elisa New presents a major revision of the accepted historical account of Emerson as the source of the American poetic tradition. New challenges the majority opinion that Emerson not only overthrew New England religious orthodoxy but founded a poetic tradition that fundamentally renounced that orthodoxy in favor of a secular, Romantic approach. She contends that Emerson's reinvention of the religion as a species of poetry is tested and found wanting by the very poetic innovators whom Emerson addressed and that a counter-tradition is evident in his major heirs--Whitman, Dickinson, Crane, Stevens, Frost, and Lowell. Indeed, Emerson's own poetry failed in many ways to live up to his views and instead revealed an inherent paradox: that coopting of religion by a poetic theory alienates religion from its life principle--theology--and disables the poem as well.

Table of Contents

Introduction

An Original Relation: Taylor and Emerson

Poetics and the Poem: Emerson

The Savage Source: Emerson and Stevens

Crossing Leviticus: Whitman

Beyond Circumference: Dickinson

Hand of Fire: Crane; Epilogue The Regenerate Lyric: Lowell and Frost

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