Eric Wilson reveals a neglected yet powerful current in several major Romantic figures: the affirmation of - not escape from - turbulence. Romantic Turbulence unearths the chaotic undercurrents of European Romanticism found in Goethe s science and Schelling s philosophy, and demonstrates how these tendencies agitate the texts of Emerson, Fuller, Melville, Thoreau, and Whitman. These writers see the universe not as a reflection of transcendent harmony or a system of predictable laws but rather as a convergence of chaos and order, a polarized field. Detailing this undulatory cosmos, Wilson shows how these American Romantics participate in its unsettling rhythms by practicing an ecological poetics, translating the energies of their habitat into living compositions.

About the author

Eric Wilson is Assistant Professor of English at Wake Forest University.

Bibliographic Information

Book Title: Romantic Turbulence
Book Subtitle: Chaos, Ecology, and American Space
Authors: Eric Wilson
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-62679-3
Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan New York
eBook Packages: Palgrave History Collection, History (R0)
Copyright Information: Palgrave Macmillan, a division of Nature America Inc. 2000
Hardcover ISBN: 978-0-312-22882-8Published: 22 April 2000
eBook ISBN: 978-1-349-62679-3Published: 30 April 2016
Edition Number: 1
Number of Pages: XXII, 169
Topics: Science, Humanities and Social Sciences, multidisciplinary

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Table of contents (7 chapters)

Front Matter

Introduction: Houses Found on the Sea

Emerson’s Paralogical Currents

Fuller’s Metamorphoses

Melville and the Ungraspable Phantom

Thoreau Over the Deep

Whitman’s Atoms

Conclusion: Clouds Over the Ocean

Back Matter

About this book