From Within Outwards
Self-Culture and Social Reform in “Woman in The Nineteenth Century”
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.13136/2281-4582/2023.i22.1369Parole chiave:
American Studies, Margaret Fuller, self-culture, social reform, TranscendentalismAbstract
This article examines the use of self-culture in Margaret Fuller’s Woman in the Nineteenth Century (1845) and sees it as inherently related to the calls for social reform that pervaded the works of American literary Romanticism from the 1830s to the start of the Civil War. Fuller’s Woman, now considered a manifesto of American feminism, is a unique example of transcendentalist ideas applied to gender issues. By exploring Fuller’s application of the concepts of self-culture and self-development, this essay wants to demonstrate that she uses this rather abstract notion to analyze and propose a solution to the condition of women in Antebellum America, thus advocating for a change that was meant to affect society and the nation as whole. I argue that her feminist self-culture is to be interpreted not as an end, but rather as a part of a circular process that aims at fostering social reform, thereby resolving the perceived opposition that seems to exist in Transcendentalism between individualist stances and communal reform efforts.
Riferimenti bibliografici
Allen, Margaret V. The Achievements of Margaret Fuller. University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1979.
Avallone, Charlene. “Woman in the Nineteenth Century (1845): Romanticism and (Proto)Feminism.” The Handbook of American Romanticism. Edited by Philipp Löffler, Clemens Spahr and Jan Stievermann. Berlin: De Gruyter, 2021. 335-354.
Capper, Charles. Margaret Fuller: An American Romantic Life, The Private Years. New York: Oxford University Press, 1992.
---. “Margaret Fuller as Cultural Reformer: The Conversations in Boston.” American Quarterly 39.4 (1987): 509-528.
Chevigny, Bell Gale. “To the Edges of Ideology: Margaret Fuller’s Centrifugal Evolution.” American Quarterly 38.2 (1986): 173-201.
Cole, Phyllis. “Ralph Waldo Emerson, Margaret Fuller, and Transcendentalism.” A Companion to American Literature Vol II: 1820-1914. Edited by Linck Johnson. Hoboken: Wiley-Blackwell, 2020. 65-85.
Cole, Phyllis and Jana L. Argersinger. “Introduction.” Toward a Female Genealogy of Transcendentalism. Edited by Jana L. Argersinger and Phyllis Cole. Athens: University of Georgia Press, 2014. 5-34.
Emerson, Ralph Waldo. Early Lectures of Ralph Waldo Emerson, Volume II: 1836–1838. Edited by Stephen E. Whicher, Robert E. Spiller and Wallace E. Williams. Cambridge: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1964.
---. Early Lectures of Ralph Waldo Emerson, Volume III: 1838–1842. Edited by Stephen E. Whicher, Robert E. Spiller and Wallace E. Williams. Cambridge: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1972.
---. The Collected Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson, Volume I. Edited by Robert E. Spiller. Cambridge: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1971.
---. The Journals and Miscellaneous Notebooks of Ralph Waldo Emerson. Volume III. Edited by William H. Gilman and Alfred R. Ferguson. Cambridge: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1963.
Fuller, Margaret. The Letters of Margaret Fuller, Volume II: 1839-1941. Edited by Robert Hudspeth. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1983.
---. Woman in the Nineteenth Century. Edited by Larry J. Reynolds. New York: W.W. Norton and Company, 1998.
Gustafson, Sandra M. “Choosing a Medium: Margaret Fuller and the Forms of Sentiment.” American Quarterly 47.1 (1995): 34-65.
Holzwarth, John. “Emerson and the Democratization of Intellect.” Polity 43.3 (2011): 313-336.
Hurst, C. Michael. “Bodies in Transition: Transcendental Feminism in Margaret Fuller’s Woman in the Nineteenth Century.” Arizona Quarterly: A Journal of American Literature, Culture, and Theory 66.4 (2010): 1-32.
Kolodny, Annette. “Inventing a Feminist Discourse: Rhetoric and Resistance in Margaret Fuller’s Woman in the Nineteenth Century.” New Literary History 25.2 (1994): 355-382.
Larson, Kerry. “Individualism and the Place of Understanding in Emerson’s Essays.” ELH 68.4 (2001): 991-1021.
Marble, Annie R. “Margaret Fuller as Teacher.” Critic 43 (1903): 334-345.
Petrulionis, Sandra H. “Romanticism and Social Reform.” The Handbook of American Romanticism. Edited by Philipp Löffler, Clemens Spahr and Jan Stievermann. Berlin: De Gruyter, 2021. 163-184.
Ray, Roberta K. “The Role of the Orator in the Philosophy of Ralph Waldo Emerson.” Speech Monographs 41.3 (1974): 215-225.
Robinson, David M. “Margaret Fuller and the Alternative Transcendentalism.” ESQ: A Journal of Nineteenth-Century American Literature and Culture 67.3-4 (2021): 571-597.
---. “Margaret Fuller and the Transcendental Ethos: Woman in the Nineteenth Century.” PMLA 97.1 (1982): 83-98.
---. “Margaret Fuller, New York, and the Politics of Transcendentalism.” ESQ: A Journal of Nineteenth-Century American Literature and Culture 52.4 (2006): 271-299.
---. “Margaret Fuller, Self-Culture, Associationism.” Margaret Fuller and Her Circles. Edited by Brigitte Bailey, Katheryn P. Viens and Conrad Edick Wright. Lebanon: University of New Hampshire Press, 2013. 77-99.
“Self-culture, N.” Merriam-Webster. www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/self-culture. Last visited 23/03/2023.
Simmons, Nancy C. “Margaret Fuller’s Boston Conversations: The 1839-1840 Series.” Studies in the American Renaissance (1994): 195-226.
Spahr, Clemens. American Romanticism and the Popularization of Literary Education. Lanham: The Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group, 2022.
Steele, Jeffrey. “Sentimental Transcendentalism and Political Affect: Child and Fuller in New York.” Toward a Female Genealogy of Transcendentalism. Edited by Jana L. Argersinger and Phyllis Cole. Athens: University of Georgia Press, 2014. 207-228.
Wayne, Tiffany K. Critical Companion to Ralph Waldo Emerson: A Literary Reference to His Life and Work. New York: Facts on File, 2010.
Zwarg, Christina. Feminist Conversations: Fuller, Emerson, and the Play of Reading. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2018.
Dowloads
Pubblicato
Fascicolo
Sezione
Licenza
Copyright (c) 2023 Daphne Orlandi
Questo volume è pubblicato con la licenza Creative Commons Attribuzione - Non commerciale 4.0 Internazionale.
Iperstoria è una rivista accademica ad accesso libero.
a. Gli autori detengono il copyright e danno alla rivista il diritto per la prima pubblicazione con il contributo sotto licenza Creative Commons che permette di condividere l’articolo con il riconoscimento della prima pubblicazione su questa rivista.
b. Gli autori possono inoltre stabilire ulteriori direttive contrattuali per la distribuzione non esclusiva della versione del contributo pubblicata sulla rivista (es. ripubblicarlo in archivi istituzionali o in un volume), con uno specifico riconoscimento della prima pubblicazione su questa rivista. Chiediamo pertanto agli autori di contattarci nel caso di eventuali ripubblicazioni.
