Emerson’s Geographical Imagination: Private Journeys of Grief and Healing through the American Landscape

Abstract

Balances the tendency in contemporary criticism to interpret the American landscapes in Emerson’s writing as pointedly political, making him complicit in American imperialism. Iinstead suggests Emerson uses geography to cope with personal loss and grief in his life. Identifies “Experience” as a particularly rich locus of Emerson’s landscapes, then explores his periodic trips into the mountains of New England to show how landscape helps him cope with the death of his son by reenacting his 1831 “journey of healing” after the death of his first wife. Further identifies a pattern in Emerson’s life of retreating into the landscape to deal with trauma throughout the 1830s. Examines the poem “Threnody” as an early attempt to deal with grief according to this pattern before the publication of the more successful “Experience” two years later. Considers the shift from a New England landscape to a Western one in “Experience” from the private narrative of Emerson’s development as a writer. Argues that for Emerson, the mourner’s journey of healing becomes inseparable from the poet’s search for new language. Concludes by reconsidering the national landscape of “Experience” in light of the very personal landscapes explored here, and suggests that Emerson is in fact using his own experience of suffering to question the national narrative of the settlement of the West.