Emerson’s English Traits and the Natural History of Metaphor

Using English Traits as his point of departure, LaRocca explores the presence and significance of metaphors in Emerson. In doing so, he shows their centrality to Emerson’s thinking, but also reminds us of their centrality to all thinking. For example, purity metaphors abounded in nineteenth-century discourse in science, literature, and philosophy. Emerson picks up on this phenomenon, both to examine and undermine it. Why, for instance, would a faith in purity be philosophically dangerous? Purity is merely one of a host of metaphors that reveal problematical implications. Others include: blood, race, family, nation, genealogy, anatomy, and melancholy. By throwing light on Emerson’s scrutiny of the great metaphors of his age, LaRocca lays bare the allusive and anecdotal aspects of Emerson’s prose-the way it makes possible thinking on certain topics, and renews thinking of other issues. Metaphors are ubiquitous and yet-or, for that very reason-go largely unseen. We are all susceptible to blindness for metaphors. This book serves as a set of “reminders” of certain features of the natural history of our language. Metaphors are ubiquitous and yetor, for that very reasongo largely unseen. We are all variously susceptible to a blindness or blurry vision of metaphors; yet even when they are seen clearly, we are left to situate the ambiguities, conflations and contradictions they regularly presentlogically, aesthetically and morally. David LaRocca's book serves as a set of reminders' of certain features of the natural history of our languageespecially the tropes that permeate and define it. As part of his investigation, LaRocca turns to Ralph Waldo Emerson's only book on a single topic, English Traits (1856), which teems with genealogical and generative metaphorsblood, birth, plants, parents, family, names and race. In the first book-length study of English Traits in over half a century, LaRocca considers the presence of metaphors in Emerson's fertile texta unique work in his expansive corpus, and one that is regularly overlooked. As metaphors are encountered in Emerson's book, and drawn from a long history of usage in work by others, a reader may realize (or remember) what is inherent and encoded in our language, but rarely how metaphors circulate in speech and through texts to become the lifeblood of thought. A reader may come away believing that metaphors cannot be skimmed off a text without lossthat they are ineluctably part and parcel of its meanings. In hybrid fashion, LaRocca endeavors to employ some of the strategies and methods of the natural scientific curator as well as the literary-philosophical florilegist to offer new reflections on Emerson's exceptional, anomalous book. In the wake of LaRocca's study, and the prismatic remarks he has collected, we may take note that a change in metaphors entails a change in morals. English Traits serves as an example of how, for example, natural scientific metaphors are especially salient for their moral import and effects. Metaphors are ubiquitous and yet-or, for that very reason-go largely unseen. We are all variously susceptible to a blindness or blurry vision of metaphors; yet even when they are seen clearly, we are left to situate the ambiguities, conflations and contradictions they regularly present-logically, aesthetically and morally. David LaRocca's book serves as a set of 'reminders' of certain features of the natural history of our language-especially the tropes that permeate and define it. As part of his investigation, LaRocca turns to Ralph Waldo Emerson's only book on a single topic, English Traits (1856), which teems with genealogical and generative metaphors-blood, birth, plants, parents, family, names and race. In the first book-length study of English Traits in over half a century, LaRocca considers the presence of metaphors in Emerson's fertile text-a unique work in his expansive corpus, and one that is regularly overlooked. As metaphors are encountered in Emerson's book, and drawn from a long history of usage in work by others, a reader may realize (or remember) what is inherent and encoded in our language, but rarely seen: how metaphors circulate in speech and through texts to become the lifeblood of thought. FC Title Page Copyright Dedication Contents Prefatory Notes Introduction: Some Traits of English Traits I. More Prone to Melancholy II. With Muffins and Not the Promise of Muffins III. The Lively Traits of Criticism IV. The Cabman is Phrenologist So Far V. The Florilegium and the Cabinets of Natural History VI. Founding Thoughts VII. A Child of the Saxon Race VIII. Living Without a Cause IX. Adapting Some Secret of His Own Anatomy X. First Blood XI. Second Selves XII. Genealogy and Guilt XIII. The Pirate Baptized XIV. My Giant Goes With Me XV. Corresponding Minds XVI. Titles Manifold Acknowledgments Notes Index