Title Promises Too Much

books:


	• American Bloomsbury: Louisa May Alcott, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Margaret Fuller, Nathaniel Hawthorne, and Henry ... Susan Cheever Simon & Schuster, 2007 - 240 pages average customer review:based on 37 reviews view larger image
	for more information click here

Concord

Nathaniel Hawthorne loved Concord. Cheever contends that Louisa May Alcott loved Thoreau and Emerson and that Thoreau was the model for Laurie in LITTLE WOMEN. Emerson, Thoreau, the Alcotts, Hawthorne, and Margaret Fuller were connected to each other at Concord. They were Transcendentalists.

It is possible that Transcendentalism was part of a wave of liberalism. It was a case of synergy. The mood was exuberant. There was new energy. Influenced by Kant, they believed in the power of intuition.
Emerson prized Thoreau's honesty. The friendship of the two men lasted for twenty-five years. They were both learned and unconventional. Emerson supported the Alcotts directly and Hawthorne indirectly with money derived from his first wife's share of her family fortune.

Hawthorne's grandfather had been one of the judges at the Salem Witch Trials. Ezekial Cheever, Susan Cheever's ancestor, had played a part at the trials. The troubles in the community may have been a disguise for a land grab or a result of hysteria. Hawthorne and Emerson never really liked each other. Alcott combined pretension and charismatic idealism. The Fruitlands experience took place in 1843. Louisa referred to it later as 'Apple Slump'. The Alcott family had returned to Concord by 1845.

The shack Thoreau built near Walden Pond is gone. Walden Pond is one of the ponds created by the uneven melting of glacial ice. WALDEN was intense, brilliant. Thoreau transformed his raw journals into a masterpiece. Margaret Fuller was a model for Hawthorne's character, Zenobia, in THE BLITHEDALE ROMANCE. After Fuller's death Henry James dubbed her the Margaret Ghost. Hawthorne's real career as a writer began after THE SCARLET LETTER was published.

When the Hawthornes moved to the Berkshires Hawthorne encountered Melville and Holmes. Melville's MOBY DICK evidences Hawthorne's intensity. At Walden Pond Thoreau wrote A WEEK ON THE CONCORD AND MERRIMACK RIVERS. WALDEN was written later. It was brought out in 1854. Neither book was popular. Thoreau invented nature writing. He left Walden in 1847.

The Hawthornes spent four years in Liverpool during the Franklin Pierce presidency. When Buchanan was elected in 1856 Hawthorne lost his post. The family moved to Italy. Thoreau died in 1862. Somewhat later Hawthorne died. Louisa May Alcott wrote LITTLE WOMEN in 1868. Emerson's health and energy declined. Members of the group are buried in Sleepy Hollow Cemetary.

In general, the book is delightful. It celebrates the sustained gathering of geniuses.

for more information click here

Title Promises Too Much

Such a long title for such a slim work. Yes, back in the mid-nineteenth century, American Transcendentalism flourished in Concord, Massachusetts, primarily because of the ideas and pocketbook of Emerson. All of the titular writers lived in Concord (at least off and on), inspired each others' fiction and non-fiction, and intermingled in (for some) chastely passionate ways. I liked some of the information here, but felt the book was too sketchy and simply cannot claim to cover, except in a cursory way, `their work' in any complete sense. Hawthorne's passion for Fuller is definitely echoed in The Scarlet Letter, Thoreau's experiences on Walden Pond are an accurate reflection of his thoughts and his `simplified' personality and outlook in Walden, and Louisa May Alcott's family and circumstances are the basis for Little Women; however, Fuller and Emerson do not get the literary discussion the title seems to promise. Enjoyable, but not a complete work on Cheever's part.

for more information click here

reviews: 1, 2, page 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8

hot

not?

What's your opinion?

Write a review and share your thoughts!

recommendations

Books that Make Me Tingle..

search for books
louisa may alcott, american, bloomsbury, emerson, hawthorne, margaret, nathaniel, thoreau

Impressum / about us