American Literature: Romanticism research assignment Student Research Submissions 2013  conference presentation commentary

Meryl Bazaman

Coastal Plains Graduate Conference on Language and Literature: Emerson and Intuition Conference Paper Commentary

Stylistically, romanticism is where the individual and revolution overlap, particularly in American romanticism. Confirmed by Course Objective 1a, romanticism possesses ideas such as “rebellion” and “the individual in nature or separate from the masses” (Dr. White).  Furthermore, Objective 2a, another primary course objective, acknowledges that “ideas of individualism” and “rebellion” are where “the co-emergence and convergence of ‘America’ and ‘Romanticism’” occur (Dr. White). This leads to the conclusion that while the individual and rebellion are prominent themes in literary romanticism; American romanticism, in particular, functions as a crossing point between rebellion and the individual, a crossing point that creates connective theoretical possibilities for the two that would align them both with romanticism and America’s particular brand of romanticism. Furthermore, this romanticism crossing point between the individual and revolution is highly applicable for understanding Facebook, a modern social media platform, because it forces modern individuals to poise the following questions – how individualistic or conformist are social media platforms and how can the individualistic further revolutionize this particular platform?     

Yet, what author best embodied this convergence between the individual and rebellion in a way that was both of romanticism and of American romanticism? I believed this connective alignment was best made apparent in the works of American author Ralph Waldo Emerson.  In my essay, “Emerson’s Internal Revolution,” I argued how Emerson’s works “Self-Reliance,” “Nature,” and “The Over-Soul” not only demonstrated a relationship between individuality and rebellion, but I argued that rebellion was, according to Emerson, best accomplished through access to and employment of the Intuition. In addition, I argued that Emerson’s use of Intuition was an alternative to relaying upon tradition connected with Old World and Old Empire, ripe with the deployment of dehumanizing enterprises. Finally, I projected into the future by asserting that Emerson’s use of Intuition could function as an exploratory lens for understanding the modern social network system Facebook. In applied to Facebook, I theorized not only how Emerson would react but poised questions as to where application of Emerson’s revolutionary Intuition could take Facebook. However, my assertions and poised questions were not without developmental problems.

While composing my research on Emerson, I found myself struggling with the progressive nature of Emerson’s works.  Addressing the moving, changing nature of Emerson, Marek Paryz wrote in his novel Postcolonial and Imperial Experience in American Transcendentalism, ““Emerson’s America, just like his discourse, is continually in progress” ( 26). That is Emerson’s ideas, works, and influences were constantly absorbing, changing, and often expressing contradictory sentiments. While Emerson harshly critiqued conformity, large societies, and those mindlessly adherent to their practices and praised those that revolted through the assertion of their own independence, Emerson’s recommended Intuition was an intellectual source that came closest to unifying all of man’s histories (Corrigan, 443). This complicates what I’ve assumed to be Emerson’s binary viewpoint of destructive social conformity v. individualism by leading me to poise the following question -   could one construe Emerson’s Intuition as a form of universal conformity? If Emerson believes selfhood or individuality is best achieved by access to a shared Intuition, is he not advocated his own version of adherence – his own version of conformity?

Furthermore, my research has led to conflicting findings concerning how Emerson would view Facebook. On one hand, Lumpkin’s analysis of Emerson functions as a strong argument for Emerson supporting the social media technology as it “finds better ways to use nature” and encourages “creativity” in daily life (Lumpkin, 45).  These aspects of Facebook are then supported by Rodriguez in her accounts of Facebook being an “open” venue for users, where they can be guided by their own active creativity and choice and thus rebel against that which seeks to mire them in tradition. On the other hand, however, Facebook also supports conformity, government bodies that would dehumanize the individual, and encourages those to act who otherwise would be construed by Emerson to be conformists (based on Woodley and Meredith’s findings that those who best benefit from Facebook are those that are not most active and rebellious in society but rather tend to act because others have set a precedent). This unfortunately leads me to ask – if both Emerson and Facebook embody the same contradictory findings on their views of conformity; would it be applicable to simply apply Emerson’s theories piecemeal to Facebook? Or would it be acceptable to simply declare Emerson would have contradictory feelings about Facebook?

Despite Emerson’s nebulous terminology, I have found that working on this paper has been highly beneficial in that it has forced me to take Emerson’s terms and clarify them in a way that could be viewed from a binary perspective. Even if Emerson’s use of Intuition seems to simply be advocating a more universalized form of conformity, it does seem to challenge the idea that only those affiliated with a particular Empire or civilization could have access to the good life, a challenge that definitely can be construed of as arguing for revolution. Furthermore, Emerson’s individualization claims do appear to influence the purpose and use of Facebook and make for intriguing future exploration projects. In short, working with applying Emersonian theory has made me far more capable of finding a new framework for romanticism, particularly American romanticism and applying it to psychology and technological domains.

  Returning then to my initial statement, work on this project has made it impossible for me to deny how revolution and the individual influence American romanticism and literary romanticism as a whole. However, Emerson as a tool for viewing this intersection is riddled in operational definition problems that influence not only the immediate terms of the paper but also how the paper projects questions for the future. Regardless, though, exploring this topic has made me far more decisive and when forced me to hone my arguments in support for romanticism terminology and still provided novel venues for exploration. In the future, I would like to further explore more of the contradictions about progress and technology in Emerson’s work; particularly, I would like to see if his attitude changes could be tied to personal events or historical events. I would also like to further explore commonalities between Emerson and Jung as far as drawing upon collective knowledge and how those connections can relate to Facebook.