Review of Alan D. Hodder, Emerson’s Rhetoric of Revelation: ‘Nature,’ The Reader, and the Apocalypse Within (1989); and Evelyn Barish, Emerson: The Roots of Prophesy (1989)

Abstract

Claims Hodder expands readers’ understanding of Nature by pointing out its reflexive qualities and by reevaluating several traditional critical cruxes with the tools of reader-response criticism. Faults him, however, for failing to consider other scholarly approaches that complement or contradict his work. Finds Barish’s study a useful complement to Hodder’s, especially in her use of widely divergent critical sources to examine key essays. Claims Barish is better at placing Emerson within the larger social and political context of his time.